White House Aides' E-Mail Records Gone

President Bush gestures during a ceremony to welcome NCAA championship teams to the White House on Monday, June 18, 2007 in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) (Evan Vucci - AP)

In a statement, Waxman said the panel's findings "should be a matter of grave concern for anyone who values open government." He said the committee will investigate "who knew about the violations of the Presidential Records Act, why they did not act earlier, and what e-mails can be salvaged from RNC, White House, and agency computer systems."

The committee's top Republican, Tom Davis of Virginia, criticized the report, saying the panel should obtain more conclusive evidence before accusing the RNC and White House of wrongdoing. The evidence thus far, he said, "simply does not support the report's breathless conclusions."

Tracey Schmitt, a spokeswoman for the RNC, said the report appears to present Democrats' partisan spin as fact.

"Not only have we been clear that we are continuing our efforts to search for e-mails, but there is no basis for an assumption that any e-mail not already found would be of an official nature," she said.

The report especially criticized Alberto Gonzales, now the attorney general, for actions when he headed the White House Counsel's office. There is evidence that under Gonzales the office "may have known that White House officials were using RNC e-mail accounts for official business, but took no action to preserve these presidential records," the report said.

Snow said of the claim: "That's an allegation. We'll respond to it in due course."

The report said the House committee may need to issue subpoenas "to obtain the cooperation of the Bush Cheney '04 campaign." It said the campaign acknowledges providing e-mail accounts "to 11 White House officials, but the campaign has unjustifiably refused to provide the committee with basic information about these accounts, such as the identity of the White House officials and the number of e-mails that have been preserved.

Eric Kuwana, the Bush-Cheney campaign's counsel, said the requested documents "have no articulated connection" to the panel's investigation "and very well may be the type and nature of political documents that are specifically exempt from the Presidential Records Act."

The House committee report said Rove's RNC e-mail account carried 75,374 messages to or from people with government, or .gov, accounts. It said the RNC has preserved 66,018 e-mails sent to or from former White House political affairs director Sara Taylor, and 35,198 sent to or from deputy director Scott Jennings.

"These e-mail accounts were used by White House officials for official purposes, such as communicating with federal agencies about federal appointments and policies," the report said.

It said the White House counsel in early 2001 "issued clear written policies" instructing staffers "to use only the official White House e-mail system for official communications and to retain any official e-mails they received on a nongovernmental account." Recent evidence "indicates that White House officials used their RNC e-mail accounts in a manner that circumvented these requirements," the report said.

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On the Net:

House Oversight Committee: http://www.oversight.house.gov/