Casual Lawbreaking at the White House

"Congressional Democrats have suggested that Rove and other White House officials may have used the political accounts to avoid scrutiny of their decisions from Congress, but the report offered no evidence about their motives. [Karl Rove's former assistant Susan B.] Ralston said Rove believed all of his e-mails were being saved even though the RNC had a policy until 2004 of destroying all e-mails after 30 days. . . .

"RNC spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt said in an e-mail that the committee should not assume more e-mails will not be found. 'This is not necessarily the total number of e-mails preserved,' she said. 'The RNC has repeatedly made clear to the committee that it is continuing to search for e-mails.'"

Charles Babington writes for the Associated Press: "In a statement, [committee chairman Henry] 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.'"

From the Report

Yesterday's column included some excerpts from the report's summary. Here are some more excerpts from the full report:

"The Committee has obtained evidence of potentially extensive violations of the Presidential Records Act by senior White House officials. During President Bush's first term, momentous decisions were made, such as the decision to go to war in Iraq. Yet many e-mail communications during this period involving the President's most senior advisors, including Karl Rove, were destroyed by the RNC. . . .

"Although 88 White House officials received RNC e-mail accounts, the RNC says that it retains e-mail records for only 37 of these officials. . . .

"According to the data provided to the Committee, the RNC has preserved 140,216 e-mails sent to and from Mr. Rove's RNC e-mail account between January 2002 and April 2007, the most of any White House official. The second most prolific user of the RNC account was Sara Taylor, the former White House Director of Political Affairs. The RNC has preserved 66,018 of her e-mails. . . .

"In 2007, Mr. Rove frequently sent more than 100 e-mails per day through his RNC e-mail account and received more than 200 per day. . . .

"Of the 674,367 e-mails preserved by the RNC, 240,922 e-mails (36%) were sent to or received from government e-mail accounts. . . . Mr. Rove alone sent or received 75,374 '.gov' e-mails using his RNC e-mail account.

"In response to the request from the Committee, a few agencies have provided partial inventories of e-mails exchanged between agency officials and White House officials using RNC and Bush Cheney '04 e-mail accounts. These limited inventories indicate that White House officials used their RNC e-mail accounts to conduct official business. . . .

"When concerns were first raised publicly about the use of RNC e-mail accounts by White House officials, the White House stated that the problems arose, in large part, from a lack of clear guidance from the White House regarding the handling of e-mail and the separation of official and political work. According to White House spokesperson Dana Perino, the White House implemented a new e-mail policy this year because the existing 'policy wasn't very clear, and that people needed a clearer policy.'