Bush adviser sent 140,000 sneaky emails

Bush adviser sent 140,000 sneaky emails

From correspondents in Washington

June 20, 2007 12:00am
Article from: The Australian

PRESIDENTIAL adviser Karl Rove sent more than 140,000 emails through the Republican National Committee's computer system, circumventing a law intended to guarantee the preservation of presidential records.

House of Representatives investigators have found Mr Rove was the biggest user of the back-channel system at the White House, and more than half his communications dealt with official business.

The White House has previously acknowledged that aides to US President George W. Bush improperly used the political email accounts. But the material released yesterday details for the first time how frequently they used the accounts and what for.

The house oversight committee found White House aides used the RNC account for official matters such as appointments and grant announcements.

Bush spokesmen initially said about 50 presidential aides used the Republican Party email system to avoid sending political messages through the White House system, which is supposed to be reserved for government business.

But the line between official communications and partisan political messages seems to have been blurred. Susan Ralston, a former aide to Mr Rove, told congressional investigators he sent almost all his emails through the RNC system and used a Blackberry he received from the Republican Party from his first day at the White House.

Although 140,216 of Mr Rove's emails have been preserved, committee investigators found emails from 51 of the 88 White House aides who used the back-channel message system appear to have been destroyed.

Investigators said they could find no record of emails from Ken Mehlman, a former Rove aide who later became Republican Party chairman. Ms Ralston told investigators Mr Mehlman regularly used the RNC system when he was at the White House.

"At this point in the investigation, it is not possible to determine how many presidential records have been destroyed," the committee said.

Investigators had evidence of "potentially extensive violations of the Presidential Records Act by senior White House officials".

The 1978 law requires the White House to preserve official documents. US Attorney-General Alberto Gonzales, who was White House counsel at the time, may have known about the White House aides' use of the RNC email system, but he took no action to stop destruction of the records, the investigators found.

A Republican Party spokeswoman dismissed the committee report as "political spin".

But Democrats suggested White House aides used the back-channel email system to hide potentially embarrassing or even incriminating messages, an allegation the White House denied.