Or White House staff email, anyway. At least, that's what the Bush administration is trying to claim, now that it's been asked to produce emails sent through Republican National Committee accounts. The accounts were supposed to be used in order to keep campaigning separate from government business, but there's reasonable suspicion now that White House employees used the RNC accounts to conduct official business and circumvent laws that require preservation of communications.
And -- surprise, surprise -- the Bushies are saying that, oh, gee, we're so sorry, but it looks like thousands of those RNC-routed emails may have been lost. What a shame! Hey, we'll do everything we can to recover them, but don't hold your breath.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, who apparently knows a bit more about the internets than does W, is calling bullshit, saying Bush aides are lying.
"They say they have not been preserved. I don't believe that!" Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (news, bio, voting record) shouted from the Senate floor.
"You can't erase e-mails, not today. They've gone through too many servers," said Leahy, D-Vt. "Those e-mails are there, they just don't want to produce them. We'll subpoena them if necessary."
The Judiciary Committee has approved, but not issued, new subpoenas for these emails. Now we'll see if the Bush administration will cough them up or if Rove has really found a way to bury them permanently.
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