Congress: Bush aides often misused e-mail - Investigators suggest 'extensive' violations of record-keeping act
Congress: Bush aides often misused e-mail - Investigators suggest 'extensive' violations of record-keeping act
By Michael Abramowitz,
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, and The Associated Press contributed to this report
Published June 19, 2007
WASHINGTON -- White House aides made extensive use of political e-mail accounts for official government business, despite rules requiring that they conduct such business through official communications channels, according to evidence disclosed Monday by congressional investigators.
The Republican National Committee told the investigators that White House senior political adviser Karl Rove alone sent or received more than 140,000 e-mails from 2002 to 2007, more than half of which involved people using official ".gov" e-mail accounts, a report from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said. The RNC said it still has copies of those e-mails.
Rove's former assistant, Susan Ralston, affirmed in a deposition released by the committee that her former boss used his political e-mail account "most of the time."
The White House previously acknowledged that aides to President Bush improperly used the political e-mail accounts. But the material released Monday details for the first time how frequently they used the accounts and for what purposes.
The committee said at least 88 White House officials had RNC e-mail accounts; the administration previously had said only about 50 had such accounts.
The committee report also said e-mail records are missing for 51 of the 88 White House officials.
The 51 include Ken Mehlman, a former White House political director who reportedly used his RNC account frequently, the report said.
"Given the heavy reliance by White House officials on RNC e-mail accounts, the high rank of the White House officials involved, and the large quantity of missing e-mails," the report said, "the potential violation of the Presidential Records Act may be extensive."
White House press secretary Tony Snow declined to respond in detail but said the purpose of the RNC accounts was to make sure officials did not violate the Hatch Act, which prohibits the use of official government resources for partisan political activities.
RNC spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt said 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.
By Michael Abramowitz,
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, and The Associated Press contributed to this report
Published June 19, 2007
WASHINGTON -- White House aides made extensive use of political e-mail accounts for official government business, despite rules requiring that they conduct such business through official communications channels, according to evidence disclosed Monday by congressional investigators.
The Republican National Committee told the investigators that White House senior political adviser Karl Rove alone sent or received more than 140,000 e-mails from 2002 to 2007, more than half of which involved people using official ".gov" e-mail accounts, a report from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said. The RNC said it still has copies of those e-mails.
Rove's former assistant, Susan Ralston, affirmed in a deposition released by the committee that her former boss used his political e-mail account "most of the time."
The White House previously acknowledged that aides to President Bush improperly used the political e-mail accounts. But the material released Monday details for the first time how frequently they used the accounts and for what purposes.
The committee said at least 88 White House officials had RNC e-mail accounts; the administration previously had said only about 50 had such accounts.
The committee report also said e-mail records are missing for 51 of the 88 White House officials.
The 51 include Ken Mehlman, a former White House political director who reportedly used his RNC account frequently, the report said.
"Given the heavy reliance by White House officials on RNC e-mail accounts, the high rank of the White House officials involved, and the large quantity of missing e-mails," the report said, "the potential violation of the Presidential Records Act may be extensive."
White House press secretary Tony Snow declined to respond in detail but said the purpose of the RNC accounts was to make sure officials did not violate the Hatch Act, which prohibits the use of official government resources for partisan political activities.
RNC spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt said 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.
posted by Carlos T Mock @ 8:06 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home