(2007-04-12) Attorneygate Emails

White House aides were using Republican Party EMail addresses. This is not unusual. Having the GOP create non-White House addresses and provide separate BlackBerries, laptops and other communications gear was designed to avoid running afoul of Hatch Act rules barring federal employees from engaging in political activities with government resources or on government time, he said. Under President Bill Clinton, White House aides used separate equipment for political spadework but did not have separate accounts.

But they were discussing Attorney Gate on those accounts. Stanzel said he could not speak to whether anyone was intentionally trying to avoid White House archiving because he had not spoken to all those involved.

• ahem - Susan Ralston, until recently presidential adviser Karl Rove"s assistant at the White House, appears to have used at least four outside email accounts: a "gwb" domain account, a "georgewbush.com" account, and an "rnchq.org" account - all run by the RNC - plus an AOL account. She once emailed two associates of lobbyist Jack Abramoff, "I now have an RNC Blackberry which you can use to e-mail me at any time. No security issues like my WH email."

The nongovernmental accounts were accidentally discovered by Democrats when the Justice Department released hundreds of documents related to the prosecutor firings.

An unknown number of messages on these accounts were "lost".

A U.S. congressional panel investigating the firing of federal prosecutors authorized subpoenas on Thursday for e-mails the White House has declared may be missing.

Apr13: "I wouldn't rule out that there were a potential 5 million e-mails lost," Perino told reporters.