“serious concerns about the White House’s compliance with the Presidential Records Act,"

Missing E-Mail May Be Related to Prosecutors | By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG | Published: April 13, 2007

WASHINGTON, April 12—The White House said Thursday that missing e-mail messages sent on Republican Party accounts may include some relating to the firing of eight United States attorneys.

The disclosure became a fresh political problem for the White House, as Democrats stepped up their inquiry into whether Karl Rove and other top aides to President Bush used the e-mail accounts maintained by the Republican National Committee to circumvent record-keeping requirements.

It also exposed the dual electronic lives led by Mr. Rove and 21 other White House officials who maintain separate e-mail accounts for government business and work on political campaigns — and raised serious questions, in the eyes of Democrats, about whether political accounts were used to conduct official work without leaving a paper trail.
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Mr. Waxman also said he now had “serious concerns about the White House’s compliance with the Presidential Records Act,” a 1978 law that requires administrations to keep records of deliberations, decisions and policies. The congressman asked for an inventory of all communications by White House officials on nongovernment e-mail accounts.

President Bush has directed the White House counsel’s office to try to recover any missing e-mail messages, but Scott Stanzel, the deputy White House press secretary, said it was unclear how much may have been lost. As to whether the missing e-mail related to the prosecutors’ dismissals, Mr. Stanzel said, “It can’t be ruled out.”

Democrats were skeptical that any e-mail messages are truly missing. ...