Lawyers: Rove E-Mails Deleted By Mistake

Democrats Doubt White House Story On Missing E-Mails

13 Apr 2007 // WASHINGTON -- Karl Rove's lawyer is dismissing the notion that President George W. Bush's chief political adviser intentionally deleted his own e-mails from a Republican-sponsored computer system.

The attorney said Rove believed the communications were being preserved in accordance with the law.

The issue arose because the White House and Republican National Committee have said they may have lost e-mails from Rove and other administration officials. Democrats in Congress want those e-mails for their probe of the firings of eight federal prosecutors.

The attorney said the prosecutor probing the Valerie Plame spy case saw and copied all of Rove's e-mails from his various accounts. He also said any e-mails Rove deleted were the type of routine deletions people make to keep their inboxes orderly and said Rove had no idea the e-mails were being deleted from the server.

Sometime in 2005, the RNC took action solely to prevent Rove from deleting his e-mails on that server, The Associated Press reported.

About 50 past and current White House aides had the RNC accounts, according to the administration, to conduct political business, as a way of not running afoul of the Hatch Act. That act forbids the use of government property for political purposes.

Melanie Sloan, of the watchdog group Citizens for Ethics in Government, cited sources that said as many as 5 million e-mails may be missing.

"I wouldn't rule out that there were a potential 5 million e-mails lost," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said on Friday.