The Bush administration's missing e-mail woes are now costing the Republican Party.  Mary Ann Akers at the Washington Post [1] reports on the vast sums being spent by the RNC to find Rove's e-mails (and a hat tip to Think Progress [2]):

Nothing comes cheap in Washington, including Karl Rove's missing e-mails. Just ask the Republican National Committee, which seems to be spending a pretty penny looking for them.

Earlier this year, it was discovered that Rove and other White House aides had been using private e-mail accounts at the RNC to send messages about controversial government matters, such as the firings of U.S. attorneys. When investigators came calling, the RNC couldn't find the e-mails but promised to look.

Now, The Sleuth has learned, the hunt for those missing gigabytes has cost the RNC more than $250,000.

According to an RNC filing with the Federal Election Commission, the committee paid $231,615 in October to Stroz Friedberg, a forensics firm chock full of former FBI agents hired to retrieve the lost electronic data. The report shows the committee also paid $41,217 in October to Covington & Burling, the law firm representing the RNC on the missing e-mail controversy.