Truth Out examined the growing controversy over the use of non-governmental email accounts by White House staff.  This development ties together the current U.S. Attorneys firings scandal to the scandal involving Jack Abramoff:

[Rep. Henry] Waxman said that in certain cases White House officials were using alternative email accounts to avoid creating an automatic paper trail of their communications about hot-button political issues.

"In one case, Mr. Abramoff sent Ms. Ralston an email on her RNC account asking her to 'pass on to Karl that Interior is about to approve a gaming compact ... for a tribe which is an anathema to all our supporters'" and requesting "some quiet message from WH that this is absurd," Waxman wrote, quoting from the Ralston and Abramoff email exchange. "This email was forwarded to Jennifer Farley in the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, who apparently then warned one of Abramoff s associates about the dangers of leaving a record of their communications. According to an email Mr. Abramoff received from his associate Kevin Ring: Your email to Susan was forwarded to Ruben Barrales and on to Jen Farley, who read it to me last night. I don't know what to think about this, but she said it is better not to put this stuff in writing in their email system because it might actually limit what they can do to help us, especially since there could be lawsuits, etc. ... Just letting you know what she said.'"

Abramoff responded to that exchange, according to Waxman, writing in an email, "Dammit. It was sent to Susan on her rnc pager and was not supposed to go into the WH system."

Anne Weismann, chief counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said the use of outside email accounts by White House officials "could constitute a breach of the Presidential Archives Act."

Moreover, using outside servers could also be a threat to national security, Weismann said.

"Federal servers are protected with the best security available; outside servers are probably not nearly as secure," she said, meaning that it could be very easy to hack into the servers and read the emails.

Weismann said President Bush's refusal to turn over communications between his staff and the DOJ regarding the US attorney firings, citing executive privilege, does not include domains and servers operated by the RNC.

"Waxman was very shrewd in contacting the RNC because the president cannot claim executive privilege for emails on their server," Weismann said.