Apr 12, 2007 11:21 am US/Eastern
Leahy: Bush Aides Lying About Missing E-Mails
WASHINGTON (CBS News) ―
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Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. (File)
AP
President Bush's aides are lying about White House e-mails sent on a Republican account that might have been lost, a powerful Senate chairman suggested Thursday, vowing to subpoena those documents if the administration fails to cough them up.
"They say they have not been preserved. I don't believe that!" Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy shouted from the Senate floor.
"You can't erase e-mails, not today. They've gone through too many servers," said Leahy, D-Vt. "Those e-mails are there; they just don't want to produce them. We'll subpoena them if necessary."
With that, Leahy headed to his committee, which approved — but did not issue — new subpoenas to compel the administration to produce documents and testimony about the firings of eight federal prosecutors over the winter.
Democrats say the firings might have been improper, but that probe yielded a weightier question: Whether White House officials such as political adviser Karl Rove are purposely conducting sensitive official presidential business via non-governmental accounts to evade a law requiring preservation — and eventual disclosure — of presidential records.
The White House issued an emphatic "No" to those questions during a conference call with reporters Wednesday, saying the Republican National Committee accounts were used to comply with the Hatch Act, which bars political work using official resources or on government time.
But White House spokesman Scott Stanzel acknowledged that 22 White House aides have e-mail accounts sponsored by the RNC and that thousands of e-mails may have been lost.
The president has asked the legal counsel's office to "take all reasonable steps" to see if the messages can be retrieved, reports CBS News White House correspondent Peter Maer. The counsel's office has contacted forensics experts to determine if the issue can be resolved.
The administration also is drafting new guidelines for aides on how to comply with the law.
Leahy was not buying that.
"E-mails don't get lost," Leahy insisted. "These are just e-mails they don't want to bring forward."
The revelation about the e-mails escalates a standoff between the Democrat-controlled Congress and the White House over the firing of the prosecutors. The subpoenas come a few days before Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is to appear before Leahy's committee Tuesday to fight for his job.
Leahy's panel approved new subpoenas that would compel the Bush administration to surrender hundreds of new documents and force two officials — Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General William Moschella and White House political aide Scott Jennings — to reveal their roles in the firings. The panel delayed for a week a vote on whether to authorize a subpoena for Rove's deputy, Sara Taylor.
Leahy has not issued any subpoenas, but permission by his committee gives him authority to require testimony from all eight of the fired U.S. attorneys and several White House and Justice Department officials named in e-mails made public as having had roles in the firings. The White House has refused to make officials such as Rove available to testify under oath.
(© 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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