Casual Lawbreaking at the White House
By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
New evidence unearthed by House Democrats establishes that White House political adviser Karl Rove and many of his colleagues used Republican National Committee e-mail accounts for official business -- even though White House policy is clear that doing so is a violation of the Presidential Records Act.
How did such casual lawbreaking come to be so widespread? And why was it tolerated? Those are among the questions the White House has yet to answer satisfactorily.
One reason for Rove's use of the RNC e-mail account would appear to be convenience. Rove was equipped with an RNC BlackBerry very early in the Bush presidency -- and by all accounts he uses it constantly.
Another reason, suggested by White House spokesman Scott Stanzel in April, is that some people may have used their non-government accounts for official business due to "an abundance of caution" in order to avoid violating the Hatch Act, which prohibits the use of government e-mail for overtly political purposes. A cynic could even argue that Rove and his operatives have so intertwined politics and policy in this White House that it would be understandably difficult for them to determine whether they should be using RNC or White House accounts.
Yet another possibility, of course, is that Rove and the others chose to use the RNC e-mail accounts for official business as a way to keep their e-mail from public scrutiny, which is implicit in the use of White House e-mail accounts. If that was their goal, they appear to have succeeded.....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/06/19/BL2007061900924.html?nav%3Dhcmodule&sub=AR
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