They’ve got mail

IT’S A QUESTION that, until recently, was of interest only to Karl Rove and his political minions in the Bush administration: When you want some U.S. attorneys fired, which e-mail account do you use -- your White House address (because it’s official business) or your Republican National Committee address (because you want them fired for political reasons)?

Now, however, Congress is interested. Because when it comes to cooperating with legitimate congressional investigations, it doesn’t matter whether relevant e-mails lurk in the “Sent Messages” file of the White House or of the Grand Old Party. They should be turned over.

In 2001, the RNC bestowed computers and other equipment on Rove and other presidential aides in an apparent attempt to avoid the questions that dogged the Clinton administration about the use of government resources for partisan political purposes. Now Democratic critics of the Bush administration say the electronic back channel was used to transact government business without creating a historical record. Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said the dual system may violate the Presidential Records Act.

Waxman may be right, at least about e-mails that dealt with governmental matters. But whether or not the Presidential Records Act was violated, Congress is entitled to at least some of these messages as part of its oversight role.

So far, it has been established that electronic back channels were used for discussions about the firing of a U.S. attorney; for conversations between a White House aide and convicted former lobbyist Jack Abramoff; and for a message to employees of the General Services Administration about a briefing in which an aide to Rove allegedly exhorted those present to help Republican candidates -- a possible violation of the Hatch Act.

Waxman has asked the RNC to turn over copies of any e-mails that relate to the use of federal resources for partisan purposes. The House Judiciary Committee, which on Tuesday subpoenaed Justice Department records relating to the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, probably will want to peruse RNC e-mails pertaining to those dismissals.

No doubt President Bush is irked about congressional interest in e-mails that passed among his politically active appointees. But in both the firing of the U.S. attorneys and the GSA briefing, the administration has invited scrutiny with shifting or nonexistent explanations for suspicious activities. Bush should tell the RNC -- in an e-mail, if he likes -- that the White House has no objection to giving Congress the records it has requested.