Congress Probes Private White House E-Mails

Use of private e-mail accounts by White House officials is being probed by Democratic lawmakers who charge that they were employed to avoid scrutiny. Accounts set up by the Republican National Committee are intended to keep political activities separate from official business, but they were used in planning the firings of U.S. attorneys last year, the Wall Street Journal notes.

"I now have an RNC blackberry which you can use to e-mail me at any time. No security issues like my WH email," Karl Rove's White House assistant wrote to two Jack Abramoff associates. "White House officials were using the nongovernmental accounts specifically to avoid creating a record of the communications," charged Rep. Henry Waxman, whose committee is investigating. (More RNC stories.)