Leahy doesn’t believe e-mails were lost

WASHINGTON - The White House's claim that e-mails sent on a Republican Party account might have been lost was challenged Thursday by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, who quipped that even his teenage neighbor could find them.

"They say they have not been preserved. I don't believe that!" Leahy shouted from the Senate floor as the dispute over the firing of federal prosecutors continued at a high pitch.

"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."

Separately, Leahy's committee approved — but did not issue — new subpoenas to compel the administration to produce documents and testimony about the firings.

White House officials insisted the administration was making a genuine effort to recover any missing e-mails that had been sent on an account sponsored by the Republican National Committee.

"I understand his point, but he's wrong," said spokeswoman Dana Perino.

"We're being very honest and forthcoming," she added. "I hope that he would understand the spirit in which we have come forward and tried to explain how we screwed up our policy and how we're working to fix it."

Leahy's comments sparked a daylong exchange with the White House over the latest dispute to grow out of the Justice Department's firings of eight federal prosecutors.

Goodling to get immunity?
In other developments Thursday, a congressional source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the House Judiciary Committee is “strongly considering” offering former Department of Justice official Monica Goodling, who resigned over the U.S. attorney firings, immunity in exchange for her testimony.

Goodling had publicly said last month she would invoke the Fifth Amendment rather than talk to lawmakers about the matter.

Her attorney, John Dowd, had no comment on the immunity offer, according to NBC's Pete Williams.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, fighting to save his job, is to testify to Congress next Tuesday.

In the meantime, Democrats have kept up pressure on the administration with closed-door interviews of department officials and votes to authorize subpoenas for documents and aides involved in the firings.

Missing e-mails
The investigation has revealed that White House e-mails about official business -- on electronic accounts intended for political matters -- may be gone, in violation of a law that requires their preservation. Twenty-two White House officials, including political adviser Karl Rove, have the accounts sponsored by the Republican National Committee, administration officials say.

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel on Thursday could not rule out that some of the missing e-mails involved the attorney firings.

NBC VIDEO Documents subpoenaed in attorneys case April 10: The House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed documents in the fired U.S. attorneys case. MSNBC

For the second day in a row, White House officials would not say whether the missing e-mails could be recovered.

Leahy scoffed.

"I've got a teenage kid in my neighborhood that can go get 'em for them," he told reporters.

Retorted Perino: "I don't know if Senator Leahy is also an IT expert."

White House officials could not say how many e-mails may have been lost. Meetings Thursday between lawmakers' aides and lawyers for the White House and RNC shed little new light, according to letters sent to Gonzales by the chairmen of congressional committees.

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