The furore over the firing of eight U.S. prosecutors has uncovered mass-use of non government email accounts by the White House.

It has also been revealed, and confirmed by the White House, that these accounts are paid for by the Republican National Committee.

By using private accounts government business is being routinely conducted without the necessity of communications having to be disclosed in official forums, or in response to FOI applications.

A White House spokesperson has also confirmed a number of staff members have been issued with cell phones and BlackBerrys by the RNC, and that monthly subscription services are being paid for by the committee.

The U.S. Senate was told Thursday the White House was now saying emails received and sent through these accounts are not being preserved. Crucial emails relating to the firing of the attorneys, the White House says, are "lost."

"Now we are learning that the 'off book' communications they were having about these actions, by using Republican political email addresses, have not been preserved," Sen. Patrick Leahy, the Chairman, Judiciary Committee, said on the Senate floor on Thursday. "Like the famous 18-minute gap in the Nixon White House tapes, it appears likely that key documentation has been erased or misplaced."

"This sounds like the Administration’s version of the dog ate my homework," said Leahy.

"I am deeply disturbed that just when this Administration is finally subjected to meaningful oversight, it cannot produce the necessary information. This Administration has worn out the benefit of the doubt and undermined whatever credibility it had left," he added.

Scott Stanzel, speaking on behalf of the White House, conceded that 22 White House aides have email accounts paid for by the RNC, and that emails relating to these accounts "may have been lost." Deputy Chief of Staff, Karl Rove, and a number of his assistants are included among those with RNC accounts. White House spokeswoman Dana Perino says up to 5 million emails could be "lost."

On Friday Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, denied Rove intentionally deleted emails, saying his client believed they were being preserved. "His understanding starting very, very early in the administration was that those e-mails were being archived," he said.

Late Thursday the Senate Judiciary Committee authorized the issue of subpoenas for documents from the White House and the Department of Justice relating to the panel’s ongoing investigation into the mass firings and replacements of eight prosecutors last year.

“We continue to seek cooperation from the Administration as we try to get to the bottom of an apparent abuse of power that has allowed politics to corrupt federal law enforcement,” said Leahy. “There remain several obstacles to the ability of the investigating committees to learn the truth about what occurred with these firings and why. The selectivity and incompleteness of the highly redacted set of documents we have received so far from the Department of Justice present one set of obstacles.”

“The refusal of the White House to provide relevant documents and access to White House staff who played a role in these firings and replacements are other obstacles. The announcement by the White House last night that they and the Republican National Committee have lost an undisclosed number of relevant emails that political operatives were using on RNC accounts presents yet another obstacle. I am beginning to wonder whether the White House has any interest in the American people learning the truth about these matters,” he said.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino was at pains to explain the discrepancies Friday, but said an investigation was underway to uncover what had occurred. She said attempts were being made to recover the lost emails, and she reiterated the policy on deleting emails had changed. "I have to stand up here in front of all of you every day and explain how we, there are a lot of things that we don't know. It's not a comfortable position, but it was one that we thought was the most important, the most ethical way for us to let the committee know what we were working to find out, the things that we don't know and how we are working to find them out; and in addition to that, that we changed the policy because, as I said, we screwed up and we are working to fix it," she said.

Perino also pointed out that 1,700 people work at the White House, of which 22 have RNC accounts, although she conceded over the course of the administration there had been fifty accounts. "I'm not saying that all of them use them all of the time, that's not necessarily true. But there are those who have job descriptions which require them to do both White House official and political business, and the policy that had been stated, that had been given to them before, in our opinion, was not clear enough because it basically said, you should do White House business on, official business on your White House email account. Then there's extensive guidance on the Hatch Act and how to prevent violating the Hatch Act," she said.

One person not caught up in the current controversy is President Bush. "He doesn't do email," said Perino.