The Wall Street Journal. Sloppy journalism aka grasping at straws.

Enforcing the law might be difficult. When Congress adopted the Presidential Records Act, it didn't give any agency much authority to police the White House's handling of official records. A federal appeals court in 1991 held that the courts don't have the ability to enforce the law, either.

Congress also has had trouble obtaining many internal records from the political parties in the past. That means that the White House and its Republican allies likely have wide latitude when it comes to protecting records kept outside the White House computer system.

John D. McKinnont, it took me about two hours to research your statement. I didn't find it. I did find a series of rulings by Judge Charles Richey. The judge said, "The President is not above the law." He ordered White House records to be turned over. He made a distinction between presidential records (which are not subject to the FOIA) and the records of federal agencies. Later, he ruled that the NSA was a federal agency and all their documents were also subject to the FOIA. He excluded records from top presidential advisers in the NSA. A contempt ruling for records not turned over was vacated. However, Judge Richey's rulings were not reversed. More significantly, it wasn't Congress asking for the records.

I'm not a lawyer, but it appears that Karl Rove's emails are protected. On second thought, his emails on the RNC server that he used on a regular basis, probably aren't protected.

The WSJ cannot realistically believe that Congress will have a problem obtaining "internal records." If Congress can ask the WH to turn over records relating to the private sexual life of a president, I don't think this Congress will have a problem with WH emails. Well, that is, unless the Supremes cover Bush's back again.

John W. Dean has an excellent three part series about Congressional oversight. Ummm, Mr. McKinnont, isn't he one of your peeps?  ¶ 8:20 AM