As Dan Froomkin points out, the White House has been casual in its approach to law breaking. As practiced in the White House, the Unitary Executive theory means that the executive branch of government need not obey laws passed by the legislative branch or decisions rendered by the judicial branch. Hence the casual approach to complying with, say, the Presidential Records Act, and the apparent lack of concern that at least 88 White House officials used email accounts with the Republican National Committee to conduct the nation's business, or that the email records of 51 of those officials have gone missing.

The argument that officials used RNC accounts so that they wouldn't violate the Hatch Act is difficult to understand, because the Hatch Act prevents federal employees from engaging in political activity while on duty. Whether the officials used a White House account or an RNC account is less significant than whether they were using the accounts for a forbidden political purpose while they were supposed to be earning their federal salaries. Of course, whether they engaged in improper activities is difficult to judge when the emails that may answer that question can't be found.

Did officials use RNC accounts to conduct public business to avoid making the public record that the Presidential Records Act requires? Or did they use RNC accounts solely to engage in political activities while they were on duty in their government jobs? Either way, as Froomkin suggests, they've managed to avoid scrutiny by using email accounts that have conveniently failed to keep a record of their emails.

This should come as no surprise:

And as the new House Oversight Committee report points out, the White House counsel's office -- then headed by current Attorney General Alberto Gonzales -- was aware of these violations of e-mail policy, but chose to do nothing about it.