WASHINGTON — Rep. Dan Burton has asked the Justice Department to appoint a special outside counsel to investigate whether the White House engaged in obstruction by failing to surrender e-mails in the campaign fund-raising scandal.

The Republican chairman of the House Government Reform Committee said Monday the Justice Department has a conflict of interest because its civil division lawyers are representing the White House in a lawsuit involving the e-mails.

The Justice Department cannot use its campaign fund-raising task force "to investigate yourself and the Justice Department lawyers who helped keep the e-mails from being produced," Burton wrote Attorney General Janet Reno.

The department revealed the task force's probe last Thursday.

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Justice Department spokesman Myron Marlin said that officials are reviewing Burton's letter to see if "yet another investigator is necessary." Independent counsel Robert Ray also is looking into the e-mails.

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