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.
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.