Mind boggling.  Not just the chutzpa to actually delete 5 million emails (gosh, you got a lot of spam there Karl!) ... but to think how much effort it took to do so.  Let's say Mr. Rove hit the delete key 1 per second... that's 5 million seconds... that's 1389 Hours!   That's about 60 days (with holidays off).  Now obviously he used the advance method of CTRL-A (Select All) to do his 'dirty work'. 

Let me be the first to give it a name: eGate.  Yeah, that's the ticket.

Which brings us to the chutzpa.  How do you explain to the American people that you:

Funneled your most sensitive correspondence through the RNC (Republican National Committee) in order to get around the Hatch Act, which forbids using Government Computers for Political Purposes (such as campaigning).  However, think on this:

"In its report, CREW also raises two issues that I brought up in my original story on the controversy. The first is the Hatch Act "excuse," as CREW puts it. The White House has maintained (and the press hasn't challenged) that administration officials with political duties were using a separate, RNC-administered email system in order to avoid breaching Hatch, which prohibits federal employees from engaging in political activity on the job. This certainly seems like a reasonable explanation, unless you actually read the law. It states clearly that Senate-confirmed presidential appointees and staffers whose salaries are paid from an appropriation for the Executive Office of the President (read: White House officials) are allowed to engage in political activity that is otherwise prohibited to other federal employees — for instance, they are allowed to talk strategy with the RNC anytime, anywhere — as long as the associated costs are not picked up by taxpayers. While in the Clinton White House separate computer terminals were apparently set aside for staffers with political duties, the use of partisan email addresses is a new and highly unusual wrinkle. As Steven Aftergood, the director of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy told me a couple weeks back, "It shows how closely intertwined the White House is with its partisan allies. The fact that the White House and the RNC are working hand in hand and White House officials are using RNC emails is itself remarkable."

- source: Mother Jones

Do you see the problem here?  They (The Karl Rove crowd) are using the Hatch Law to 'justify' using other means of circumventing inspection (by say, The Senate).  "Oh, we HAD to use other computers!  We didn't want to run afoul of the Law!"  So, with that said, they were then free to delete away.  Or so they thought.  Silly Lawbreakers, Computers aren't for Bureaucrats.  The emails are there.  The 'indexes' of the emails have been deleted, but the actual files are 'there' (on the RNC Servers - assuming they haven't been violated at a Scrub the Disk level). 

I'm not buying the 'Dog ate my homework' Mr. Rove.  There are secrets in those emails (along with a lot of Hair Club for Men spam and Weight Loss Super Pills, I'm sure)  Secrets the American Public don't want you deleting because, well, because you are a Public Figure, doing America's Work (at least that's what we hope you're doing!) 

 Of course, your pal, Dubya, will stand behind you.  Like he did for Rumsfeld.  Hmm?  Is that a bead of sweat on your forehead Mr. Rove?  Yes, I know the Camera Lights are hot.  Just speak into the microphone and tell the American People what were on those 5,000,000 emails. Starting with the first one...

Zenny, Deleted Email #3,468,723