Lest the White House be revving up its shredders in anticipation of George W. Bush's departure, a group of top Democratic senators have asked the president's attorney to cough up a plan to preserve "key documents belonging to the American people"—and any legal theories the executive branch may harbor about their discretion to destroy records without approval of the White House archivist.

The letter is signed by Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), John D. Rockefeller (D-WV), and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), high-ranking members of the Senate's Judiciary and Intelligence Committees. It cites the Presidential Records Act, passed in the wake of the Watergate scandal to ensure the preservation of significant documents revealing the logic behind important national security decisions.

The senators seem especially concerned about documents in the safekeeping of Vice President Dick Cheney: the letter alludes to revelations in investigative reporter Barton Gellman's recent book Angler: The Cheney Vice-Presidency that crucial presidential orders related to warrantless surveillance by the National Security Agency were kept in Cheney's personal safe. Cheney has claimed that the Office of the Vice President is technically part of the legislative branch under the Constitution, and therefore exempt from some record keeping requirements that apply to the executive branch.

Last week, a federal court sided with watchdog groups seeking retrieval of millions of lost White House e-mails. DD District Court Judge Henry Kennedy turned down administration requests to dismiss a lawsuit brought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the National Security Archive at George Washington University.

A White House spokesman called the leak of the senators' letter "a partisan attack by Senate Democrats." The Associated Press says that Senate sources acknowledge there's no evidence that the White House is destroying evidence.