HOUSTON -- The Texas attorney general will investigate the Harris County district attorney's e-mail scandal. One allegation against District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal is that he illegally used county computers for political purposes, KPRC Local 2 reported Thursday.

Some of e-mails seemed to promote his re-election campaign in 2004. They concerned plans and arrangements for a fundraising barbeque.

"It's not just a violation of county policy. This is a violation of state law," attorney Lloyd Kelley said.

Kelley said the e-mails are clear evidence that Rosenthal broke the law.

Kelley is the attorney who subpoenaed the e-mails as part of a police brutality suit against the county.

"You cannot use the county computers and the county employees. It's called misuse of government property. And that needs to be investigated," Kelley said.

But Rosenthal said no laws were violated. He said the campaign literature was not written on county computers.

"It didn't come from me and didn't come from any of our computers," Rosenthal said. "Those were sent from a different account, the Yahoo! account we had for the campaign and they were sent to members of the staff, based upon an open records request for the e-mail addresses of the staff."

Local 2 legal analyst Brian Wice said that makes all the difference.

"If what Chuck Rosenthal says is true, that those e-mails were not generated from his county computer, but were generated from a personal computer at home or political consultant and then fed into the county e-mail system, then no, I don't think there's a violation of the statute. Why? Because the statute expressly requires the use of county equipment, personnel or anything else," Wice said.

Wice said state investigators would likely have forensic computer experts go through the e-mails to determine exactly from where they were sent.

The Harris County Republican Party has called for Rosenthal to resign regardless of whether he's done anything illegal.

The party said racial jokes and pornographic videos contained in the e-mails have eroded public confidence in Rosenthal's administration.