Gov. Matt Blunt’s staff has targeted Attorney General Jay Nixon’s office, in a not-too-subtle attempt to broaden the controversy over the preservation of state emails.

Blunt chief of staff Trish Vincent blasted Nixon in a statement Tuesday, saying that he’s been resisting the turning over of his staff e-mails and backup tapes sought by the governor in an open-records request made in March.

The statement comes a day after an independent investigation team set up by Nixon filed suit against the governor, alleging that current or former members of the governor’s administration had destroyed e-mails and ordered the destruction of backup tapes.

(Click here to see Tuesday’s account on the mother ship.)

Said Vincent in Blunt’s counter punch:

 “Governor Blunt issued a directive on November 15, 2007, to save all e-mails in the governor’s office including every e-mail backup tape that existed under the old disaster recovery system,” Vincent said in the statement. “The governor’s directive was followed and every e-mail backup tape available since August 28, 2007, has been retained.

   “Given Attorney General Nixon’s grandstanding and legal antics on the issue of e-mail we would assume he has retained all of his e-mail backup tapes so now we are asking him to produce every e-mail backup tape he and his office has retained.  We are also asking that he submit every tape created since August 28, 2007, as soon as possible and others may follow.

       “Jay Nixon’s refusal to join with Governor Blunt and save all e-mails is disturbing as is his refusal to join the new e-mail retention and retrieval system that Governor Blunt is creating.”

Nixon spokesman Scott Holste said that the attorney general’s office already has sent over copies of the state-mandated document-retention schedule for Nixon’s office (the latest version dates from 2007) and “thousands of pages of documents to the state Republican Party (an earlier Sunshine request) and the governor’s office.”

Holste said that more documents will be given to the governor’s office in the coming days and weeks. He noted that that governor’s Sunshine request was for documents going back to 2005, in some cases.