"I can say that I honestly don't have a recollection of the presentation at all."
That was Lurita Doan's response when confronted by Rep. Bruce Braley about a PowerPoint presentation that GSA Administrator Doan presided over about the 2008 election and the Republican strategy leading up to it. That hearing occurred in late March.
For those of you who aren't familiar with the GSA, here is a brief excerpt from Wikipedia that explains the basic roles of the office:
The General Services Administration (GSA) is an independent agency of the United States government, established in 1949 to help manage and support the basic functioning of federal agencies. The GSA supplies products and communications for U.S. government offices, provides transportation and office space to federal employees, and develops government wide cost-minimizing policies, among other management tasks.
In short, they are in charge of ordering office supplies for the government. That's why it was a little bit suspicious when a Karl Rove PowerPoint presentation was shown at one of their meetings. It also seemed to be in clear violation of the Hatch Act, a law prohibiting federal employees from engaging in partisan political activities.
A month and a half later, the Office of Special Counsel finally issued its opinion on the matter. Shocking as it may be, they determined that Doan did indeed break the law.
Typically, violators of the Hatch Act are promptly removed from office. However, we all know this is not your typical President - if he were to remove people from office for breaking the law, he'd be looking for a job himself, as would Karl Rove and Alberto Gonzales among many others. This instance is a clear as day...we're talking about a freakin' 28-slide, partisan presentation at a supposedly non-partisan GSA meeting. Not to mention the slides were given to the Oversight Committee by people in her own office.
That's why it's so disturbing to know that her chances of staying put are greater than 50/50.