Remember the political briefing investigated a few weeks ago by the House Government Oversight committee?
The chief of the General Services Administration endured a withering line of questioning from congressional Democrats Wednesday, focused heavily on allegations that she and other GSA officials violated a law that prohibits political activity within government offices.
I'm glad you do. Because GSA Administrator Lurita Doan doesn't:
Lurita Doan told members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee at a contentious hearing called by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the panel, that she did not think that any government agency should be involved in partisan activity. But at the hearing, which lasted about five hours, she repeatedly asserted that she could not remember details of a Jan. 26 meeting at a GSA facility.
To refresh your memory, what exactly was that meeting about?
Democrats allege the meeting, attended by Doan and more than 40 other GSA political appointees, had a political purpose. The incident is under investigation by the Office of Special Counsel for potential violations of the Hatch Act, which bars government workers from engaging in political activity on the job.
The meeting was headed by Scott Jennings, a deputy to Karl Rove, the leading political strategist at the White House; some officials participated by videoconference. A 28-slide PowerPoint presentation at the meeting named 20 Democratic members of Congress that the White House is targeting for defeat in 2008. The presentation also listed the 36 Republican members of Congress the White House considers most vulnerable.
Hmm. Why would the GSA political appointees need to know which Democrats Karl Rove was targeting for defeat, and which Republican reelection efforts he was most worried about? Well, here's what Henry Waxman was hearing (PDF) about the briefing he grilled Doan over:
I have been told that you used a January 2007 teleconference to ask senior GSA officials to help "our candidates" in the next elections through targeted public events, such as the opening of federal facilities around the country. According to the information that I have received, a discussion then ensued regarding how to exclude House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from an upcoming courthouse opening in San Francisco and how to include Republican Senator Mel Martinez, the General Chairman of the Republican National Committee, at a courthouse opening in Florida.
Of the PowerPoint presentation, it was observed at the March hearing:
Rep. Diane Watson, D-Calif., also noted that the PowerPoint document "reads like a presentation that might have been given to other agencies throughout the government."
And wonder of wonders, today we learn this:
White House officials conducted 20 private briefings on Republican electoral prospects in the last midterm election for senior officials in at least 15 government agencies covered by federal restrictions on partisan political activity, a White House spokesman and other administration officials said yesterday.
The previously undisclosed briefings were part of what now appears to be a regular effort in which the White House sent senior political officials to brief top appointees in government agencies on which seats Republican candidates might win or lose, and how the election outcomes could affect the success of administration policies, the officials said.
Twenty such briefings. At fifteen agencies.
Spokesmen at the departments of Veterans Affairs and Transportation also confirmed that their political appointees received such briefings at their headquarters. Stanzel confirmed that they were also given at the departments of Health and Human Services, Interior, Labor, Housing and Urban Development, Treasury, Education, Agriculture and Energy, as well as NASA, the Small Business Administration, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Office of National Drug Control Policy and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Ordinarily, it's the "majesty of the office" that prevents us from seeing such criminal conspiracies for exactly what they are. We are instead told by apologists for the guilty that we're "criminalizing politics." But with Bush sitting at an historic low of just 28% approval, is there any "majesty" left? And with nearly the entirety of the executive branch now infected, is there any politics left in between the criminalization?
Twenty briefings -- directed from inside the White House -- to violate the Hatch Act and use official government resources to illegally influence the elections. When are we going to start calling this what it is?