GSA Chief Is Accused of Playing Politics

[LiberalFighter]

Source: Washington Post 3/26/2007

Witnesses have told congressional investigators that the chief of the General Services Administration and a deputy in Karl Rove's political affairs office at the White House joined in a videoconference earlier this year with top GSA political appointees, who discussed ways to help Republican candidates.

With GSA Administrator Lurita Alexis Doan and up to 40 regional administrators on hand, J. Scott Jennings, the White House's deputy director of political affairs, gave a PowerPoint presentation on Jan. 26 of polling data about the 2006 elections.

When Jennings concluded his presentation to the GSA political appointees, Doan allegedly asked them how they could "help 'our candidates' in the next elections," according to a March 6 letter to Doan from Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Waxman said in the letter that one method suggested was using "targeted public events, such as the opening of federal facilities around the country."

On Wednesday, Doan is scheduled to appear before Waxman's committee to answer questions about the videoconference and other issues. The committee is investigating whether remarks made during the videoconference violated the Hatch Act, a federal law that restricts executive-branch employees from using their positions for political purposes. Those found in violation of the act do not face criminal penalties but can be removed from their jobs.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/25/AR2007032501048.html

---

There was a piece on 3/6/2007 before the investigation.

Waxman Seeks GSA Chief's Testimony LINK --> washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/06/AR2007030602648.html

The link in this section wouldn't hold

[GregD]

1. this is what? scandal number 9,375?

I need a freaking diagram to keep all this crap straight.

I can't imagine how many staff Conyers and Waxman need just for their investigations, not to mention the other House members and the Senate.

[JohnnyLib2]

2. Snakes under rocks all over this administration--

it's all a matter of exposing them now. Bad, bad, bad.

[Robbien]

3. They are accused of playing politics. Are they nuts, of course politics are being played

How can one be accused of doing

what one is supposed to be doing in this bushie world.

Screw everyone else. The money flows up.

[Kolesar]

10. The "rebuilding money" from the 2004 Florida hurricanes was used for political leverage by bush43...

...and his brother the governor of Florida. Or so I recall.

[Erika]

4. These people are dirty, dirty, dirty n/t

[TacticalPeek]

5. K&R

:kick:

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_03_25_atrios_archive.html#117488075189910768

[Old and In the Way]

6. If I had a $.05 for every Republican scandal,

I'd be as rich as Dick Cheney.

[KingofNewOrleans]

7. Look!--another tree

another cat.

MAybe a reward could be offered to find the one honest Bush appointee.

[bluestateguy]

8. Rove's whole purpose in office has been to undermine the Hatch Act

For 6 years Rove has been running the RNC out of the West Wing of the White House while drawing a taxpayer salary. He regularly uses government resources and the official duties of the office he holds to achieve political objectives for his boss and for the Republic Party.

[OneBlueSky]

9. GSA used to be one of the few federal agencies that you could count on . . .

for accurate information uncontaminated by politics . . . if the GSA is now as corrupt as the rest of the government, there's probably not any agency left that we can rely on for the truth . . .

[JohnnyLib2]

11. New chapter for U.S. History texts: Government, pre- and post Bush.

Sort of like pre- and post- major wars of the past or Teapot Dome, etc.

Pitiful show, just pitiful.

[Snellius]

12. Doan's business background is interesting

The company she sold to join the GSA was a major GSA contractor:

NTMI has been in hypergrowth mode since the September 11 terrorist attacks. The company has sprouted from one with $25 million in revenues to one with revenues of $138 million in the year and a half since the attacks. Doan, who owns 100 percent of NTMI, gets 97 percent of her work from government agencies, including the Army, Navy, U.S. Treasury, Internal Revenue Service, U.S. Customs, INS, Agriculture Department, and Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Her ability to get the kinds of contracts she has from the government, despite the stall of the homeland security bill for months, speaks volumes.

http://www.aavc.vassar.edu/vq/spring2003/articles/features/homefront.html

[Up2Late]

13. Must see Graphics at this link. Another Bush appointee with Selective Abnisia!

(Does she honestly think we will all just believe that she would NOT remember this crap!?!)

House Panel Grills GSA Chief on Republican Briefing

Listen to this story...(at link above)
by Peter Overby

Morning Edition, March 29, 2007 · Another federal agency, and another appointee of President Bush's, is stuck in the klieg lights of ethics allegations. The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform asked Wednesday why Lurita Doan, administrator of the General Services Administration, allowed a White House aide to brief her managers on the Republican Party's prospects for 2008.

Doan calls herself an "unabashed entrepreneur." She has also raised $200,000 for the Republican Party. GSA is the government's landlord and office supplier.

In her testimony, Doan preferred to emphasize her entrepreneurial efforts. But Democrats were interested in other things: a contract that she tried to award to an old friend; negotiations with Sun Microsystems, in which she became involved; and, more especially, the briefing. In January, Scott Jennings — the top aide to White House political adviser Karl Rove — talked to GSA political appointees about the 2006 election results and the Republican goals for 2008.

In one exchange, the lead-off questioner for committee Democrats, Iowa freshman Rep. Bruce Braley, a former trial lawyer, asked Doan, "Would you characterize his presentation as a purely factual presentation about the results of the 2006 election?" Doan replied, "I'm a little bit embarrassed to admit this, but I can say I honestly don't have a recollection of the presentation at all."... (more at link) <http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9193920>