Battle lines drawn over GSA politics(Doan hearing today)

[maddezmom]

Source: Wash Times

June 13, 2007

Democrats on a House committee will question the head of the General Services Administration (GSA) today about accusations that she improperly engaged in partisan politics, but committee Republicans are expected to turn the session into a bare-knuckled free-for-all.

GSA Administrator Lurita Doan was accused in a report given this week to the White House by the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) of engaging in partisan politics during a Jan. 26 PowerPoint presentation to 30 GSA political appointees on the 2006 midterm elections and prospects for the 2008 elections.

U.S. Special Counsel Scott J. Bloch, who heads OSC, told President Bush in the report that Mrs. Doan engaged in "the most pernicious of political activity" banned by the 1939 Hatch Act and recommended that she "be disciplined to the fullest extent."

Republicans, angry about the report and its conclusions, are expected to turn the tables on Mr. Bloch during the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing, seeking instead to talk about what they have described as his "flawed conclusion and analysis."



Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20070612-102250-2733r.htm

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Special counsel urges disciplining GSA chief
(06-12) 04:00 PDT Washington -- The U.S. special counsel has called on President Bush to discipline the head of the main federal contracting agency "to the fullest extent" for violating the federal Hatch Act when she allegedly asked political appointees how they could "help our candidates" during a January meeting.

In a June 8 letter to Bush, Special Counsel Scott Bloch accused General Services Administration chief Lurita Alexis Doan of "engaging in the most pernicious of political activity" during a Jan. 26 lunch briefing involving 36 GSA political appointees and featuring a PowerPoint presentation about the November elections by the White House's deputy director of political affairs. The letter was released late Monday.

At the presentation's conclusion, Doan asked what could be done to "help our candidates," according to a special counsel report. Several GSA appointees who watched the presentation told special counsel investigators that some appointees responded with ideas of how the agency could use its facilities to benefit the Republican Party.

Later, after the special counsel's office received a complaint about the episode and began investigating, Doan showed "a proclivity toward misrepresentation and obstructing an official investigation," Bloch told the president in a four-page letter that accompanied a eight-page memo about the case.

more:http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/06/12/MNGSVQDN091.DTL&feed=rss.news

[19jet54]

1. Bush doesn't read official stuff

... and if he did, he ignores what he does not like!