DOAN SAYS SHE WAS TOLD TO HOLD BACK INFORMATION FROM CONGRESS

Violating the Hatch Act means Doan has to lose her job. Perjury is another matter. She told the committee that all she could remember about Rove's assistant's meeting at the GSA was that cookies were served. But now it comes out that she was lying her ass off over and over and over. Doan should be in prison with Paris Hilton and Scooter Libby.

If Bush's dumbing down of the education system with his hideous No Child Left Behind Act wasn't law and hadn't abolished civics classes, I'd suggest that every junior high school kid be asked to watch Doan testifying in front of Henry Waxman's House Oversight and Governmnet Reform Committee this morning. The videos are mind-boggling and they'll all available at the link above. But even non-junior high schoolers ought to watch this one; it'll give you an idea about what kind of a government you've been paying for for the past 7 years-- and why Bush ought to be impeached immediately.

Chairman Waxman: “At our March hearing, you repeatedly claimed you could not recall any information about the January 26, 2007 meeting or the White House political presentation, and you had absolutely no memory of asking GSA employees how they could help Republican candidates in upcoming elections. That’s what you told us. We questioned you over and over again. You remember there were cookies, you remembered you came in late, you remembered that some employees didn’t attend, but beyond that you said you had no further information. Five weeks later you testified before the Office of Special Counsel and suddenly you had a new enriched details about the meeting and your statements. According to your OSC testimony, you said you asked the White House presenter, how can GSA help its cabinet liaison understand that the opening of the San Francisco federal building would be a perfect event for President Bush to attend. Did you say that to the Office of Special Counsel?”

Doan: “Yes, I believe I did.”

Waxman: “You also told them that Mr. Jennings suggested you write a white paper, or a one-pager, explaining why it would be relevant for the President to attend. But you didn’t tell that to our committee. During your interview with OSC you testified that you refrained from providing this committee with full information about the meeting, you testified that you were advised not to engage in a quote, ’substantive discussion,’ end quote, of the political briefing that you believed OSC investigators should have quote, ‘first dibs,’ on this information. That makes it sound like when you told us you didn’t recall you were really holding back information. You did tell us under oath that you didn’t remember, then you told the Special Counsel under oath that you did remember and you were even saving the information for him. When you appear before this committee and you testify under oath you’re supposed to testify honestly and completely, that’s an obligation that people have and it’s to be taken seriously.”

Christy has been live-blogging this circus over at Firedoglake, doing the incredible job she always does. The Moonie Times, on the other hand, has a less credible analysis than even the most humble FDL commenter.

LURITA DOAN-- YET ANOTHER POSTERGIRL FOR REPUBLICAN CORRUPTION RUN AMUCK INSIDE THE BUSH REGIME

GSA head Lurita Doan was a suspicious appointee to begin with. Her qualifications to head the nation's main federal contracting agency, the General Services Administration (GSA), seemed to have been primarily that she and her husband had given hundreds of thousands of dollars in political contributions to Bush and other right wing politicians. Yesterday Bush's Office of Special Counsel recommended she be fired for engaging in "the most pernicious of political activity" banned by the 1939 Hatch Act and for refusing to cooperate with the investigation. ""Doan solicited the political activity of over 30 of her subordinate employees when she asked 'How can we help our [Republican] candidates?'" The recommendation points out that "Doan has shown no remorse and lacks an appreciation for the seriousness of her violation."

Like Gonzales, she serves "at the pleasure" of the president and apparently he gets a great deal of pleasure surrounding himself with incompetent crooks and scoundrels whose appreciation of the law is exactly what his own his: nil. Bush and Rove-- not to mention Cheney-- are likely to sympathize with Doan when the Office of Special Counsel letter to Bush criticizes her for defending the meeting by claiming it was attended by political appointees who witnessed a presentation that "would likely be in line with 'their own beliefs.'"

It was clear from the moment Doan took the stand at Henry Waxman's House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that she is a deceitful partisan hack who has been schooled to repeat, ad nauseum "I do not remember."

Watch the video of Blue America freshman Bruce Braley (D-IA) questioning Doan and showing how she conspired with Karl Rove to politicize the GSA in the most narrowly partisan possible way.



Doan has been caught trying to use government resources to defeat Democratic elected officials. Waxman's committee has uncovered a clearly illegal conspiracy between Rove's office, the Republican National Committee and Doan's GSA.

Today's USAToday reports that Scott Bloch, head of the Office of Special Counsel, recommends that "Administrator Doan be disciplined to the fullest extent for her serious violation of the Hatch Act and insensitivity to cooperating fully and honestly in the course of our investigation." She's being dragged back in front of Waxman's Committee tomorrow for further questioning.

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said they had received the Bloch letter and it was under review. The White House previously acknowledged conducting about 20 meetings over the past several years for federal employees on GOP election prospects while insisting that such informational briefings are neither unlawful nor unusual.

...The special counsel's office said it had interviewed 21 of the 36 GSA political appointees who attended the Jan. 26 meeting with J. Scott Jennings, the White House deputy director of the Office of Political Affairs. The counsel's office also talked to Jennings and interviewed Doan for nine hours over two days.

It said Doan, in her June 1 response, did not dispute that she posed a question on how Republican candidates can be helped, but "tries to shift the focus of this matter and minimize her illegal activity."

She also suggested that some political appointees who talked to the office might have had reason to be biased because they were unhappy with poor performance ratings.

Her typical Republican-caught-in-the-act claim that it was everyone else's fault but her own and that the witnesses were biased against her was refuted by a review of performance evaluations, which found satisfactory ratings and positive remarks for all the cooperating employees.

Bloch's letter to the White House, predictably, does not touch on Rove's role, something which Waxman owes it to America to expose tomorrow.


UPDATE: DOAN ON THE HOT SEAT THIS FINE MORNING

Although the media is all abuzz about Miers and Taylor getting subpoenaed in the Purge-gate coverup-- who can keep up with all the scandals permeating every aspect of this regime so foul?-- our Lurita has been hauled back in front of Waxman's committee just now. Waxman got the show off with a bang:

"Ms. Doan didn't just disparage the employees [who gave information about her statements to the Committee], under oath she told the Special Counsel, and again I quote, 'until extensive rehabilitation of their performance occurs, they will not be getting promoted, they will not be getting bonuses or special awards or anything of that nature.' Apparently Ms. Doan's position is that it is fine for her to retaliate against her employees by denying them promotions, bonuses and awards so long as she does so in secret and no one knows about it."

LURITA DOAN HIRES A HIGH PRICED REPUBLICAN ATTORNEY TO TELL BUSH SHE DIDN'T VIOLATE THE HATCH ACT

Bush is prone to take this charade seriously because if it can be proven that Doan did violate the Hatch Act, which she clearly did, Bush's Brain will finally wind up in prison. Henry Waxman is less likely to listen to the GOP talking points.

Today's Washington Post glosses over the embarrassing report from high-powered Republican lawyer Michael J. Nardotti Jr. Marcy, on the other hand, has a serious analysis of how Doan and the Bush Regime are trying to get away with this crap.

The Republican shyster who can't seriously defend Doan's criminal behavior based on facts, demands the "allegations" be rejected because they are based on "tenuous inferences and careless leaps of logic." He doesn't mention the roomful of witnesses to her asking the question, how can we "help our candidates," after Rove's slide show about targeting Democrats and bolstering Republicans that she had her GSA staff attend, itself clearly illegal. "Several political appointees who participated in the presentation told the special counsel under oath that Doan asked that question or a version of it and that some GSA political appointees responded with ideas of how the agency could use its facilities to benefit the Republican Party." Last month Bush's Office of Special Counsel had to admit that Doan violated the Hatch Act.

Marcy is less wishy-washy than the Post, which is why reading The Next Hurrah is more enlightening than reading the Post.

Lurita Doan's lawyer, Michael Nardotti, has responded to the OSC report condemning Doan's politicization of the GSA. It's one of those reports that read like a lawyer threw a bunch of stuff at the wall in the hopes that some of it will stick: he blames Henry Waxman for tainting OSC's witnesses, he shifts the focus away from Doan's description of employees as inferior toward one claiming bias, and he claims that, when Doan asked "how can GSA help our candidates?" she addressed it exclusively to Scott Jennings, not any of her subordinates.

Marcy gets into all the details the Libby case has made her famous for. If you want to see all the twists and turns and dark little corners in this case that the Post will never get near-- let alone comprehend-- take a look at the Next Hurrah today.

LIEBERMAN-- BUSH'S MOLE IN THE DEMOCRATIC CAUCUS

When it became official that Jim Webb had ousted Macacawitz from his Virginia senate seat, it also became clear that Democrats would get to organize not just the House, long a foregone conclusion, but also the Senate. And that meant more than just Harry Reid becoming the Majority Leader and controlling the agenda. It also meant that Democrats would chair every committee, which is where all the serious work is done. And now, nearly 5 months later, Democrats do chair every committee-- except one. One so-called "independent," Joe Lieberman, one of Bush's closest allies in the Senate, was inexplicably given the chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Lieberman has been as much a Bush shill in his position as was his predecessor, rubber stamp Republican Susan Collins-- who Lieberman has already endorsed for re-election. Today's CongressDaily compares Lieberman's role as a committee chair to that of actual Democrats. "I will never look for a fight with the administration," Lieberman told the publication, the smell of shit strong on his foul breathe as he pulled his head out of George Bush's ass... grinning.

Unlike some Democratic committee chairmen, who have moved aggressively to investigate the Bush administration on such issues as the firings of U.S. attorneys to climate-change science, Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Lieberman is pursuing a less-confrontational brand of oversight... Lieberman also said he has growing confidence in Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff, noting the challenges of turning nearly two dozen agencies into a cohesive department. Lieberman's view of investigating differs dramatically from that of House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Waxman, who took an aggressive approach immediately after taking the gavel.

What worried me, in fact, has something to do with not the contrasting styles between Waxman and Lieberman, but the contrasting intentions, one eager to uncover and one eager to assist with the cover ups. There is a great deal of damage Lieberman can do on behalf of his patrons inside the Bush Regime. Right now he is preparing a "probe" of the General Services Adminstration. Waxman's House committee has already shown that GSA Chief Lurita Doan had conspired with Karl Rove to politicize the GSA on behalf of Republican candidates like Lieberman's friend Collins. Lieberman, as he always does, will move quickly to muddy the waters and provide the Bush Regime with a flimsy context for undercutting the work of Waxman's committee.

It is a major failing of the Senate Democratic hierarchy, who first refused to meaningfully support Connecticut Democrats after they voted for Ned Lamont to be their candidate and then appointed Lieberman to a committee chairmanship, although he is clearly not a Democrat and is working for the Bush Regime, mole-like inside the Democratic caucus while he continues to rush to a mischievous national media to confuse voters by leading them to think narrowly partisan Bush Regime positions have "bipartisan" support.

HOW ROVE AND THE BUSH REGIME PERVERTS ALL FACETS OF THE GOVERNMENT FOR NARROW POLITICAL PURPOSES-- ILLEGALLY

What do Karl Rove's plans to attack Democratic congressmen have to do with the General Services Administration? The politicization of the Department of Justice is apparently not the only department the GOP has been improperly politicizing. Today Henry Waxman's House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform had another GOP hack in front of them as a witness, Lurita Doan, of the General Services Administration. (Doan is on CREW's list of the most corrupt administrators in the Bush Regime.)

Freshman Congressman Bruce Braley (D-IA) asks the key question: "Can you tell us what, if anything, these slides have to do with the GSA's core purpose of procuring supplies and managing federal buildings?" Doan punted and blustered and pleaded ignorance. Braley asked her another question that should be on the mind of every tax-payer who doesn't like seeing his or her money wasted (stolen) for partisan purposes: "Your comment was 'How can we use different GSA projects, building opening and the like, to further aid other Republicans?' and 'How can we use GSA to help our candidates in the next election?'" It's a 10 minute video that will show you how the GOP has been perverting our government for their own purposes. What is the penalty for opposing the Hatch Act?



Christy at Firedoglake is live-blogging this and it appears that the Republicans on the committee-- especially those kooks Burton and Issa-- have degenerated into the only defense they know: Blame everything on Bill Clinton's penis.


UPDATE: HOW ROVE'S MIND WORKS-- THE SLIDES-- AND WHICH REPUBLICANS ROVE THINKS ARE RETIRING

I know it is hard to read the slides in the video. I managed to obtain a pdf file of them so you can examine Rove's strategy at your leisure. The congressmen and women he was urging the GSA bureaucrats to help him target are (in order of vulnerability):

Lampson (TX-22)
Mahoney (FL-16)
McNerney (CA-11)
Space (OH-18)

Let me break here for a moment. Look at the first 4 priorities-- winning back the seats of Republicans who are disgraced felons: racketeer and money-launderer Tom DeLay, child molester Mark Foley, "Mr. Pollution" Dick Pombo, and bribetaker Bob Ney. Something tells me the voters in these four districts have had about enough of Republican hypocrisy. Back to Rove's list of targets:

Hill (IN-09)
Carney (PA-10) (bring back The Choker???)
Murphy (PA-08)
Boyda (KS-02)
Sestak (PA-07)
Ellsworth (IN-08)
Shuler (NC-11)
Rodriguez (TX-23)
Kagen (WI-08)
Marshall (GA-08)
Donnelly (IN-02)
Barrow (GA-12)
Altmire (PA-04)
Hall (NY-19)
Gillibrand (NY-20)
Herseth (SD-AL)

Another slide shows which seats Rove feels the Democrats are most likely to take in 2008 and he was asking the GSA to help him defend those incumbents. Their most vulnerable: Gerlach (PA), Bachmann (the sneaky puker- MN), Hayes (NC), Wilson (NM-- rotflmao), Musgrave (CO), Roskam (IL), Shays (CT), Mean Jean Schmidt (OH), Drake (VA), Cubin* (WY), Doolittle (CA), Porter (NV), Walsh (NY), Pryce** (OH), Kuhl** (NY), Ferguson (NJ), Knollenberg* (MI), Young* (Bridge to Nowhere), Galleghy* (CA), McKeon* (CA), Lewis* (CA), Miller** (CA), Hunter* (CA), Castle* (DE), Young* (FL), Kirk (IL), Hastert* (IL), Lewis (KY), Jindal* (LA), Bartlett* (MD), Ehlers (MI), Walberg (MI), Myrick* (NC), Regula* (OH), Dent (PA) and Davis* (VA). The names with the single asterisk are congressmen Rove believes are sure or likely to not run. The double asterisks are DWT additions to the "may not seek re-election" category.