WaPo Exposé:Bush/RNC Croney Lurita Doan is "GSA Chief Seeks to Cut Budget For Audits" - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

host · 01-19-2007, 02:59 AM

On Dec. 2, 2006, roachboy started a new thread, <b>" conservative economic ideology and iraq"</b>
linked here: http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...67&postcount=1

rb's OP contained an article that began with:

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...120101645.html
GSA Chief Seeks to Cut Budget For Audits
Contract Oversight Would Be Reduced

By Scott Higham and Robert O'Harrow Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, December 2, 2006; A01

The new chief of the U.S. General Services Administration is trying to limit the ability of the agency's inspector general to audit contracts for fraud or waste and has said oversight efforts are intimidating the workforce, according to government documents and interviews.

GSA Administrator Lurita Alexis Doan, a Bush political appointee and former government contractor, has proposed cutting $5 million in spending on audits and shifting some responsibility for contract reviews to small, private audit contractors.

Doan also has chided Inspector General Brian D. Miller for not going along with her attempts to streamline the agency's contracting efforts. In a private staff meeting Aug. 18, Doan said Miller's effort to examine contracts had "gone too far and is eroding the health of the organization," according to notes of the meeting written by an unidentified participant from the Office of Inspector General (OIG).

The GSA is responsible for managing about $56 billion worth of contracts each year for the departments of Defense and Homeland Security and other agencies.

Doan compared Miller and his staff to terrorists, according to a copy of the notes obtained by The Washington Post.

"There are two kinds of terrorism in the US: the external kind; and, internally, the IGs have terrorized the Regional Administrators," Doan said, according to the notes.

Through a spokesman, Doan said she respects the inspector general's role and is not doing anything to undercut his independence. She also denied that she had referred to Miller, a former terrorism prosecutor, or his staff as terrorists.

"She's trying to reduce wasteful spending," said GSA spokesman David Bethel. "Just like any other office within GSA, she has asked the OIG to live within his budget, and she's hopeful that the IG is going to embrace that concept. She is not singling him out for this attention. She's not challenging the IG's independence. This is about fiscal discipline and reducing wasteful spending and creating a business environment that can be embraced by everyone.

"By law, she can't reduce the IG's independence, and she's aware of that."

Doan, who was confirmed as administrator May 26, has publicly criticized Miller on other occasions. In her Nov. 10 annual report, Doan stated there was only one GSA manager unwilling to "confront programs and policies that had outlived their usefulness and were wasting taxpayer money." She later told Miller that she was referring to him, according to officials familiar with Doan's statement who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution.

Doan also complained in the annual report that Miller was being "unsupportive of recent changes" and said vendors and government contracting officials had reported that his auditors and investigators were exerting "undue pressure."

Bethel said yesterday that Doan's statement in her annual report "speaks for itself," and he declined to elaborate.

Miller declined to discuss his relationship with Doan.

"Let's keep our eyes on the larger picture, which is that GSA's $60 billion operations need to have objective and independent scrutiny," Miller said. "My office provides that public scrutiny. Not everyone is happy with this level of scrutiny. Nevertheless, my task is to keep our office focused on fulfilling our mission of working with GSA to enhance the quality and effectiveness of the services it provides, protect the integrity of GSA operations, and to keep fraud, waste and abuse away from its doorstep."

Before joining the GSA in August 2005, Miller served as a federal prosecutor and worked on the government's case against al-Qaeda terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, has written to Doan expressing his concerns.

"The primary mission of the IG in your agency and every other government agency is to be a sentry standing guard against fraud, waste, and abuse wherever it occurs regardless of circumstances," Grassley wrote on Oct. 20. "This cannot be accomplished if the IG's independence is impaired or hindered by the agency in any way, shape, or form."

Doan responded by acknowledging his concerns and saying she was mainly focusing on balancing her agency's budget.

"Please be assured that I do not -- and should not -- decide which audits or investigations the IG pursues," she wrote to Grassley. "That would be inappropriate.".....

I had read this, the day before roachboy started his thread, and the combination of the two encounters with the Lurita Doan "story" spurred me to find out what I could about her....and some of you know what that means, another series of "too loooonnnnngggg" posts from "host"!

Quote:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/011360.php

Quote:

The new chief of the U.S. General Services Administration is trying to limit the ability of the agency's inspector general to audit contracts for fraud or waste and has said oversight efforts are intimidating the workforce, according to government documents and interviews.

GSA Administrator Lurita Alexis Doan, a Bush political appointee and former government contractor, has proposed cutting $5 million in spending on audits and shifting some responsibility for contract reviews to small, private audit contractors......

....Although the Post story doesn't mention it, you might recall that <a href="http://tpmmuckraker.com/safavian.php">David Safavian</a>, the chief of staff at the GSA earlier in the Bush presidency, was <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=2097589">convicted</a> for, among other things, lying to the GSA inspector general about his connections to Jack Abramoff. So of course we need less oversight.

-- David Kurtz

I marveled at the idea that the Bush folks experienced the Safavian arrest and conviction, the resignation and shop lifting/returned merchandise scheme arrest of chief white house domestic policy advisor<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Allen">Claude Allen</a>, the exposure of the corruption of convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and the fact that his former key assistant, Susan Ralston was appointed by Bush and Rove, as their key assistant, and sat at a desk, for 5 years, just down the hall from Bush, while she continued to work on behalf of Abramoff and his corporate, political, and tribal clients, and the farce of Bush patting "Brownie", the fired Arabian horses judge, appointed by Bush to head FEMA, on the back at the height of the Katrina disaster, only to fire him, just days later as the press exposed Brown's lack of qualifications and his partisan PR priorities....plus the fact that nearly all of the managers one level under Brown at FEMA were also unqualified politcal hacks....and on and on....<b>yet they still had the resolve and partisan blinded stupidity to appoint Lurita Doan, and who knows who else, only to quite predictably experience the exposure of never ending ill advised and unqualified crony appointments blowing up in their faces, and all of ours...</b>

I ended up not basing a new thread on my Lurita Doan research....what I found about her impressed on me that she was merely a greedy, ambitious hypocrite who used her gender and "minority" status to grow rich and successful solely by obtaining lucrative government contracts using opportunities afforded by affirmative action, a concept that she and the political party that she served and donated so much money to, is ironically very intent on eliminating, at least for the truly needy and politically and genetically "unconnected".

I thought that it was curious that Lurita, a Vassar grad who majored in arts and humanities studies, could vault her startup company from an initial, small computer UNIX programming related contract with the USDA, in 1990, to, while she was at the end of a pregnancy and about to deliver her child, an emergency assignment to board US Navy aircraft carriers in Norfolk, VA to perform UNIX programming on a vital weapons system. I was surprised that the Navy would allow someone with no security clearances and no resume to support a history of that type of work, would need or permit such an opportunity for Lurita, seemingly at a moment's notice.

I thought that it was curious that her company grew slowly during the Clinton administration, only to experience at least a ten fold increase in revenue and profits since 2000. I was struck by the contradicting descriptions that I found, of Lurita....on the one hand, a micro manager who demanded that her staff use only one model of ball point pen, and that they use only photo copies, inside her company, of expensive letterhead stationary designed to impress the outside world, resulting in insignificant operational savings, compared to her company's revenue, and on the other hand, reports that described her as a "big picture" executive who delegated the details to her staff.

I learned that, before she and her husband sold their suddenly hugely successful company to a profit investment group in 2005, her company was described as the "lead" Dept. of Homeland Security contractor, and that it had enjoyed contracts associated with DOD Drone Aircraft that experienced crash frequencies 100 times the rate of manned aircraft, and that her company was responsible for installing and linking, via the internet, all of the US Border patrol camera network in the southwest US. This project was never completed, and many of the installed and formerly operating cameras were rendered inoperable by vandalism, the elements, and by poor performance of installation and maintenance contractors......

I am an amatuer....just an interested citizen incensed by the bullshit that seemed to gain new inertia on election day, 2000, on the heels of the Richard Scaife financed, six years of the Ken Starr "Op". I got some answers about how Lurita came to be appointed to sabotage the GSA inspector general's office.....

....but I don't have the deep pockets, connections and staff of the WaPo, and now, maybe they've turned this latest insult to our sensibilities and government accountability, into much more than I could hope to do:

Donations to RNC and republican candidates by Lurita and her husband, Doug:
http://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/se...n&submit=Go%21

(I counted about $190,000 in donations by the pair, since 1999, and it put them at the end of the top 5000 donors to republicans in the nation.)

Quote:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/...-SearchStories
RNC Takes a Jab at Democratic Base: Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie kicks off a four-city tour with boxing promoter Don King on Thursday in Detroit designed to "take President Bush’s message of opportunity and economic empowerment to African American business leaders," the RNC announced.

Gillespie and King, who some might cast as a political odd couple, also will travel to Philadelphia, New York and Miami to campaign for Bush.

Joining King and Gillespie in Detroit are Texas Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams, <b>New Technology Management Inc. CEO Lurita Doan</b> and Miss America 2003 Erika Harold.

Quote:

http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/news...d.asp?id=17825
Remarks by Patricia Stout and Lurita Doan as Prepared for Delivery at the 2004 Republican National Convention on Wednesday, September 1, Evening Session 7 - 10 P.M. EDT

PR Newswire

NEW YORK, Sept. 1 /PRNewswire/

Lurita Doan I am a small business owner.

I started my business 14 years ago with nothing more than $25 worth of business cards printed at Kinkos and a good idea.

Today we have over 150 employees, and thanks to President Bush's tax policies, the company is growing. I come from generations of Black entrepreneurs who started businesses under Republican administrations, going back to my great grandmother.

She sold pralines in New Orleans after President Lincoln freed the slaves. My grandmother started a business school during Teddy Roosevelt's administration.

I founded New Technology Management during the presidency of another friend of small businesses, George H. W. Bush.

Today our technology secures the borders at land border ports across the U.S. It's always been clear: Republicans understand that creating opportunities for individuals and for small businesses is what makes America great.

President Bush understands that lowering the tax burden for small businesses translates into jobs and economic security for millions of Americans.

He's committed to making health care affordable for small business owners and their employees.

No matter the color of your skin, whether you're a man or woman, and no matter whether you're selling pralines on the docks of New Orleans or developing cutting-edge technology, small businesses benefit from Republican leadership. George Bush has provided that leadership and that is why I'll be hiring 75 more people in the coming year.

That's why I'm working hard to re-elect George Bush as President of the United States because he's working hard to keep the American dream alive for all of us.

Thank you. Paid for by the Committee on Arrangements for the 2004 Republican National Convention 2 Penn Plaza * New York, NY 10121 * (212) 356-2004 Not authorized by any candidate or candidate committee2004 Republican National Convention

Web site: http://www.gopconvention.com/

Quote:

http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t...cid=1112808840
<b>GSA Chief Scrutinized For Deal With Friend
No-Bid Contract A Mistake, She Says</b>

By Scott Higham and Robert O'Harrow Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, January 19, 2007; A01

The chief of the U.S. General Services Administration attempted to give a no-bid contract to a company founded and operated by a longtime friend, sidestepping federal laws and regulations, according to interviews and documents obtained by The Washington Post.

Administrator Lurita Alexis Doan, a former government contractor appointed by President Bush, personally signed the deal to pay a division of her friend's public relations firm $20,000 for a 24-page report promoting the GSA's use of minority- and woman-owned businesses, the documents show.

The contract was terminated last summer after GSA lawyers and other agency officials pointed out possible procurement violations, including the failure to adequately justify the no-bid deal or have it reviewed in advance by trained procurement officers, officials said.

The GSA's Office of Inspector General has launched an investigation into the episode and briefed Justice Department lawyers, according to sources who said they were not authorized to speak publicly about the ongoing investigation. Officials at the inspector general's office and the Justice Department declined to comment.

In an interview Wednesday, Doan said she believed she was following proper procedures to hire the best firm available to quickly produce a report on diversity practices.

"I made a mistake," Doan said. "I thought I was moving this along. I was immediately informed that I wasn't necessarily moving it along in the way that was best for it. So at which point they canceled it, life went on, no money exchanged hands, no contract exchanged hands.

"I'm stunned, absolutely stunned by the amount of legs that this has taken, you know, how this has like kind of jumped up and run away with things."

The friend, public relations executive Edie Fraser, declined to comment.

"I can't," Fraser said. "I just admire her immensely."

Since assuming the helm of the GSA in May, Doan has repeatedly clashed with others within the agency over her intervention in matters that previous administrators delegated to subordinates, in part to avoid the appearance of political influence. The GSA is the largest broker of goods and services for the federal government, managing nearly $56 billion worth of contracts a year.

Last month, a dispute between Doan and her own inspector general's office became public when The Post reported that she had proposed curtailing the office's contract audits and had compared its enforcement efforts to "terrorism." Doan said she was interested in cutting wasteful spending by the agency and denied making the comparison.

Doan, 49, is a rising political star in the Republican Party who hit turbulence soon after she took over the GSA. She grew up in the downtrodden Ninth Ward section of New Orleans and was one of the first African American children to attend the city's private schools. <b>She later went to Vassar College and obtained an advanced degree in Renaissance literature from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.</b>

Doan often speaks to groups about overcoming the struggles in her past and reminisces about how her great-grandmother fed the family by selling pralines on the docks in New Orleans. The family home was destroyed during Hurricane Katrina.

She was appointed to run the GSA after a 15-year career as owner of New Technology Management Inc. <b>The Reston-based firm, which provides surveillance equipment for border security and other projects, was named in 2004 as one of the nation's fastest-growing small technology businesses.

During her business career, Doan developed close ties to the GOP. Between 1999 and 2006, she and her husband, Douglas, a former military intelligence officer and business liaison official at the Department of Homeland Security, donated nearly $226,000 to Republican campaigns and causes, documents show.</b>

In 2004, Bush introduced Doan at a Commerce Department event for women who own small businesses. Later that year, Doan was invited to speak at the Republican National Convention in New York. In 2005, Doan sold her firm for an undisclosed sum to a group of investors and retired. <b>At the time, New Technology Management had revenue of nearly $20 million and government contracts worth more than $200 million.</b>

Last spring, the Bush administration asked Doan to take over the GSA, which had been shaken by scandal after lobbyist Jack Abramoff tried to obtain properties under GSA control. Abramoff took then-GSA chief of staff David H. Safavian and others on an all-expenses-paid golf trip to Scotland, and Safavian provided Abramoff with inside information about the properties. Both men have been convicted.

On April 6, Bush nominated Doan to be the first female administrator in GSA history. She pledged to make the agency operate more like a private business and to "restore GSA's leadership as the premier contracting and service provider."

<b>On July 25, two months after taking office, Doan signed the no-bid contract with Public Affairs Group Inc. and two of its divisions, the Business Women's Network and Diversity Best Practices. The companies were founded and are operated by Fraser, the president and chief executive of Public Affairs Group and the president of Diversity Best Practices. The contract was signed on the letterhead of the two divisions, and Doan said Diversity Best Practices was to have done the work.

An online newsletter posted by Diversity Best Practices and the Business Women's Network in 2003 called Doan a "partner" and described her as "one of the nation's best and brightest women entrepreneurs."

Deneen Vaughn, a former vice president of Public Affairs Group, told The Post in an interview last week that Doan's company often sponsored programs arranged by the Business Women's Network and spoke at the group's events.

"She's been a longtime friend and business partner of Edie Fraser," said Vaughn, who left the organization in May. "She supported the growth and development of the company, and she mentors other members of our organization."

The companies run by Fraser routinely sponsor diversity-oriented events that attract such luminaries as Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and Fortune 500 executives.

Early in her career, Fraser worked as an Africa desk officer for the Peace Corps. She later started Edie Fraser Associates, a public relations firm that won a measure of notoriety in 1980 when it secured a $9,800 no-bid contract to study the Commerce Department's public relations office.

Then-Sen. William Proxmire (D-Wis.) gave the deal one of his famous "Golden Fleece" awards for the misuse of tax dollars, saying Commerce already had 112 public relations employees.

In the mid-1980s, Fraser turned her attention to helping female and minority entrepreneurs, producing a series of reports about their changing status in the U.S. economy.

<b>Fraser and Doan have appeared on the same panels and lavished praise and awards on each other at conferences. They also served together on the national advisory board of Enterprising Women, a magazine for female business owners. "Lurita Doan is precisely what this nation needs," the magazine quoted Fraser as saying, admiring Doan's business acumen, in 2003.

Last summer, two weeks before Doan signed the contract with the companies run by Fraser, she attended a star-studded gala sponsored by those companies called "Celebrating Diversity -- the Changing Demographics of America."

"It is so important, as women, to extend that helping hand to one another, that we help mentor each other and give us that extra break that we need to move our way to the top," Doan said, according to a copy of her remarks on an event Web page.

The contract Doan signed with the companies directed them to produce a report promoting GSA's "major achievements" in contracting with minority- and women-owned businesses. The contract called for producing a report that would be "approximately 24 pages." It would contain profiles of diversity success stories at the GSA and include "recommendations for how to use the report."

Doan said she did not use the GSA's public affairs division, which has about a dozen employees who develop information about the agency's programs, because she wanted to employ an expert in the diversity field.

"Diversity Best Practices is the industry leader in this area," she said. "They have won countless awards on diversity representation and issues."</b>

The contract should have been competitively bid, according to procurement experts and officials familiar with the arrangement. Under federal regulations, contracts worth more than $2,500 at the time were to have been open to competition, unless there were extenuating circumstances. Those include disasters and instances in which the bidding process could cause "unacceptable delays in fulfilling the agency's requirements," according to the Federal Acquisition Regulation, which governs all federal contracting.

The general counsel of the GSA at the time, Alan R. Swendiman, advised Doan to terminate the contract. It was then terminated by a GSA contracting officer. Swendiman left the agency a short time later and is now a special assistant to the president and director of the White House Office of Administration. He declined to comment.

Contracting experts said Doan should have steered clear of the contract.

"Only contracting officers can sign federal contracts and obligate federal funds," said D. Kent Goodger, a federal contracting official for 38 years who now teaches federal procurement courses for the Agriculture Department and other agencies. "Anyone who assumes that they have that authority, like the administrator of GSA, is wrong."

Steven L. Schooner, a procurement specialist at George Washington University's law school, called Doan's involvement in the contract "highly irregular."

"One of the things you're trying to avoid is political favoritism," he said. "You don't want the process polluted or corrupted by political influence."

Doan has taken other steps that have raised questions inside the agency, according to internal memos and e-mails obtained by The Post and interviews with GSA officials.

Last September, Doan intervened in an effort to determine whether five major contractors should be suspended from doing business with the federal government after they had been accused of making fraudulent claims. The firms -- KPMG, Ernst & Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Booz Allen Hamilton and BearingPoint Inc. -- had paid the Justice Department more than $66 million to settle allegations that they kept travel rebates from airlines and hotels that should have gone to the GSA, according to agency officials.

The GSA's debarment office initiated "suspension actions" against the companies and issued "show-cause" letters, asking the firms to explain why they should not be suspended or debarred, according to a Sept. 7 e-mail obtained by The Post. Companies found to be engaged in fraud can be suspended or banned from doing business with the federal government.

"I would expect that the companies will respond to me by saying that they have acknowledged their sins, paid restitution and have put in place measures to prevent a recurrence of this activity," GSA debarment official George N. Barclay wrote in the e-mail. "Suspension determinations could be avoided upon such a showing."

Three days later, Doan wrote to several senior GSA officials: "I do not recall this issue EVER coming up in a single management meeting or any meeting for that matter." She asked that the show-cause process be "stopped until cooler heads can prevail."

But the show-cause letters had already been sent, and the companies later avoided suspension or debarment by agreeing to return travel rebates in the future.

Goodger, the former government contracting official, said Doan's involvement was unusual and "creates an appearance of impropriety."

Doan acknowledged that her intervention was unusual but said she did not do anything improper.

"As the head of this agency, I have an obligation to weigh in and say, 'What is this matter, do you know what this matter is?' " she said.

"I don't want to be a rubber-stamp kind of figurehead administrator of this agency. I do not want to participate in the old go-along-to-get-along kind of Washington two-step-type activity. This is not what I'm here for. So, yes, I am going to be involved."

Doan also generated consternation within her agency and on Capitol Hill with her proposals to curb the agency's contract audits and to cut the inspector general's budget by $5 million. The audits, which aim to ensure that the government is getting the best prices for goods and services, have saved taxpayers more than $1 billion over the past two years, the inspector general's office reported.

Doan's efforts prompted senators and congressmen from both parties to write to her, requesting that she halt her plans.

"You have not made a coherent case that explains how your proposal would benefit the taxpayer compared to the system now in place," said one letter signed by three members of Congress, including Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), the new chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which oversees the GSA.

Doan has said publicly that the proposed cuts were part of an effort to reduce wasteful spending across the agency. Privately, she complained that Inspector General Brian D. Miller and his staff were intimidating GSA employees and vendors. She accused Miller's staff members of leaking budget information and asked for an investigation.

Doan also demanded that Miller notify her of all ongoing criminal probes of GSA employees and provide her with a monthly report of his office's activities. Miller said disclosing the cases could jeopardize investigations, and he disregarded Doan's requests for a leak investigation and monthly reports, according to a Jan. 10 memo obtained by The Post.

Doan said she has been misunderstood and is trying to do the best job she can.

"I bring the sensibility of someone whose favorite song is the national anthem. I love this country," Doan said. "I was one of the chosen ones who has had a chance to really live all aspects of the American dream. I feel so blessed to have this opportunity to give back."

Research editor Alice Crites contributed to this report.

Quote:

http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/200...y_contrac.html
Drive-By Contracting

While the nation obsesses over Brangelina and baby, a little-known government bureaucrat has cached himself into a major career "upgrade", despite serious questions regarding his current job duties. Last year, the Washington Post was all over the Department of Homeland Security's $10 billion U.S. VISIT technology program for a variety of failures. James Williams ran the program, that is, until this week when he was appointed to be in charge of the Federal Acquisition Service (a fancy name for the government's buying catalogue).

For all those contractors eager to get their "hunting license" in thirty days, take some notes here. RIDICULOUS GIMMICKS WORK! Here's the Post's version of Williams awarding the U.S. Visit contract:

In February 2004, Accenture's team put on a demonstration for Williams in the suburban Virginia parking lot of another Accenture subcontractor. Accenture set up a make-believe checkpoint to simulate a border-crossing post. Williams was told to drive through to test Accenture's technical savvy. He accelerated to 40 miles per hour and passed through electronic sensors.

As Williams drove past the sensors, playing the role of foreign visitor, the system scanned a chip embedded in a mock passport. Moments later, an electronic sign proclaimed that "James Williams" was the man behind the wheel of the car. The show was a rousing success, Williams said.

But Accenture said that the demonstration had little to do with what will eventually be built.

Peter Soh, another Accenture spokesman, said in an e-mail that the "simulation Accenture staged was for demonstration purposes only. It was not a recommended solution or a technology offering, and in no way did it represent what the final US-VISIT solution will look like."

Accenture's team won the contract in May 2004. Company officials said the division working on US-VISIT is Accenture LLP, based in Northern Virginia.

Lest you think all must be well at U.S. VISIT since then, think again. Last month, the House Appropriations Committee threw the Washington, DC version of a hissy-fit when it docked $312 million out of $362 million of US VISIT’s budget. Recent reports from GAO and the DHS Inspector General raise more interesting issues regarding U.S. VISIT.

<b>But, one man's poison is another man's meat. Lurita Doan, the new General Services Administrator, is the person responsible for appointing Williams to his new gig overseeing who can sell to the government. <a href="http://www.powelltate.com/clientsinthenews/ntmi_nytimes.pdf">It seems likely</a> that Williams played some role in helping his new boss Lurita Doan to land contracts when she owned and ran New Technology Management</b>, a Reston, VA-based contractor for the Department of Homeland Security (among others).

-- Beth Daley

Are our leaders and their political party benefactors noble partners committed to protecting the rest of us against enemies who "hate our freedom", or are they lying, greedy hypocrite traitors who terrorize us in order to steal our freedoms and our tax dollars?

<b>I am certain that there will be more disclosed about Lurita Doan, and it won't be flattering to an presidential administration that chooses (instead of honestly justifying) to order our young soldiers into situations where they get shot and blown up, and where they take away our bill of rights protections, all on the pretense that we are at "war". The trouble with that is..... if we truly are at war, the president and his men, and their political cronies, are acting as if they are the enemies of freedom who are terrorizing us....or, if you think I have it wrong....that I am confused....please correct me !</b>

powerclown · 01-19-2007, 10:51 AM

While I don't think our current politicians are necessarily terrorists, I do think that some of them are corrupt and intent on lining their pockets by dipping into the public dole.

I think you are confusing 2 separate issues here: the war in Iraq being one issue - the corruption of american politicians an entirely separate issue. Thrown into this particular story, and probably what makes it seem so juicy to the red-meat crown, was Doan's nebulous, maybe/possibly/kinda/sorta usage of the word "terrorist" to describe a government oversight group. I don't see any definitive information here to back up this assertion, and even if there was, it sounds to me more like petty bickering than anything else.

When a bureacrat like Doan is characterized as "trying to reduce wasteful spending" within a governmental agency, which is a legitimate part of any bureaucrat's job, I would bet it not uncommon that it is a signal for oversight committes to start getting suspicious. What is inherently wrong with Doan funneling some of the workload to private independent audit contractors to save a few bucks?

What's the beef here?
Is it government oversight?
Is it no-bid contracts?
Is it governmental use of private firms to spread out the workload?
Is it a racial and/or gender issue?
Is it backroom deals between government players?
Is it erosion of civil rights?
Is it the war in Iraq?
Is it entrepreneurship?
Is it affirmative action?
Is it terrorism?

Have you read about the alleged no-bid french/turkish satellite contracts recently in the news, or russian firm ASE's shady contract bids for Chinese energy contracts? Interesting stuff.

host · 03-31-2007, 06:29 AM

'Kay.....are we observing the incarnation of an extremely corrupt, "shadow government"? WTF is this? Are the folks in the executive branch, now attempting to circumvent congressional oversight, accountability to "the people", by crafting a new, insecure communications system, during a "time of war", a system rooted in "the party", and it's priorities, rather than in "doing their duty"?

Rep. Henry Waxman seems to be all over these details, and those of many other investigative matters having to do with the executive branch.....just so you know...

Does the conduct described here..... of Ms. Doan and Ms. Ralston, appear to any of you as defensible, or legal? Who picked them to do these "jobs"?

Quote:

http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=195
Following Up on the GSA Hearing
March 29th, 2007 by Jesse Lee

Following yesterday’s hearing regarding allegations of misconduct at GSA, the Oversight Committee has sent a letter to Karl Rove to learn what other agencies received political presentations and whether federal agencies or resources were used to help Republican candidates.

Letter to Karl Rove (pdf) >>

March 29, 2007

Karl Rove
Assistant to the President,
Deputy Chief of Staff, and Senior Adviser
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. Rove:

Yesterday, the Committee held a hearing into allegations of misconduct at the General Services Administration (GSA). One of the allegations involved a political presentation that your deputy, J. Scott Jennings, made to the GSA Administrator, Lurita A. Doan, and approximately 40 GSA political appointees in the GSA headquarters building on January 26, 2007.

The basic facts of this event are not in dispute. The GSA White House liaison scheduled Mr. Jennings to speak at a meeting that took place on January 26, 2007, at the GSA headquarters building, although some appointees participated by videoconference. After a brief introduction, Mr. Jennings presented a 28-page slide briefing that reviewed the 2006 election results and outlined the Republican Party’s top electoral targets in upcoming federal and state elections. This slide presentation included:

* A list of the 20 Democratic House districts the White House views as the most vulnerable to Republican takeover in 2008;

* A list of the 36 Republican House districts the White House views as the most vulnerable to Democratic takeover in 2008; and

* A map showing the Senate seats up for election in 2008 and whether the White House believes Republicans will have to play “defense” or “offense.”

<h3>After the presentation was over, Ms. Doan asked her staff to discuss how GSA resources could be used to help “our candidates” in the next election.</h3>

At the hearing, many questions were raised about the legality and appropriateness of Mr. Jennings’s presentation and the discussion that followed it. <h3>The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service issued an 11-page report that found that both the presentation itself and Ms. Doan’s comments could be violations of the federal Hatch Act.</h3> According to CRS, the White House presentation alone may cross the line into being an impermissible “political activity” under the Hatch Act when “the sponsor or presenter is closely affiliated/identified with a partisan political campaign, invitations are directed only to ‘political’ employees of a department, and the objectives and agenda of the program appear to have a partisan slant.”

As part of the Committee’s investigation into Mr. Jennings’s presentation, I ask that you answer the following questions:

* Did you approve of the slides in Mr. Jennings’s presentation? Did you approve of Mr. Jennings’s participation in this meeting?

* Does the White House Office of Political Affairs or the White House Counsel have a policy addressing when and where White House employees can make political presentations such as the one Mr. Jennings gave at GSA headquarters on January 26, 2007? Please explain the legal authority you believe allows you to make such presentations on federal property during business hours.

* Did Mr. Jennings, you, or any other employee of the White House Office of Political Affairs consult with the White House Counsel or the Office of the Special Counsel about whether delivering this presentation to federal government employees in a government building during business hours violated the Hatch Act or any other rules, policies or procedures?

* Have you, Mr. Jennings, or other employees of the White House Office of Political Affairs given this political briefing or any similar briefing mentioning future elections or candidates on other occasions? Please provide the Committee a list of the dates, times, and locations of any of these presentations at which federal officials were present, whether they occurred on federal property or not, as well as a list of the people and organizations who participated.

* Have you, Mr. Jennings, or other employees of the White House Office of Political Affairs provided Mr. Jennings’s PowerPoint presentation or any similar presentation to federal officials mentioning future elections or candidates to people or organizations outside of the White House Office of Political Affairs? Please provide the Committee a list of who received the presentation, as well as the dates, times, and locations the presentation was provided.

* Who prepared the PowerPoint presentation given by Mr. Jennings? Did your office use federal funds to prepare this briefing? If so, please explain the legal authority that you believe allows you to use federal funds to prepare political briefings such as the one Mr. Jennings presented at GSA headquarters on January 26, 2007.

* Why did Mr. Jennings and his staff assistant use private “gwb43.com” accounts rather than their “eop.gov” accounts to correspond with Administrator Doan’s office about the PowerPoint presentation?

In addition, I ask that you provide the Committee with any documents and communications relating to (1) the presentation of the PowerPoint presentation or any similar presentation mentioning future elections or candidates to federal officials and (2) the use of federal agencies or resources to help Republican candidates.

I request that you answer the Committee’s questions and provide the requested documents by April 13, 2007.

The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is the principal oversight committee in the House of Representatives and has broad oversight jurisdiction as set forth in House Rule X. An attachment to this letter provides additional information on how to respond to the Committee’s request.

I will appreciate your cooperation with the Committee’s inquiry. If you have any questions about the Committee’s request, your staff can contact David Rapallo or David Leviss of the Committee staff at (202) 225-5420.
Sincerely,

Henry A. Waxman
Chairman
Enclosure

cc: Tom Davis click to show

A second letter was sent to White House Counsel Fred Fielding asking him for information and a briefing regarding White House e-mail policies, citing the new revelations that White House officials have been conducting official business using nongovernmental e-mail accounts. Letter to Fred Fielding (pdf) >>

Text of the Fielding letter and relevant clips from yesterday’s hearing in the extended entry:

March 29, 2007

Fred Fielding
Counsel to the President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. Fielding:

I am writing to request information and a briefing regarding the e-mail policies of the White House.

On Monday, I wrote to the Republican National Committee and the Bush Cheney ‘04 campaign directing them to preserve the e-mails of White House officials. In those letters, I cited multiple examples of the use of political RNC e-mail accounts by White House officials conducting official government business. In one example I cited, an associate of convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff was advised by a White House official not to send communications through the official White House e-mail system because “to put this stuff in writing in their e-mail system … might actually limit what they can do to help us.”

Since Monday, I have learned of new examples of the use of RNC and campaign e-mail accounts by White House officials, including:

* New Abramoff E-Mails. Susan Ralston, who was Karl Rove’s executive assistant, invited two lobbyists working for Jack Abramoff to use her RNC e-mail account to avoid “security issues” with the White House e-mail system, writing: <h3>“I now have an RNC blackberry which you can use to e-mail me at any time. No security issues like my WH email.”</h3> Ms. Ralston similarly wrote Mr. Abramoff: “I know [sic] have an RNC laptop at the office for political use. I can access my AOL email when necessary so if you need to send me something that I need to read, you can send to my AOL email and then call or page me to check it.”

* New Scott Jennings E-Mails. Scott Jennings, the deputy director of political affairs in the White House, and his assistant used “gwb43.com” e-mail accounts to communicate with the General Services Administration about a partisan briefing that Mr. Jennings gave to political appointees at GSA on January 26, 2007. When Mr. Jennings’s assistant e-mailed the PowerPoint presentation to GSA, she wrote: “It is a close hold and we’re not supposed to be emailing it around.”

* New Job Appointment E-Mails. Mr. Jennings also appears to have used his “gwb43.com” account to recruit applicants for official government positions through the “Kentucky Republican Voice,” an internet site that describes itself as “the best source for Kentucky Republican grassroots information.” One posting from May 2005 advertised 17 vacancies on assorted presidential boards and commissions. A second posting from May 2006 sought applicants for various boards within the Small Business Administration. In each case, these postings encouraged applicants to contact Mr. Jennings at his “gwb43.com” address.

<h3>Moreover, U.S. News & World Report reported yesterday that my letter on Monday to the RNC may be driving official White House communications even further underground.</h3> According to this report, at least two White House aides have now “bought their own private E-mail system through a cellular phone or Blackberry server” to avoid the possibilities of subpoenas. Another aide told U.S. News that he now communicates through “texting.”

The statements of White House spokesperson Dana Perino at a press briefing this week only further confused the issue. She said: “Of course, people are encouraged, on official White House business, to use their official White House accounts.” But she did not cite any specific policy or guidance issued to White House staff regarding the use of e-mail accounts and the preservation of presidential records, and she acknowledged that certain officials in the White House have been given access to political e-mail accounts. When asked if a new directive had been issued to White House staff reminding them to use their White House e-mails, she stated, “I don’t know of any new directive, but it is what we ask people to do.”

Ms. Perino was also vague in her answers about whether the White House is ensuring the security and preservation of official communications that are sent through RNC and campaign e-mail accounts. She stated:

With respect to presidential records, an email that is sent to or from a White House email address is automatically archived, even if the other person is not using a White House email account. I believe our - well, I know that our White House Counsel’s Office is in communication with the RNC’s general counsel to make sure that those archivings have taken place.

To help the Committee understand the White House policies involving the use of nongovernmental e-mail accounts by White House officials, I ask you to provide the following information:

* All policies, guidance, and other communications provided to White House officials regarding appropriate use of nongovernmental e-mail accounts, particularly those hosted by the Republican National Committee and other political organizations;

* All policies, guidance, and other communications provided to White House officials regarding the obligation to preserve e-mail records, including those created while using nongovernmental e-mail accounts;

* Any agreements entered into by the White House and the Republican National Committee, the Bush Cheney ‘04 campaign, or other organizations regarding e-mail accounts provided by these organizations to White House officials;

* Any documents relating to White House efforts to preserve presidential records that were created on nongovernmental e-mail accounts; and

* Any documents relating to White House efforts to secure official e-mails sent through nongovernmental e-mail servers, including any communications with the Republican National Committee or the Bush Cheney ‘04 campaign regarding the security of their servers.

I request that you provide this information by April 5, 2007. In addition, I ask that you or your designee and any other appropriate White House personnel meet with Committee staff during the week of April 2, 2007, to discuss these issues.

The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is the principal oversight committee in the House of Representatives and has broad oversight jurisdiction as set forth in House Rule X. An attachment to this letter provides additional information about how to respond to the Committee’s request.

I will appreciate your cooperation with this request. If your staff has any questions about this request, they should contact David Rapallo or Anna Laitin with the Committee staff at (202) 225-5420.

Sincerely,

Henry A. Waxman
Chairman

Enclosure click to show

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VePqz...2Dao%2F2%2Ejpg
<h3>GSA Administrator Lurita Doan, responding to Rep. Bruce Braley (IA-01):
“I’m a little bit embarrassed to admit this but I can say that I honestly don’t have a recollection of the presentation at all.”</h3>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRBZR...dHL8%2F2%2Ejpg
Rep. Brian Higgins
(NY-27):
“Mr. Jennings and other White House officials appear to be using their Republican National Committee email accounts on a routine basis to discuss politically sensitive topics. We know from documents obtained by the Judiciary Committee, for example, that Mr. Jennings used the identical Republican National Committee accounts to discuss the US Attorney firings that he was involved with…”

Quote:

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/200...watchdog_.html
Thursday, March 29, 2007
House Watchdog Asks White House to Elaborate on Outside Email Usage

House Government Reform and Oversight Committee chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) wants to know more about White House aides' use of external email accounts to conduct government business following new revelations that White House employees used external email accounts from the re-election campaign and Republican National Committee.

Today Waxman asked (.pdf) the president's lawyer to provide documents about how the White House is trying to preserve these outside emails and what agreements might have been struck between the White House and the outside organizations. Government business is supposed to be done on governmental accounts, as those records belong to the people, not the employees; and an outside email account could be used to avoid later investigations or to prevent leaving a record of wrongdoing, as is hinted at in White House employee emails to and from convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Specifically. Waxman wants White House Counsel Fred Fielding to turn over the following documents by April 5 and meet with the committee staff

to talk about the issue: click to show

Quote:

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/29/...mail-archives/
Waxman Reveals New Evidence Showing White House Use Of Political E-mail Accounts

rovebb.gifU.S. News reported recently that several White House aides “said that they stopped using the White House system except for purely professional correspondence. … <a href="http://www.usnews.com/usnews/blogs/news_blog/070327/email_controversy_prompts_many.htm">‘We knew E-mails could be subpoenaed,’”</a> said one aide.

In a new letter to White House counsel Fred Fielding, House Government and Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman reveals new e-mail communications that provide further evidence that White House employees were trying to <a href="http://oversight.house.gov/Documents/20070329130758-87640.pdf">circumvent the archives system:</a>

New Scott Jennings E-Mails. Scott Jennings, the deputy director of political affairs in the White House, and his assistant used “gwb43.com” e-mail accounts to communicate with the General Services Administration about a partisan briefing that Mr. Jennings gave to political appointees at GSA on January 26, 2007. When Mr. Jennings’s assistant emailed the PowerPoint presentation to GSA, she wrote: “It is a close hold and we’re not supposed to be emailing it around.”

New Job Appointment E-Mails. Mr. Jennings also appears to have used his “gwb43.com” account to recruit applicants for official government positions through the “Kentucky Republican Voice,” an internet site that describes itself as “the best source for Kentucky Republican grassroots information.” One posting from May 2005 advertised 17 vacancies on assorted presidential boards and commissions. A second posting from May 2006 sought applicants for various boards within the Small Business Administration. In each case, these postings encouraged applicants to contact Mr. Jennings at his “gwb43.com” address.

New Abramoff E-Mails. Susan Ralston, who was Karl Rove’s executive assistant, invited two lobbyists working for Jack Abramoff to use her RNC e-mail account to avoid “security issues” with the White House e-mail system, writing: “I now have an RNC blackbeny which you can use to e-mail me at any time. No security issues like my WH email.” Ms. Ralston similarly wrote Mr. Abramoff: “I know [sic] have an RNC laptop at the office for political use. I can access my AOL email when necessary so if you need to send me something that I need to read, you can send to my AOL email and then call or page me to check it.”

Asked about White House policy and procedures regarding use of e-mail accounts, spokeswoman Dana Perino <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/03/20070327-4.html">did not cite</a> any specific policy or guidance issued to White House staff for the preservation of presidential records, and she acknowledged that certain officials in the White House have been given access to political e-mail accounts. In his <a href="http://oversight.house.gov/Documents/20070329130758-87640.pdf">letter</a> to Fielding, Waxman requests “all policies, guidance, and other communications provided to White House officials regarding appropriate use of nongovernmental e-mail accounts.”

The White House e-mail system has been crafted to <a href="http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/03-15-2007/0004547135&EDATE=">comply</a> with the Presidential Records Act. Ordering White House employees to use the in-house e-mail system “is intended to <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/11/20011101-12.html">establish procedures</a> for former and incumbent Presidents to make privilege determinations.”

The irony — as Kevin Drum writes — is that by not using the White House system, staffers “using private accounts specifically to <a href="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_03/011021.php">evade legitimate congressional oversight”</a> might lose their claim to executive privilege.

host · 05-07-2008, 10:22 AM

Republican clusterfuck? Are the FBI the "good guys" here....working in the best interests of the American people? Has the partisan "coup" become so complex in it's details and dimensions that most cannot be bothered to attempt to get the arms around it all and at least ask what the fuck is going on here?

Quote:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1210...ml?mod=WSJBlog
FBI Raids Special Counsel, Seizes Data
By JOHN R. WILKE
May 7, 2008; Page A4

WASHINGTON -- Federal agents raided the Office of Special Counsel, a government agency involved in several high-profile and politically sensitive investigations. The agents seized computer files and documents from its chief, Scott Bloch, and his staff.

Mr. Bloch, who was appointed by President Bush, has been under investigation since 2005 by the Office of Personnel Management for employee claims that he abused his agency's authority, retaliated against its staff and dismissed whistleblower cases without adequate examination. Mr. Bloch couldn't be reached to comment.

The Justice Department joined the case as the inquiry was widened last year to include possible obstruction of justice, which is a criminal offense. The Wall Street Journal reported Nov. 28 that in the midst of the inquiry Mr. Bloch used an agency credit card to hire a commercial firm, Geeks on Call, to erase data from his computer and those of former staff.

In the Journal article, Mr. Bloch confirmed the Geeks on Call visit but said it was needed to eradicate a software virus. He said that none of the documents sought in the inquiry were affected and that the employee claims against him were unfounded and unfair.

The Justice Department had no comment about Tuesday's raid. A Special Counsel spokesman said, "we are cooperating with law enforcement. We do not yet know what this is about." He said the agency "is continuing to perform the independent mission of this office."

In the Tuesday raid, 20 agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and an inspector general's office <h3>served grand jury subpoenas on Mr. Bloch and searched his office and home.</h3> At least 17 employees were asked to appear before the grand jury next week and answer questions about possible obstruction of justice and destruction of federal records during an investigation.

The Office of Special Counsel, created in the 1970s in the wake of the Watergate scandal, probes sensitive personnel and whistleblower claims by government workers. It also enforces the Hatch Act, which forbids the use of federal resources for partisan political purposes.

Among the office's recent inquiries was whether former White House political director Karl Rove and others improperly used U.S. agencies to help elect Republicans.

Mr. Bloch's investigation of the White House political operation began after a Rove deputy gave a series of political presentations to government agencies on Republican prospects in specific congressional races. Mr. Bloch's office wanted to know whether such presentations violated the Hatch Act. A task force interviewed officials at more than a dozen agencies and examined White House emails but found few clear violations, lawyers close to the case said. The investigations remain pending.

Mr. Bloch also thrust his agency into other investigations where the agency's authority was less clear. A document reviewed by The Wall Street Journal shows that the agency's Hatch Act task force found in January that many of the investigations under way were without merit or should be closed.

The subpoenas Tuesday also asked for files about the one Hatch Act case that has been completed, which found misconduct by the head of the General Services Administration, Lurita Doan. The White House last week ordered Ms. Doan to resign.

Mr. Bloch's investigative role made him a target for both political parties.

"This isn't an ordinary bureaucrat, this is Special Counsel, the guy who is supposed to police this kind of thing," said Rep. Tom Davis (R., Va.). The Geeks on Call incident "was a real red flag."

Quote:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/07/wa...in&oref=slogin
By DAVID STOUT
Published: May 7, 2008

..... Mr. Bloch was in the news a year ago when his office began to look into political briefings given to employees of several agencies by aides to Karl Rove, who was then President Bush’s chief political adviser. The White House insisted at the time that the briefings met the definitions of allowable activities.

Mr. Bloch’s critics quickly accused him of announcing an inquiry into the Rove-inspired briefings simply to draw attention away from his own shortcomings. At the time, he was the target of a complaint filed by a group of employees who accused him of trying to dismantle his own agency, of illegally barring employees from talking to journalists and of reducing a backlog of whistle-blower complaints by simply discarding old cases.....

Quote:

http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cf...s_most_popular

White House forces resignation of embattled GSA chief
By Dan Friedman and Robert Brodsky April 30, 2008

Lurita Doan, the embattled head of the General Services Administration, resigned at the request of the White House, sources said Tuesday.

According to people familiar with the matter, the controversial agency administrator was summoned to the White House for a late afternoon meeting Tuesday, during which she was asked to step down.

Doan's ouster comes nearly 11 months after the independent Office of Special Counsel concluded an investigation of Doan and called for President Bush to fire her for violating the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from using government resources for partisan politics.

The OSC probe dealt with a January 2007 meeting between Doan, GSA political appointees and former White House political aide Scott Jennings. After Jennings showed a PowerPoint slide show detailing Republican electoral plans Doan asked, "How can we help our candidates?"

Doan has consistently said she does not remember making such a comment.

But the OSC, citing multiple witnesses, concluded the statement was tantamount to instructing subordinates to use their offices to assist Republican candidates. "Doan solicited the political activity of over 30 of her subordinate employees," Special Counsel Scott Bloch wrote in a June 8 summary of his office's investigation.

Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., the ranking member of House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said Wednesday, "It would be a shame if [Doan's resignation] had anything to do with the hyperbolic and unfounded allegations of Scott Bloch and others who were after her just to claim another administration scalp. There's no doubt personality conflicts played a role. Certainly, her management style was not everyone's cup of tea. But the administrator appears to have fallen victim to a bureaucratic culture that fears, rather than rewards, entrepreneurial spirit, innovation and bold leadership."

Doan faced heavy criticism last year from congressional Democrats. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., grilled Doan at two hearings over the Hatch Act violation and regarding allegations that she improperly intervened to assist a federal contactor, Sun Microsystems, in its negotiations with GSA and over charges that she unsuccessfully attempted to steer a small no-bid contract to a longtime friend.

Doan has battled with her agency's inspector general for nearly two years, drawing strong criticism from Senate Finance ranking member Charles Grassley.

In an e-mail message to GSA employees, Doan wrote: "The past twenty-two months have been filled with accomplishments: together, we have regained our clean audit opinion, restored fiscal discipline, re-tooled our ability to respond to emergencies, rekindled entrepreneurial energies, reduced bureaucratic barriers to small companies to get a GSA Schedule, ignited a building boom at our nation's ports of entries, boldly led the nation in an aggressive telework initiative, and improved employee morale so that we were selected as one of the best places to work in the federal government. I have great faith in the abilities of GSA's dedicated team."

It was not immediately clear what prompted the timing of Doan's ouster. Though a number of House and Senate members urged Doan's resignation last year, she appeared to have survived the storm. In recent months she has continued to clash publicly with GSA's inspector general, but she has generally avoided drawing fire from Capitol Hill this year.

Recently the IG, Brian Miller, was cleared of allegations of misconduct in a pair of wide-ranging complaints filed by four of the IG office's former attorneys.

The inspector general for the Corporation for National and Community Service found that Miller had not violated any statute, rule or regulation, according to a letter from Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, to Doan.

A similar opinion was offered in January by the President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency's Integrity Committee, which is responsible for probing complaints against inspectors general.

The closure of the whistleblower case appeared inflame Doan, who has feuded with Miller virtually since the day she took office. Last week, she vowed to continue to advocate for employees who had filed complaints against Miller and his office.

In an e-mail to Government Executive early Wednesday morning after her resignation, Doan wrote, "this remains an enormously serious issue which I still believe ought to be addressed."

"I would rather get fired for something I believe in, and a cause I was willing to fight for, rather than to believe in nothing worth being fired for," Doan wrote in the message.

Quote:

http://www.fcw.com/online/news/152435-1.html
Post-Doan GSA to focus on customers
By Matthew Weigelt
Published on May 5, 2008

Lurita Doan, former administrator of the General Services Administration, set out to restore GSA’s reputation for customer service. But some procurement experts say she pulled the agency off course in her nearly two years as chief and failed to achieve her goals.

Doan steered GSA away from its primary mission of buying for its customer agencies, said Bob Woods, former commissioner of GSA’s Federal Technology Service and now president of Topside Consulting. Wood said GSA is a service agency with a mandate to be the central procurement agency for the federal government, and customers should be the agency’s primary concern.....

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...071202088.html
Private E-Mail, Made Public, Trips Up Special Counsel at Hearing

By Stephen Barr , Washington Post
Friday, July 13, 2007; D01

Those darn e-mails will bite you every time.

Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) yesterday surprised <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Scott+Bloch?tid=informline">Scott J. Bloch</a> Office of <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/U.S.+Office+of+Special+Counsel?tid=informline">Special Counsel,</a> by reading aloud an e-mail Bloch sent to his friends. One of those friends forwarded it to Davis, probably because Bloch criticizes Davis in it., a presidential appointee who heads the

Before disclosing the e-mail at a House subcommittee hearing, Davis asked Bloch what he would do if he learned of an agency official sending out news clips and personal commentary about agency business during working hours, even if it was done through a private e-mail account.

The e-mail alludes to testimony by a Bush appointee, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Lurita+Doan?tid=informline">Lurita Alexis Doan</a> who heads the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/U.S.+General+Services+Administration?tid=informline">General Services Administration</a>. Bloch's office has sent a report to the White House alleging that Doan violated the Hatch Act when she asked other political appointees at a campaign briefing how the GSA team could help "our candidates" in the next election., who heads the

In the e-mail, Bloch referred his friends to a news account of Doan's testimony at a House hearing. He wrote:

"It is Congressman Tom Davis, who has been acting like Doan's defense counsel, saying reckless things about OSC's report and calling for my resignation. Weird Kabuki theatre, all of this. I am going up for my Reauthorization hearing on July 12, and Davis will either show up as ranking member of the larger committee, or have Cong. Mica do his dirty work of raking me over the coals."

Bloch's forecast was correct -- Davis and Rep. John L. Mica (R-Fla.) showed up.

Davis told Bloch that he wanted all e-mails Bloch has sent on his AOL account since Jan. 26 that mentioned the Hatch Act, Doan, Davis, Mica or any other government official or member of Congress.

"It is not going to happen," Bloch responded. "Let's move on to something real."

But Davis did not budge, asking questions suggesting that he thinks Bloch has shown poor judgment and a lack of professionalism in the Doan case.

Bloch protested that his privacy was being invaded and that the matter was inappropriate for a congressional hearing. At one point, he said, "If you want to exchange personal attacks, perhaps we should go outside." That comment elicited nervous laughter from the audience, leading Bloch to quickly clarify that he wasn't making a threat.

Bloch heads an independent agency whose mission is to protect federal employee rights, but he has been under investigation for the past two years because of allegations that he has run roughshod over his staff and allowed politics to play a role in some of his decisions.

The investigation is in the hands of the inspector general at the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/U.S.+Office+of+Personnel+Management?tid=informline">Office of Personnel Management</a>, and Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.), who chaired yesterday's hearing by the House federal workforce subcommittee, asked Bloch if he was cooperating.

Bloch said he has turned over documents that have been requested. He called the allegations against him "reckless and false and scandalous."

Questions by Davis and others amounted to an attempt to suppress and taint the investigation of Doan, Bloch said. "I will not be intimidated," he said. Davis shot back that the facts will speak for themselves.

We cannot know yet if Scott Bloch is a victim of a political witch hunt, but we do have evidence of a pattern of Bush appointees attacking the checks and balances on their authority to manage their agencies....from my last post in this thread:

Quote:

....The new chief of the U.S. General Services Administration is trying to limit the ability of the agency's inspector general to audit contracts for fraud or waste and has said oversight efforts are intimidating the workforce, according to government documents and interviews.

GSA Administrator Lurita Alexis Doan, a Bush political appointee and former government contractor, has proposed cutting $5 million in spending on audits and shifting some responsibility for contract reviews to small, private audit contractors.

Doan also has chided Inspector General Brian D. Miller for not going along with her attempts to streamline the agency's contracting efforts. In a private staff meeting Aug. 18, Doan said Miller's effort to examine contracts had "gone too far and is eroding the health of the organization," according to notes of the meeting written by an unidentified participant from the Office of Inspector General (OIG).

The GSA is responsible for managing about $56 billion worth of contracts each year for the departments of Defense and Homeland Security and other agencies.

Doan compared Miller and his staff to terrorists, according to a copy of the notes obtained by The Washington Post.

"There are two kinds of terrorism in the US: the external kind; and, internally, the IGs have terrorized the Regional Administrators," Doan said, according to the notes.

Through a spokesman, Doan said she respects the inspector general's role and is not doing anything to undercut his independence. She also denied that she had referred to Miller, a former terrorism prosecutor, or his staff as terrorists.

"She's trying to reduce wasteful spending," said GSA spokesman David Bethel. "Just like any other office within GSA, she has asked the OIG to live within his budget, and she's hopeful that the IG is going to embrace that concept. She is not singling him out for this attention. She's not challenging the IG's independence. This is about fiscal discipline and reducing wasteful spending and creating a business environment that can be embraced by everyone.

"By law, she can't reduce the IG's independence, and she's aware of that."

Doan, who was confirmed as administrator May 26, has publicly criticized Miller on other occasions. In her Nov. 10 annual report, Doan stated there was only one GSA manager unwilling to "confront programs and policies that had outlived their usefulness and were wasting taxpayer money." She later told Miller that she was referring to him, according to officials familiar with Doan's statement who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution.

Doan also complained in the annual report that Miller was being "unsupportive of recent changes" and said vendors and government contracting officials had reported that his auditors and investigators were exerting "undue pressure."

Bethel said yesterday that Doan's statement in her annual report "speaks for itself," and he declined to elaborate.

Miller declined to discuss his relationship with Doan.....

....and over at the CIA, there is this "gem":

Quote:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics...bushs_lap_dogs
Bush's Lap Dogs:
What Happened to DC's Watchdogs?

Tim DickinsonPosted Nov 15, 2007 6:00 AM

IN OCTOBER, WITH OSAMA BIN LADEN still at large, the Central Intelligence Agency announced the creation of a new spy unit. Headed by a top deputy and staffed with a select corps of agents, the operation was charged with gathering intelligence on a single man — a foe who was threatening to undermine the president's War on Terror.

The CIA's new target? John Helgerson, the man appointed by President Bush to expose wrongdoing at the CIA. As inspector general of the agency, Helgerson came under attack from his superiors simply for trying to do his job: He was aggressively investigating torture at the CIA's secret prisons.

Like the other twenty-eight inspectors within the executive branch, Helgerson is supposed to be immune from such political meddling. Created in 1978 as a post-Watergate check on Nixonian abuses of power, the inspectors bypass the chain of command within their own agencies and report their findings directly to Congress. By law, the president must appoint these watchdogs "without regard to political affiliation" and "solely on the basis of integrity and demonstrated ability."....

CIA's Probe of Its Watchdog Yields Changes
By Greg Miller
<h3>The Los Angeles Times</h3>

Sunday 23 December 2007

The inspector general agrees to modify procedures so employees can defend themselves more in his reports. His criticism of pre-9/11 failures won't be altered.

Washington - The CIA has completed a controversial in-house probe of its inspector general and plans to make a series of changes in the way the agency conducts internal investigations, according to U.S. intelligence officials.

CIA Inspector General John L. Helgerson has consented to more than a dozen procedural changes designed to address complaints that investigations carried out by his office were unfair to agency employees, the officials said.

<h3>But the agency will not force Helgerson</h3> to revise previously issued reports or acknowledge flaws in the reports, including one report that was sharply critical of top CIA officials for intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. .....

<h3>dc_dux, what do you make of this?</h3> How can Bush administration employees counter the express intent of congress for checks and balances via independent oversight of these appointees management of key government agencies? If Doan at GAO and Hayden at CIA can "force" the IGs at their agencies to do things, or cut the budgets of the IG offices, where is there any chance for independent oversight?

dc_dux · 05-07-2008, 01:46 PM

host..just another example of how the Bush administration has perverted the system of oversight and checks and balances.

The DOJ/OSG was intended to replace the Office of Independent Counsel (which was truly independent of the sitting administration) when Congress killed the OIC after the Ken Starr/Whitewater fiasco. Bloch is/was a partisan hack.

But it goes beyond that, Bush has perverted the appointment of Inspectors Generals as well. The IGs, in each executive branch agency, are intended to report to both the agency head and Congress. They are supposed to be non-political appointments, independent of the policies and priorities of the sitting president...career attorneys with skills appropriate for the role of IGs.

Quote:

Politicization of Inspectors General

nspectors General (IGs) are officials within each federal agency who are charged with investigating evidence of waste, fraud, and abuse in the Executive Branch. Over the last 25 years, investigations by IGs have saved taxpayers billions of dollars.

To ensure that IGs are independent and objective, Congress required that they be nonpartisan, specifically directing the President to appoint IGs “without regard to political affiliation.” Congress further provided that IGs should be appointed based “solely on the basis of integrity and demonstrated ability” in areas such as accounting and financial analysis....

...Connections to White House: Over one-third of the IGs appointed by President Bush worked in Republican White Houses prior to their appointments as IGs. In contrast, President Clinton appointed no IGs who had worked in any Democratic White House prior to their appointments.

Other Political Connections: In total, 64% of the IGs appointed by President Bush held some sort of political position, such as a political appointment in a Republican administration or a position with a Republican member of Congress, before their appointments as IGs. Only 22% of the IGs appointed by President Clinton had worked in political positions before their appointments.

Political Campaign Contributions: Over half of the IGs appointed by President Bush had made contributions to his campaign or other Republican candidates. In comparison, only 25% of the IGs appointed by President Clinton had made any federal campaign contributions.

Substantive Audit Experience: Only 18% of the IGs appointed by President Bush had previous audit experience, such as experience in an IG’s office, at the Government Accountability Office, or at a private accounting firm. In contrast, 66% of IGs appointed by President Clinton had audit experience prior to their appointments.

http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=726

full report (pdf)

Which might explain why more IGs are under investigation for their own misconduct and/or politicization of the office of IG in many executive branch agencies than any time I can remember....but its like the fox guarding the hen house.

It almost begs for a return of a truly independent Office of Independent Counsel....but I dont want to see any investigator, regardless of the party in power, ever having the freedom to unilaterally expand an investigation and enhance his own position as Ken Starr did.

01-19-2007, 10:51 AM	#2 (permalink)
powerclown Junkie Location: Detroit, MI	While I don't think our current politicians are necessarily terrorists, I do think that some of them are corrupt and intent on lining their pockets by dipping into the public dole. I think you are confusing 2 separate issues here: the war in Iraq being one issue - the corruption of american politicians an entirely separate issue. Thrown into this particular story, and probably what makes it seem so juicy to the red-meat crown, was Doan's nebulous, maybe/possibly/kinda/sorta usage of the word "terrorist" to describe a government oversight group. I don't see any definitive information here to back up this assertion, and even if there was, it sounds to me more like petty bickering than anything else. When a bureacrat like Doan is characterized as "trying to reduce wasteful spending" within a governmental agency, which is a legitimate part of any bureaucrat's job, I would bet it not uncommon that it is a signal for oversight committes to start getting suspicious. What is inherently wrong with Doan funneling some of the workload to private independent audit contractors to save a few bucks? What's the beef here? Is it government oversight? Is it no-bid contracts? Is it governmental use of private firms to spread out the workload? Is it a racial and/or gender issue? Is it backroom deals between government players? Is it erosion of civil rights? Is it the war in Iraq? Is it entrepreneurship? Is it affirmative action? Is it terrorism? Have you read about the alleged no-bid french/turkish satellite contracts recently in the news, or russian firm ASE's shady contract bids for Chinese energy contracts? Interesting stuff.