Agencies Asked to Preserve Electronic Info
By Daniel Pulliam | Friday, June 15, 2007 | 04:57 PM
By Daniel Pulliam | Friday, June 15, 2007 | 04:57 PM
Eighteen agencies have been asked by the Office of Special Counsel to preserve electronic information dating back to January 2001 as part of its governmentwide investigation into alleged violations of the law that limits political activity in federal agencies.
The OSC task force investigating the claims has asked agencies, including the General Services Administration, to preserve all e-mail records, calendar information, phone logs and hard drives going back to the beginning of the Bush administration. The task force is headed by deputy OSC special counsel James Byrne.
OSC recently ruled that GSA Administrator Lurita Doan violated the Hatch Act when she attended a Jan. 26 meeting at the agency's headquarters. At that meeting, attended by Doan and more than 30 political appointees, Scott Jennings, a deputy to Karl Rove, the leading political strategist at the White House, presented a PowerPoint presentation that listed Republican and Democratic political races viewed by the White House as most vulnerable in 2008. Doan asked Jennings how GSA could help Republicans, according to the OSC.
The White House revealed a month ago that about 20 other similar briefings were held in federal agencies in 2006 and 2007. Officials at OSC last month formed a task force to investigate if these other presentations may have violated the Hatch Act. The investigation is in the preliminary stages.
Comments
Karl Rove is more protected than those in line to take over the presidency if anything should happen to the president or vice-president. If this fact doesn't scare people out of their fairy tale submission to our autocratically run government, nothing will.
Rove won't be touched by anything stronger than a slap on the wrist, if that. Since he appears to be the architect of smut and dishonesty, he knows all of the skeletons and could divulge the dirty secrets. After the conviction of Scooter Libby, this administration will ensure that there are no more "mistakes".
Lurita Doan was as expendable as every other scapegoat coming out of this administration. She was used as the sacrificial lamb to give the appearance that these people could be trusted to investigate themselves.(Like the current DOJ investigation of Gonzales) This was evident by the fact that, even though Doan's investigation was done by a Republican political operative, Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA), as only bigoted people could do and usually do in this administration, engaged in racist behavior at the hearing by stating that the only reason there was an investigation was because she was a Black Republican. (Raw Story on June 14, 2007, if you didn't see the hearing) Now, as she really wasn't that important on the totem pole (scapegoat status)and the strong public evidence that existed, what could possibly be a reason for targeting her race?
So, it should be an interesting exercise in a waste of time and money, unless they get a special prosecutor)
Great, another investigation. How long is this one gonna take?? The only thing that will come from it probably is a recommendation that someone resign after breaking countless laws.
christy anderson | Sunday, June 17, 2007 | 11:07 AMAnyone who believes that the OSP, nestled happily in the bosom of Gonzo's Department of Injustice, is anything more than a hollow egg is deluded.
When real criminal investigations begin to look into these issues, the Bushies will stonewall arguing they don't want to "interfere" with the OSP. In the end, they'll slow walk the whole process until the end of Bush's term and then pardon the whole pack, which, of course, is exactly what Bush's father did. He avoided prosecution by pardoning all those who might give evidence against him.
Has anybody noticed that, with the exception of Ford, the last three Republican Presidents have seen major scandals with, literally dozens, convicted of felonies (Watergate, Arms for Hostages, Contra, Taliban support, etc.), while the last two Democratic Administrations have had exactly two convictions-Carter's banker and Clinton's attorney?
Jim Corbett | Saturday, June 16, 2007 | 02:36 PMABOUT THIS BLOG
Allan Holmes on what's happening and what's being discussed in the world of federal information technology.
feed