Corruption: The Cancer of Government

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform holds a hearing: “Allegations of Misconduct at the General Services Administration.” The hearing inquires about allegations that GSA Administrator Lurita Doan failed to follow proper procedures for awarding federal contracts, attempted to intervene in contract negotiations, and engaged in partisan political activities on federal property. Rep. Braley questions GSA head Doan about a political briefing given at GSA headquarters.

In this clip, Rep. Bruce Braley (D-IA) grills her on a PowerPoint presentation (.pdf) given by Karl Rove’s deputy Scott Jennings to GSA personnel in January. The slides (13 pages) detailed which seats were “House Targets” and which “Senate Targets”, which states were “Republican Offense,” and which “Republican Defense.” After the presentation, Doan reportedly asked other employees how the agency could help “our candidates.” The GSA, remember, is the government’s procurement agency, in charge of almost $60 billion each year. All of this seems like a clear violation of the Hatch Act, which prohibits using federal resources to aid political parties.

Doan doesn’t have a good answer for Braley’s questions, stuttering out “I don’t recall”s and something about how the meeting was a “brown bag lunch” for the purpose of “team building.” You should “ask Mr. Jennings,” she says. [Source]

Additional footage of these hearings with others’ questions are available here at YouTube. There’s more here in a recent article over at the Washington Post…

The committee’s examination of the Jan. 26 videoconference could raise questions about the role of Jennings, the White House official who works for Rove.

Jennings’s name has recently surfaced in investigations of the firing of eight U.S. attorneys around the country. He communicated with Justice Department officials concerning the appointment of Tim Griffin, a former Rove aide, as U.S. attorney in Little Rock, according to e-mails released this month. For that exchange, Jennings, although working at the White House, used an e-mail account registered to the Republican National Committee, where Griffin had worked as a political opposition researcher.

Mr. Jennings is the one who has decided to invoke his Fifth Amendment right to not incriminate himself by testifying under oath about the firings of the US attorneys, and Doan very well knows this. Funny now things keep connecting back to Mr. Rove, too. He has much to be worried about, which helps explain what lengths he would go to to bury all the skeletons in his closet.

Back in December, 2006, CBS’s Bob Schieffer had this to say about Ms. Doan:

Ms. Doan seems to worry more about the auditors being disruptive. According to the (Washington) Post, she told a staff meeting, “There are two kinds of terrorism in the United States — the external kind, and internally, the Inspector Generals.”

For the record, she denies the quote, but as we put all this into our “You can’t make this stuff up” file, we note highlights from her biography and that of her Inspector General.

Before going into public service, she was a government contractor.

And, Inspector General Miller did have a connection to terrorism: He was once a federal prosecutor who helped bring the case against terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui.

It seems she equates any kind of government oversight whatsoever, including that by the Inspector Generals, with ‘terrorists’. She claims that the Office of the Inspector General was investigating her as an act of retaliation for her efforts to rein in government spending. This flies in the face of evidence that she doled out no-bid contracts to Sun Microsystems, and to her friend and associate Edie Fraser, a veteran Washington public relations executive who had served as a very well paid consultant to Doan.

Henry Waxman (D-CA), Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has alleged that Doan “attempted to go forward with issuing a $20,000 (per month) no-bid contract to Fraser even after GSA General Counsel Alan Swendiman repeatedly advised that the contract be terminated due to its questionable legality.” It might also interest you to know that Doan’s former company profited handsomely off the immigration issue, since their business was surveillance along the US-Mexico border. [Speculation: I wonder how or if this ties in with those House of Death murders in Juaréz?]

For me, it has increasingly become apparent that the politicization of government agencies with this BushCo bunch seems to be a trivial matter to them… their attitude seems to be that if they can get away with it, it’s all good. Keep digging Mr. Waxman, and do look into those non-government email servers, equipment, internet services, and facilities being used by these Republicans for political/un-official purposes, even while these people are on the public payroll. There’s a whole lot of tentacles needing to be severed here to unravel this Octopus-like mess.

BTW, remember those 3,000 pages of emails and other documents released to the committee last week? Some of those emails were sporting non-governmental email addresses, including gwb43.com… From Wonkette:

The secret server isn’t part of the government or officially part of the Executive Office. Karl Rove apparently does 95% of his e-mailing using the GWB43.com server. Bush claims his office doesn’t use e-mail at all, specifically because he doesn’t want to leave any evidence that could be subpoenaed — obviously, all presidential e-mail is also through the secret private mail server.

When they are put on trial, there will be no written record of their thievery and campaigns of horror, because there won’t be any e-mail archives.
Here’s the domain’s registration info:

Domain Name: GWB43.COM

Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:

Republican National Committee dns@RNCHQ.ORG

310 First Street SE

Washington, DC 20003

US

999 999 9999 fax: 999 999 9999

Record expires on 16-Jan-2008.

Record created on 16-Jan-2004.
Database last updated on 21-Mar-2007 17:45:46 EDT.

Ha ha, it’s also a federal crime to use false phone numbers in a domain registration.

Ha ha ha, a political party accountable to no-one — okay, it is accountable to Halliburton executives — owns the domain for the secret private mail server the Bush Administration uses to evade the law. Ha ha. Ha.

I did a little digging on my own (netsol)…

Domain ID:D1493755-LROR
Domain Name:RNCHQ.ORG
Created On:02-Jul-1996 04:00:00 UTC
Last Updated On:02-May-2005 14:19:37 UTC
Expiration Date:01-Jul-2014 04:00:00 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:Network Solutions LLC (R63-LROR)
Status:CLIENT TRANSFER PROHIBITED
Registrant ID:19321559-NSI
Registrant Name:Republican National Committee
Registrant Organization:Republican National Committee
Registrant Street1:310 First Street SE
Registrant Street2:
Registrant Street3:
Registrant City:Washington
Registrant State/Province:DC
Registrant Postal Code:20003
Registrant Country:US
Registrant Phone:+1.2028638670
Registrant Phone Ext.:
Registrant FAX:
Registrant FAX Ext.:
Registrant Email:gopdomains@rnchq.org
Admin ID:6248954-NSI
Admin Name:Steve ** Ellis
Admin Street1:310 First Street SE
Admin Street2:**
Admin Street3:
Admin City:Washington
Admin State/Province:DC
Admin Postal Code:20003
Admin Country:US
Admin Phone:+1.2028638670
Admin Phone Ext.:
Admin FAX:
Admin FAX Ext.:
Admin Email:dns@RNCHQ.ORG
Tech ID:15683805-NSI
Tech Name:RNC
Tech Organization:RNC
Tech Street1:310 1ST ST SE
Tech Street2:
Tech Street3:
Tech City:WASHINGTON
Tech State/Province:DC
Tech Postal Code:20003-1885
Tech Country:US
Tech Phone:+1.2028638651
Tech Phone Ext.:
Tech FAX:
Tech FAX Ext.:
Tech Email:knolan@RNCHQ.ORG
Name Server:NS1.CHA.SMARTECHCORP.NET
Name Server:A.NS.TRESPASSERS-W.NET

IP Address: 64.203.98.129 (ARIN & RIPE IP search)
IP Location: US(UNITED STATES)-TENNESSEE-CHATTANOOGA
Record Type: Domain Name
Server Type: IIS 6
Web Site Status: Active
DMOZ no listings
Y! Directory: see listings
Web Site Title: GOP.com | Republican National Committee :: Home
Secure: No
E-commerce: No
Traffic Ranking: Not available
Data as of: 19-Oct-2006

There are other domains as well, most particularly some uncovered during the Jack Abramoff investigation. Mr. Waxman is very, very interested in these domains, since, even though they aren’t government domains, government computers were used to send and receive email while these employees were on the public payroll. I wonder if the NSA scooped those emails up in their vacuum cleaner-like surveillance activities? Are you shitting bricks yet, Karl?

*very big grin*