Tom Davis and Alberto Gonzales

Tom Davis defends Alberto Gonzales?

Actually, he is defending the Alberto Gonzales of the General Services Administration,Lurita Alexis Doan.

This is much smarter: not only is the spotlight is not as bright on GSA as it is on Justice, but GSA contractors are a lot more willing to pay politicians for access to the contracts GSA awards. Davis collects protection money from them, which he wouldn't get if he were defending Gonzales. The prize GSA contract is Networx, the biggest GSA contract ever, at $20 billion. Not counting other GSA bidders who have contributed to Davis, the bidders on Networx have paid him, and his wife, campaign contributions of over half a million dollars. His wife, a Virginia pol with no campaign limits, gets additional cash from such donors through her work for ICG, a lobbying and consulting firm whose services include preparing GSA contractors for hearings before the House Oversight and Reform Committee. That’s the Committee Tom Davis chaired until January 2007.

Tom Davis has been slowing down the GSA hearing with prepared remarks defending Doan and softball questions to the Bush donor.

If Davis wants to defend federal workers, perhaps he should start with the workers Doan maligned when she lied about their performance ratings, saying they were low. They were not low.

Let's not forget that for the crooks to keep power, they needed a multi-pronged attack: They needed the contributions from contractors with GSA and the other agencies contracting out core functions, donated to people in a position to take the money: Delay, Foley, and Davis, with a little help from Abramoff. They used the money for schemes such as the ones suppressing voter turn out. And they needed loyal Bushies in the Justice Department lawyers to look the other way.

Let’s look at the similarities between the Alberto Gonzales scandal at Justice and the GSA scandal:

I. Critics of Lurita Doan are poor performers.

Doan obstructed the investigation into her Hatch Act violation by claiming the witnesses had motive to lie: "There's not a single one of those who did not have somewhere in between a poor to totally inferior performance,” she said. Actually, three of the five witnesses "met performance expectations;" 3 on the rating scale of 5. Government raters are required to give a quota of "3" ratings, so many superior employees end up taking turns getting the 3. One appointee had been rated 4 of 5, and another had received the highest rating 5 of 5.

* Critics of Alberto Gonzales are poor performers.

II. Critics of Lurita Doan are picking on a successful African American, according to Davis.

REP. DAVIS OPENING STATEMENT:…the retaliation is actually being done against an African-American entrepreneur who supports the Bush Administration.

* Critics of Alberto Gonzales are picking on a successful Hispanic.

Not even Hispanics say this anymore.

III. Lurita Doan “can’t recall” the meeting where the improper activity occurred.
* Alberto Gonzales “can’t recall” the meeting where the improper activity occurred.

IV. Lurita Doan remembers the meetings in question but didn’t pay attention when the improper activity occurred. She claims she was Blackberrying. However, there is no Blackberry activity on her account during this meeting.

* Alberto Gonzales remembers the meetings in question but didn’t pay attention when the improper activity occurred.

Cross posted on MyDD and DailyKos.

Lurita Doan and Tom Davis: "the most pernicious of political activity"

Tom Davis and other Republican incumbents in the "Rove/Doan slideshow" should release their 2006 schedules, to show if they were illegally scheduled by GSA for events that would help their campaigns.

WAPO today:

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

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

Lurita Doan's defense? She couldn't have said anything; she never pays attention in Karl Rove meetings.

Doan told investigators that she did not pay attention to the briefing by White House political aide [to Karl Rove] J. Scott Jennings because she was busy reading e-mail on her BlackBerry....

Tom Davis had GSA champion Angela Styles fired because of her effective oversight over Tom Davis campaign donors. She was replaced with the likes of felon David Safarian and Lurita Doan.

Tom Davis and Lurita Doan

Several stories here and here in WaPo expose more corruption and taxpayer robbery this week. The only problem is the Post once again fails to mention the get-away car driver: Tom Davis.

Blogged more here, while Davis was head of the House Oversight committee, Lurita Doan of GSA was making sure that Republicans, including Davis, were given assignments, such as appearing in government public ceremonies and events, that would give them "ink" and time in the media in a favorable light.

First, Scott Higham and Robert O'Harrow of WaPo report that the conclusion of the new Special Counsel's Report is that the "GSA Chief Violated the Hatch Act."

Today, WaPO reports that Doan has been asked to refresh her bad memory and testify again on June 7. That invitation is from new Oversight Committee chair Harvey Waxman. Will he ask her to explain why Tom Davis appears on the slide of politicians whose campaigns must be "helped" by federal employees on government time?

According to the first version of the report by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, the Office said,"we recommend that the President take disciplinary action against Administrator Doan" because "her disregard for such protections and safeguards is serious and warrants punishment." Those passages were removed from the final version sent to Doan. The final version included a cover letter from Special Counsel Scott J. Bloch containing his "recommendation that the President take appropriate disciplinary action against you for your serious violation of the Hatch Act."

The second robbery is blogged here. According to WaPo, on April 12 the U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Arkansas filed suit against Sun [Microsystems], alleging that the company violated the False Claims Act when it "made false statements to the government about its commercial sales practices and the discounts it offers to its commercial customers." While Davis ignored the fraud, he raked in the campaign contributions.

Washington Post says administration's use of federal employees to manipulate elections is a bad idea

Republican incumbents should release their 2006 schedule, to show if they received this illegal GSA help.

Playing Politics at the GSA: Lurita Doan's willful disregard of the Hatch Act

Tuesday, April 3, 2007; Page A22

LURITA DOAN, the troubled and troubling administrator of the General Services Administration, wants us to "honestly and absolutely" believe that she has no recollection of a meeting she hosted for political appointees with a White House official that had all the feel of a Republican pep rally. There was a PowerPoint presentation on the 2006 elections and talk of using the agency to help GOP candidates in the next election cycle. Yet the Republican fundraiser, who's been in her post for only 10 months, would have us think she forgot.

* * * *

All this -- the PowerPoint presentation, the high-level official from the White House who did the presentation, the go-team cheerleading of Ms. Doan -- leads us to an important question: Who else in the federal government has seen this show? House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) asked that question and more in a letter to Mr. Rove on March 29. He, and we, are eager for a response.

Karl Rove staff and Lurita Doan offer your help to local corrupt Republicans

Karl Rove deputy J. Scott Jennings directed Lurita Doan, the chief of the GSA, and as many as 40 agency officials to help in the re-election of embattled Republicans in the 2006 election. The presentation was made by the White House aide given at the General Services Administration and discussed targeting 20 Democratic congressional candidates in the next election.

Jennings' 28-page presentation included 2006 election results and listed the names of Democratic candidates considered beatable and Republican lawmakers thought to need their help in 2008. The 2008 list includes the following local pols: Thelma Drake (VA-02), Roscoe Bartlett (MD-06) and Tom Davis (VA-11) . The last two slides of the 28 identify Virginia as battleground states in the 2008 Senate race where GSA help will be needed.

WaPo covers politics and the GSA here.

GSA Head to Staff: “Find Opportunities to Help Republican Political Candidates”

Crossposted at Raising Kaine and Daily Kos.

Project on Government Oversight (POGO) today says:

Today House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry Waxman put to rest recent reports that GSA Administrator Lurita Doan may have been acting in good faith when she steered a $20,000 contract to an old friend. According to a release from Waxman’s office, "Ms. Fraser used her professional connections to advance Doan’s nomination to GSA and to provide personal favors, and that Ms. Fraser continued to provide services with the expectation of payment to Ms. Doan after she became GSA Administrator.”

"Besides being caught with her hand in the cookie jar, Doan apparently urged her staff at GSA “to find opportunities to help Republican political candidates.”

The Post was a few hours behind POGO here.

Lurita Doan marches to the corrupt drum. See all the corruption and waste the Oversight Committee has been exposing since the Democrats took over just a few weeks ago. Who was responsible for oversight before Henry Waxman (D-CA) took over? Tom Davis (R-VA)

There are more installments in the series from Robert O'Harrow and Scott Higham. According to this story, at GSA, where Tom Davis forced out Angela Styles for friend and felon David Safarian, Lurita Doan took over. Doan was a very friendly donor to Davis when he was RNCC Chair; the Doan family gave $153,215 to Republicans and over $40,000 to Davis's RNCC when he was Chair. At GSA, for the second time in her federal career, Doan illegally bypassed her own staff to provide a no-bid contract to a friend.

Although the Post states that three Committee members signed a letter asking for an explanation of the fraud, they don't dare embarrass Tom Davis by saying Davis, the Committee Chair, was not bothered enough by the stink to be one of the signers. The letter asking for an explanation was signed by minority Committee members Waxman, Holmes-Norton, and Obserstar.

On her way out of GSA, Styles had said "There is still not a lot of oversight in some areas of our contracting system, and I think it will haunt us." Done.