GSA Chief’s Future Is in President’s Hands The government’s Special Counsel charged GSA Administrator Lurita Doan with a “serious violation of the Hatch Act” and recommended that President Bush “take appropriate disciplinary action.” The Office of Special Counsel, which investigates Hatch Act violations, found that Doan asked subordinates how they could “help our candidates.” She allegedly made the remark at a meeting at GSA headquarters during working hours, in violation of the law that prohibits partisan political activity in government buildings on government time. The Hatch Act states that a federal employee can be removed from office for a violation. Because Doan is a presidential appointee confirmed by the Senate, the president is empowered to decide what, if any, action to take. The White House said there would be no comment until the Counsel’s report is sent to the president. In a statement, Doan said she disagrees with the report’s findings. “I have an opportunity, which I will take, to work with the Office of Special Counsel to correct the many inaccuracies before the final report is issued,” she said. The Special Counsel’s investigation grew out of a “brown bag luncheon” for GSA political appointees on Jan. 26. J. Scott Jennings, a deputy to White House political aide Karl Rove, gave a presentation on the outcome of the 2006 elections and the outlook for 2008. One slide in Jennings’ Power Point presentation named Democratic Congress members who were targeted for defeat next year. The Special Counsel said, “Numerous GSA political appointees testified under oath that during a question and answer session the Administrator asked a question about, ‘How can we help our candidates?’” That “is a per se violation of [the Hatch Act],” the report says. “It is inherently coercive for Administrator Doan to ask and/or encourage her subordinates to engage in political activity.” Doan said she does not remember asking the question and recalls little about the meeting. According to a copy of the Special Counsel’s report obtained by the Washington Post, Doan said her accusers were biased against her because they were poor performers and were not likely to receive bonuses or promotions. However, the Special Counsel found that some of them had received awards and promotions and none had received a poor performance review. The Counsel said Doan’s sworn statement “appears to have been purposefully misleading and false.” Doan told the investigators she was using her Blackberry to deal with e-mail rather than paying attention to Jennnings’ presentation. But the Special Counsel found she sent no e-mails during the hour-long session. The Special Counsel concluded: “Her actions, to be certain, constitute an obvious misuse of her official authority and were made for the purpose of affecting the result of an election. One can imagine no greater violation of the Hatch Act than to invoke the machinery of an agency, with all its contracts and buildings, in the service of a partisan campaign to retake Congress and the Governors’ mansions.” In a May 18 letter to Doan, Special Counsel Scott J. Bloch wrote that she would have two weeks to respond. After that, he wrote, “I will transmit any response you provide and the Report of Prohibited Political Activity to the President with my recommendation that the President take appropriate disciplinary action against you for your serious violation of the Hatch Act.” Doan’s year-long tenure at GSA has been dogged by controversy. “I’m facing a gazillion allegations,” she told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee March 28. She said she was the victim of news leaks orchestrated by people in GSA who resented her attempts to change the agency. In addition to the brown-bag luncheon, the committee questioned her about her alleged intervention in contract negotiations with Sun Microsystems after the GSA inspector general alleged that Sun had overcharged the government; and her attempt to award a sole-source contract to a friend’s public-relations firm. “I made mistakes and probably I’m going to make a few more,” Doan told the committee, “but there was no wrongdoing.” (SAA, 4/6) Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, has summoned her to testify again June 7.