This just in from Henry Waxman’s House Oversight Committee office…
Following media reports that at least 20 political briefings were given to officials of at least 15 federal agencies, Chairman Waxman writes to government agencies requesting further information and documents about any briefings mentioning elections or candidates provided to agency employees by officials in the White House. For a list of all agencies, please visit http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1272.
A sample of one of Waxman’s letters is posted in full at the end of this article.
TPMMuckraker has WH spokesperson Dana Perino’s amusing response to questions on the issue, including video. To the point, her most impressive talking point laden response: “There’s nothing wrong with political appointees providing other political appointees with an informational briefing about the political landscape in which they are working.”
Waxman’s letter follows in full…
April 26, 2007
The Honorable Carlos M. Gutierrez
Secretary
Department of Commerce
Fourteenth Street and Constitution Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20230
Dear Mr. Secretary:
I am writing to request information about political briefings given by White House officials to federal agency officials.
On March 28, 2007, the Committee held a hearing during which Lurita Doan, the head of the General Services Administration, testified that White House officials in the Office of Political Affairs conducted a political briefing at GSA headquarters on January 26, 2007. The briefing slides, which the Committee reviewed, identified the Republican Party’s top electoral targets in the 2008 elections. After the presentation, Lurita Doan asked her staff to discuss how GSA resources could be used to help “our candidates” in the next election.
An article in today’s Washington Post reports that White House officials now confirm that, in the past year alone, at least 20 similar briefings were given to officials of at least 15 federal agencies, including the Interior Department, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Commerce Department, among others.[1]
To assist with the Committee’s continuing investigation of this issue, I request that you provide information about any briefing mentioning elections or candidates provided to agency employees by officials in the White House between January 20, 2001, and April 26, 2007. Please provide the dates, times, attendees, and locations of these briefings, as well as any communications and documents relating to the briefings. Please provide these materials to the Committee by May 18, 2007.
I wrote to you earlier this month requesting that your agency preserve and inventory all e-mails sent between White House officials and agency employees through accounts controlled by the Republican National Committee or other nongovernmental entities. At the request of the White House Counsel, I am postponing temporarily the deadline for responding to the Committee’s request. This postponement will last for two weeks, extending the deadline for response to the letter to May 18, 2007. The Committee’s postponement does not apply to the request that you take steps to preserve such e-mails.
Please note that you should not review or search the e-mails of the Office of the Inspector General in responding to the Committee’s request regarding RNC and other nongovernmental e-mails. Such action would be inappropriate because it would impinge on the statutory independence of the Inspectors General and the confidentiality of investigative communications. All copies of documents previously collected from the Office of the Inspector General pursuant to the Committee’s request should be returned to that office immediately.
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 would appreciate your cooperation with this request. If your staff has any questions about this request, they should contact David Rapallo and Anna Laitin with the Committee staff at (202) 225-5420.
Sincerely,
Henry A. Waxman
Chairman
——————————————————————————–
[1] Political Briefings at Agencies Disclosed, Washington Post (Apr. 26, 2007).
Brad!!!!
You were so right, Obama is completely owned by the Military Industial Complex.
Kucinich and Gravel just outed him.
It left Edwards and the rest stunned.
Play the tape, everyone on stage except Gravel and Kucinich were stunned to see how far this has gone with the nuke scare tactics.
Priceless moment on TV.
Thanks fopr seeing it early. Keep holding them to account!
Any true American patriot should know that he is owned (just like the rest) by something other than the USA.
{Ed Note: I never said “Obama is completely owned by the Military Industrial Complex” or anything like it. While he may or may not be, I have said nothing of the kind. Please do not put words in my mouth to support your agenda. Thanks! – BF}
“Let me tell you how it will be…WAXMAN!”
“You’re gonna get a subpoena from me…WAXMAN!”
“Cuz I’m WAXMAN…YEAH, I’m WAXMAN!”
(sing to the tune of “Taxman” by the Beatles)
He should have theme music following him around, WAXMAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
yo yow yow yippy yow yippy yeah Conyers, Waxman, and Leahy are working to save our country. Having to dig thru so much Bushit, a special team of 100 sanitation engineers armed with shovels should be employed by an appropriation bill stating the explicite function of their employment is to remove the cancerous bushista administration tumors embedded in our Democracy.
O.T. If i see one more picture of Bush senior and Clinton together yucking it up. Does anyone else get it? One big happy rich crime family although neither’s lying and criminal activities can touch the damage done in the wake of the GW Bushit Fascist takeover. They still will not open their mouths wide enough to inhale the smoke from the most famous blowjob in US history. That’s the story about how the 47 floor World Trade Tower Building #7 that was NEVER HIT by ANY AIRCRAFT & yet it somehow fell in 6 seconds 10 hours after the World Trade Twin Towers.
U would think every physics and steel concrete skyscraper architect would be investigating how this building collapsed so it could NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN. yeh right. What about you folks? Do you accept the “mysterious reasons” or “weakened ground” tale like the US CONGRESS did? Maybe aliens took it down.
Maybe it was an act of the Cheney-Silverstein God? Maybe some of Bin Ladin’s family that hadn’t left the country yet used a form of telepathy to make the building fall. Coincidently, 9/11 hero former Mayor Giuliani had an entire floor at Building #7 that was EVACUATED AT 9 am.
U want to find the cancer THEN put your boots on and grab a shovel. One more question open to anyone.
If 2 controlled demolition experts planted bombs to take down lets say a 47 story skyscraper, approximately how much explosives would be required to pull it down in it’s own footprint and how many nights of prep work would be required?
For the longest time i needed validation that the rest of this country could be unified in the belief that 9/11 WAS AN INSIDE JOB without the iron claw of the corporate mass media pointing it out. They won’t write about it BECAUSE “they” who’S interests are being served by this administration and most of CONGRESS fear that the US dollar would fall. They already aided in the immediate verification of the FIXED US ELECTION RESULTS so why the staged murder.
With a group of arab cave dwellers successfully villified and the strong arm control of all forms of media, print, TV, and radio, why would the WHITE HOUSE FASCISTS have to kill 3000 Americans to get their way? That is: a blank check for military and security spending as well as a reason to invade Iraq oil fields as well as increased Federal and Executive branch powers unrestricted. The Patriot Act, Homeland Security Act, Suspected Terrorist Act eliminating Habious Corpus allowing for torture, ILLEGAL spying on Americans could have happened with a different staged attack without killing so many innocent AMERICAN CIVILIANS. Not to leave out the BUSH/cHENEY anti-environmental efforts reversing over 200 laws, selling off the Western Wildlands, constantly attacking our pristine wild places to develope or destroy for their greedy machine.
But what went the hell went wrong with wargames on 9/11?
Was a plane suppose to hit World Trade Tower Building #7? There WAS a small structure fire. Was it suppose to expand but never happened? What about the firemen and police who surrounded the building for hours until it came down> Telling firemen not to put out a fire is like telling a dog not to piss on a fireplug. Yet i’m sure they were told their jobs and lives would be in danger if they spoke up into the deafening silence?
American People are still giving their lives from Bushit lies and association of the Iraqi government’s involvement to the events on 9/11 BUT no real patriots will talk about the real terrorist who brought down this WORLD TRADE TOWER BUILDING #7
What about Larry Silverstein who owned the building?
He already admitted that “they” made the decision to “PULL” the building because so much life had been lost that day. NO INDICTMENT> NO CONGRESSIONAL TESTEMONY. YOUR LIFE IS A FCKING CRIMINAL LIE.
What do we got? The #1 Republican candidate for PRESIDENT is Rudolph Guiliani. 9/11 Hero. The mayor in an interview on 9/11 admitted that he received word to get out of Tower II (the 1st tower to collapse in NY) because it was going to collapse.
Until 9/11 no tower has ever collapse from fire AND there is no way “they” or “anyone” could have know it was going to collapse UNLESS THEY WERE BRINGING IT DOWN. Maybe “they” need to be interviewed by CONGRESS>
ask Kindasleazy Rice how she warned willy brown NOT TO FLY ON 911…
GBD: The plane that went down in Pa., supposed to hit WTC-7?
With all that billions in cash (363 tons according to Waxman) shipped to Baghdad … and ending up in the hands of blackwater mercinaries, the RNC is a bit strapped for cash.
So, Rove said lets do the RNC’s work in the federal agencies like Ken Blackwell did it in Ohio.
Lets call it blackwellwater and sprinkle it on all the loyal bushies as holy water.
Brad,
Glad to see ya addressed comment #1 it stuck in my craw, because I questioned it’s accuracy . . .
A Big Hat’s Off to Henry Waxed Bean . . . . . Keep up the Good work . . .
O.T. Dennis Kucinich was Great last night !
Kucinich has my vote.
Kucinich on Maher:
Fantastic!
I saw 60 mintues with Scott and George (Tenet that is )
The only difference between George W and George Tenet is GT is little more intellegent and more of a Bullsh..ter ..
With the news that Gravel is uninvited from the CNN sponsored debate coming up, I think it behooves the other parties to demand his inclusion. If they don’t they are nothing but spineless wimps who will happily let the news media decide who is a legit Democrat and who isn’t.
They should all demand Gravel’s inclusion or withdraw from the event.
As far as Clinton and Bush pere hanging out together, don’t you get it? Clinton was allowed to become president with the understanding that he would eviscerate welfare, get NAFTA passed, and start restricticting civil liberties. A GOP president would not have gotten away with any of that.
Once he had kept his part of the bargain, the hounds were unleashed and he was impeached. I’ve said it for years, the GOP views any hint of compromise or bipartisanship as weakness and will go for the jugular. That’s why I’m extremely pissed at the Democrats as they plod along instead of getting in Bush’s face and demanding through subpoenas every bit of paper that was generated, every message that went through either the White House or RNC servers, everything.
Let the American people see just how obstructionist these bastards are. Although with these people having been in power for a generation, we actually have college (and law school) graduates who forget that America existed pre-Ronald Raygun and they never really got to see America.