Bush White House Violations: Political Briefings Reportedly Violated Hatch Act

Bush White House Violations: Political Briefings Reportedly Violated Hatch Act

www.huffingtonpost.com

The report says the electoral success of the Republican Party and possible strategies for achieving it often were on the agenda at some 75 political briefings at 20 federal agencies from 2001 to 2007. Prohibited political activities were prevalent in the months running up to the 2006 midterm elections, according to the report.

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
voices.washingtonpost.com
www.politico.com

Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
Have Bush/Cheney ever done anything that is actually illegal? Nope!

Corruption. Who'd have thought? My comments are that this was clearly obvious to many and of course denied by the usual suspects at the time.

From the Washington Post (see additional news links):

This federally funded travel was organized, approved and closely tracked by Bush's political office, the Office of Special Counsel found, describing the activity as leading to the illegal diversion of federal funds and workers' time.

Despite saying, “The department makes decisions based on the facts, evidence and the law, and nothing else," Justice Department spokeswoma­n Laura Sweeney in a remark in an email to Raw Story, it's anyone's guess what's going to happen, and remains to be seen what the Obama administration will do about this, if anything.

Wikipedia Overview of the Hatch Act

www.huffingtonpost.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

More stories about this...Maybe Rove will comment on this. I tend to think they will avoid comment altogether.

The Obama administration has announced it intends to close its Office of Political Affairs. FDallas Morning News

Former employees of the office during the Bush administration told the investigators that they saw these "political briefings as no more than informational discussions about the political landscape. New York Times

reply to post by ~Lucidity


I believe that we're rapidly approaching the point that it would be easier to list the laws that the Bush administration didn't break than to list those that they did. The Bush administration popularized the practice of doing just the opposite of what you actually say you're doing.

Glenn Beck recognized the popularity of it and has been cashing in on it ever since to the tune of 30+ million per yr.. Anyone who watches Glenn Beck and then checks the facts will find, that more often than not, the truth is quite the opposite of the rhetoric.

IMO, It's a shame that Wikileaks was not on the scene sooner. Let the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth come out now and let those responsible be held accountable.

Edit to add; By the way, didn't some republican members of the house break the very same laws just a week or two ago when they attended a political fund raiser during the swearing in ceremony of the House of Representatives? Oh yeah I forgot, they hadn't been sworn in yet, (even though they pretended to taking the oath via closed circuit t.v.) so technically they were not members of congress yet. "Do as I say, not as I do." What an Absolute Joke!

it's more of the "deny, deny, deny" mentality, I guess? And twist the facts if they're not lying outright. It looked like this administration may in fact be taking steps to control this. Guess they squeaked in under the rug?

I don't know how big a deal this could be regarding penalties or criminal charges...it almost sounds like they'd ask for taxpayer reimbursement first?

No shock here! It may just be easier to list the politicians that don't lie and cheat. I think it would be a much smaller list.

Personally, I would like to see them ALL tried for their crimes.

Does it seem that no one cares because we all think it will be handled...by someone else

It doesn't seem like an entirely trivial matter to me. At the very least it's grounds for some serious reform, some of which may have already begun.

Maybe it's just that there's too much going on....

reply to post by ~Lucidity


I think Americans have been asleep too long and worried too much about how cold their beer is to care. Now that people have been really effected by the BS that goes on in Washington, they are waking up and fighting back.

These people work for us and they need to be reminded of that.

reply to post by DonnaLynn

Yes they do need to be reminded because lately most of them haven't been working for us at all. This is just one of so many indicators of that. We could go on all day, I'm sure.