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Brutal.



The Hatch Act bars the use of on-the-clock government personnel or government assets in the pursuit of partisan political operations. The statute predates World War II, and was signed approximately 19 years before the witness, GSA Administrator Lurita Doan, was born in 1958.

But even more importantly, what does winning the House and Senate for the GOP have to do with the GSA? Even if the Hatch Act did not prohibit it? The legitimate business of the GSA is government building maintenance and repair, not helping Ken Mehlman win elections in Pennsylvania or Ohio or Maryland. It's like expecting U.S. Attorneys to stop prosecuting cases by the book and instead use their offices to help their party's friends and ruin their political opponents. Thank goodness that went out with Nixon. Oh, wait....

I think she's lying, but that's my opinion of her demeanor and the reasonableness of her responses. She remembers the meeting, but knows that the questions will be more likely to go away if she doesn't feed them anything. Attending a meeting where the Hatch Act gets violated and further violations are solicited is something you would remember. Unless it's routine, which would be more damning. She may regret not pursuing Renaissance Literature more fully when all is said and done.

Rove should be great on the stand. He probably cannot claim executive privilege if the reports about him using RNC email accounts are accurate; no matter what Bush thinks, this is not a one party state in which the party is the government. The RNC is not the government and communications on its server are not what executive privilege protects. This explanation of the hazards of using non-White House email accounts to conduct White House business was helpful.