The Office of Special Counsel (OSC)l has released a report which concludes that President Bush illegally used taxpayers money on political campaigns, violating the Hatch Act. (actual PDF of report)
The OSC report based on an investigation that took three years to complete, says Bush's Office of Political Affairs (OPA), overseen by Karl Rove, was basically an extension of the RNC. It created a "target list" of Congressional race, organized briefings, and sent cabinet officials out to campaign, particularly around the time of the 2006 mid-term election.
The New York Times reports,
A spokesman for the Office of Special Counsel said Monday that because the administration officials had left office, it no longer has jurisdiction to file any charges. It also said that it had not made a formal referral to the Justice Department to ask it to pursue any possible charges.
A Justice Department official on Monday declined to comment when asked if it might file charges based on the report."
The cover page of the OSC report
For example, the OSC report states, in describing a slide (image below) used in a power point presentation by OPA, " used by OPA to underscore and predict close upcoming Senate races. He further recalled that the purpose of a map such as the one depicted below was to identify the states where PAS officials ought to consider engaging in political activity."
The report details the pervasive, deep within government nature of the use of OPA to push and possibly intimidate government appointees to engage in political, partisan efforts. For example, this excerpt details how even the Peace Corps were politicized by the process. "One Special Assistant to the Chief of Staff at the Peace Corps testified that she maintained a spreadsheet showing the agency's political appointees and when and where they were deploying to be campaign volunteers. The witness explained that OPA wanted to know the level of participation by political appointees as a group, and that she believed OPA expected all appointees to volunteer. She also understood that supervisors were expected to permit political appointees to take leave so they could "go off and do 72-hour campaigns." Although other witnesses from other agencies were not aware that their campaign activities were tracked, a Deputy Chief of Staff at the Peace Corps was not surprised and stated: "We are political. We wouldn't be serving in these jobs if we weren't political people. I think that's across the board for every administration that comes through this town. We get in these political jobs because you're usually engaged in some political process in some manner."Looking at inappropriate use of government facilities on government time, the report states " The evidence shows that nearly all of the 75 political briefings of which OSC is aware were presented in conference rooms and auditoriums at federal agencies as well as at the EEOB."
And, " Of the approximately 70 former political appointees interviewed by OSC who reported attending political briefings before and after 2005, none took leave to attend them. Thus, OSC concludes that of the approximately 75 political briefings OPA conducted, a majority of them took place while presenters and attendees were on duty and/or in a federal workplace. Because in many circumstances giving these briefings constituted political activity under the Hatch Act, OSC now discusses whether either OPA employees or agency political appointees violated the Hatch Act by participating in briefings during duty hours and/or in the federal workplace."
It would seem to be reasonable to ask the question why the OSC AND the DOJ would fail to pursue legal action in response to these findings. The NY Times does not seem to have done so.
This article DOES ask the question. Why are these law violators not being prosecuted?
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