The Bush gang hoped to have the Armstrong Williams story go by unnoticed by releasing the Education Department’s report late on Friday afternoon, but in light of the significance of the controversy, it shouldn’t get lost in the shuffle.
At the outset, the agency’s report, prepared by the Education Department’s inspector general includes limited content — the Bush gang decided that IG John Higgins would not be allowed to ask questions of White House employees. What’s more, Higgins’ research did not include a review of whether the Williams arrangement constituted illegal propaganda. As such, the report does not offer anyone (the public, lawmakers, the media) a complete picture of what, exactly, happened.
Nevertheless, one of the things we learned is that the White House response to the initial story was untrue. Bush, when asked about Williams’ $241,000 contract, said, “[W]e didn’t know about this in the White House.” Similarly, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan also said this was a “contracting matter” between the Department of Education and Williams and that the White House wasn’t involved.
Both of these claims were demonstrably false.
The report said that Education Department officials who were concerned about the Williams contract took their complaints last summer to David Dunn, who was then the special assistant to the president for domestic policy and is now [Education Secretary Margaret] Spellings’s chief of staff. The report noted that Dunn “indicated he agreed with their concerns” but did not explain why the White House did not end the arrangement.
In fact, Dunn was intimately involved in the process of putting Williams on the payroll — he had at least four conversations about the Williams contract with concerned Education Department officials last summer, while serving at the White House. What did Dunn do in response to the agency’s concerns? With whom did he share those concerns at the White House? We don’t know — the White House refused to allow Higgins to question Dunn about his time as a presidential policy adviser. (Insert obligatory “What did the White House know and when did they know it?” line here)
So, is the scandal officially over? Not entirely. The Government Accountability Office and the Federal Communications Commission are continuing separate inquiries. Stay tuned.