In April, the Office of Special Counsel launched what the LA Times described as a “broad investigation into key elements of the White House political operations that for more than six years have been headed by chief strategist Karl Rove.” The OSC, generally a fairly obscure federal investigative unit that reviews Hatch Act violations and charges of discrimination in the federal workforce, suggested the probe would encompass quite a bit, including the U.S. Attorney purge, missing White House e-mails, and the Bush gang’s efforts to politicize presidential appointees.
“This is a big deal,” Paul C. Light, a New York University expert on the executive branch, said of OSC’s plan. “It is a significant moment for the administration and Karl Rove. It speaks to the growing sense that there is a nexus at the White House that explains what’s going on in these disparate investigations.”
We haven’t heard too much about the investigation since, but ThinkProgress reports that things are moving right along.
Eighteen agencies have been asked by the Office of Special Counsel to preserve electronic information dating back to January 2001 as part of its governmentwide investigation into alleged violations of the law that limits political activity in federal agencies.
The OSC task force investigating the claims has asked agencies, including the General Services Administration, to preserve all e-mail records, calendar information, phone logs and hard drives going back to the beginning of the Bush administration. The task force is headed by deputy OSC special counsel James Byrne.
Why 18 separate federal agencies? Because Karl Rove’s office has been awfully busy.
The WaPo reported in April:
White House officials conducted 20 private briefings on Republican electoral prospects in the last midterm election for senior officials in at least 15 government agencies covered by federal restrictions on partisan political activity, a White House spokesman and other administration officials said yesterday.
The previously undisclosed briefings were part of what now appears to be a regular effort in which the White House sent senior political officials to brief top appointees in government agencies on which seats Republican candidates might win or lose, and how the election outcomes could affect the success of administration policies, the officials said.
Oddly enough, the day before that report was published, House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) delivered a sweeping indictment of the White House’s political tactics in a speech at the Brookings Institution. “Instead of promoting solutions to our nation’s broad challenges, the Bush Administration used all the levers of power to promote their party and its narrow interests,” Emanuel explained. He added that the Bush gang lives by a “guiding principle… insinuating partisan politics into every aspect of government.”
A White House spokesperson responded that Emanuel’s conclusions sounded like something from “the National Enquirer,” and accused Emanuel of “creating grand conspiracy theories that have no basis in fact.”
Funny, the Bush gang isn’t saying that anymore.