It's not quite Fitzmas, and it's a different agency that's investigating, but there may be a new holiday to celebrate if this inquiry goes where I think it's going:
Political Briefings At Agencies Disclosed – washingtonpost.com
Such coercion is prohibited under a federal law, known as the Hatch Act, meant to insulate virtually all federal workers from partisan politics. In addition to forbidding workplace pressures meant to influence an election outcome, the law bars the use of federal resources — including office buildings, phones and computers — for partisan purposes.
The administration maintains that the previously undisclosed meetings were appropriate. Those discussing the briefings on the record yesterday uniformly described them as merely "informational briefings about the political landscape." But House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), who has been investigating the GSA briefing, said, "Politicization of departments and agencies is a serious issue. We need to know more about these and other briefings."
In the GSA briefing — conducted like all the others by a deputy to chief White House political adviser Karl Rove — two slides were presented showing 20 House Democrats targeted for defeat and several dozen vulnerable Republicans.
[tags]Rove, GSA, Hatch Act[/tags]
At its completion, GSA Administrator Lurita Alexis Doan asked how GSA projects could be used to help "our candidates," according to half a dozen witnesses. The briefer, J. Scott Jennings, said that topic should be discussed "off-line," the witnesses said. Doan then replied, "Oh, good, at least as long as we are going to follow up," according to an account given by former GSA chief acquisition officer Emily Murphy to House investigators, according to a copy of the transcript
