Chalk Up Another One

Add the nation's drug czar to the list of agency appointees politicking for the Republican Party.

[Drug] czar, John Walters, and his deputies traveled on the taxpayers' dime to 20 events with vulnerable Republican members of Congress in the months prior to the 2006 elections, according to a committee press release. Not only that, but several of the trips were "combined with the announcement of federal grants or actions that benefited the districts of the Republican members." If government officials were using government funds to help elect Republicans, that would be a violation of the Hatch Act.

[House oversight committee chair Henry] Waxman has uncovered emails [...] that show the White House's enthusiasm for using agency heads as political props. Among them is an email that describes a proud Karl Rove boasting after the 2006 election that the drug czar's office and officials from the departments of Commerce, Transportation, and Agriculture had gone "above and beyond the call of duty" in making "surrogate appearances."

  TPM Muckraker

That's why they don't want to release emails and why they hide emails on a GOP server.

I'd say you'd be pretty safe in assuming all federal agencies to which Bush has appointed a director have been/are being used for political purposes. If you assume that, I won't have to keep posting about it, and we'll just call it done.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Update: The House Judiciary issued new subpoenas for emails from the GOP servers last week. Yeah. Like that's gonna do any good.

...but hey...

Further Update 7/24/07: A list of federal agencies put on notice by Karl Rove to serve the GOP is at TPM here.