Ol' Dubya was disregarding legal and moral guidelines long before he got to the White House, so once he was there it was almost second nature.
From starting wars under false pretexts and redefining torture when it suited the end results, perhaps the worst abuse was during the run-up to the 2006 midterm election where Republicans lost control of the House. During that time, the Bush administration repeatedly broke the law by using federal funds to send Cabinet secretaries and other high-level political appointees to congressional districts of GOP candidates in tight races.
How'd he do it? "Because those trips were classified as official, funds from the U.S. Treasury were used to finance the trips and reimbursement from the relevant campaigns was never sought," stated the report by the Office of Special Counsel, the independent federal agency that enforces Hatch Act restrictions on partisan political activity inside the federal government. "In other cases, even when trips were correctly designated as political, agencies used U.S. Treasury funds to cover the costs associated with the trips and did not recoup those funds as required by the Hatch Act and its regulations."
OSC found that 10 agencies used federal funds to pay for political appointees to travel to events supporting Republican candidates in 2006 and were monitored closely by the White House Office of Political Affairs. That means there was White House oversight in breaking the law. Its one thing to mislead the American people to invade foreign nations for their oil, but this was a deliberate breaking of the law. The report says that aspects of OPA that came in conflict with the Hatch Act during the Bush era "have apparently existed for decades."
Unfortunately, Hatch Act violations are punishable with a maximum penalty of dismissal - and that's unavailable now that all involved have left the government. The 10 agencies that used federal funds to pay for political appointees to travel to events supporting Republican candidates in 2006 were the departments of Transportation, Interior, Housing and Urban Development, Education, Agriculture, Health and Human Services, Energy, the Veterans Administration, the Small Business Administration and the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
From starting wars under false pretexts and redefining torture when it suited the end results, perhaps the worst abuse was during the run-up to the 2006 midterm election where Republicans lost control of the House. During that time, the Bush administration repeatedly broke the law by using federal funds to send Cabinet secretaries and other high-level political appointees to congressional districts of GOP candidates in tight races.
How'd he do it? "Because those trips were classified as official, funds from the U.S. Treasury were used to finance the trips and reimbursement from the relevant campaigns was never sought," stated the report by the Office of Special Counsel, the independent federal agency that enforces Hatch Act restrictions on partisan political activity inside the federal government. "In other cases, even when trips were correctly designated as political, agencies used U.S. Treasury funds to cover the costs associated with the trips and did not recoup those funds as required by the Hatch Act and its regulations."
OSC found that 10 agencies used federal funds to pay for political appointees to travel to events supporting Republican candidates in 2006 and were monitored closely by the White House Office of Political Affairs. That means there was White House oversight in breaking the law. Its one thing to mislead the American people to invade foreign nations for their oil, but this was a deliberate breaking of the law. The report says that aspects of OPA that came in conflict with the Hatch Act during the Bush era "have apparently existed for decades."
Unfortunately, Hatch Act violations are punishable with a maximum penalty of dismissal - and that's unavailable now that all involved have left the government. The 10 agencies that used federal funds to pay for political appointees to travel to events supporting Republican candidates in 2006 were the departments of Transportation, Interior, Housing and Urban Development, Education, Agriculture, Health and Human Services, Energy, the Veterans Administration, the Small Business Administration and the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
No comments:
Post a Comment