GSA Chief Takes Heat For Politics In Agency, No-Bid Contract

WASHINGTON — Democrats expressed outrage Wednesday at accounts that Scott Jennings, assistant to White House aide Karl Rove, briefed personnel at the General Services Administration on the top Republican "targets" for winning back Senate and House seats in the 2008 elections.

Members of the House Oversight Committee said the gathering, an invitation-only brown bag lunch for presidential appointees, appeared to violate the federal Hatch Act, which bans most partisan activities in federal government offices.

General Services Administrator Lurita Doan, testifying at the contentious hearing, told the panel that the teleconference session had been planned at the White House and not at the GSA, a normally obscure agency that oversees contracting and purchasing for much of the federal government.

Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., called the gathering a "textbook example of what should not happen" at a federal agency.

Doan told the House investigators that she remembered almost nothing about the "PowerPoint" presentation at the Jan. 26 event, which she said was one of her staff's regular monthly "team-building" meetings.

Democrats asked repeatedly whether she had made a statement such as, "How can we help our candidates?" as was reported by a handful of the attendees in interviews with the House committee staff.

"I cannot recollect making that statement," Doan answered each time she was asked.

An entrepreneur who built up a technology company and sold it before taking the GSA post last June, she offered an energetic and unapologetic defense.

Telling the panel that she felt like the embattled lead character in the movie "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," Doan said, "I'm facing a gazillion allegations."

She asserted that all came as a reaction to "my attempt to impose fiscal discipline throughout GSA."

Doan has come under fire on several fronts, including her attempt to give a $20,000 no-bid contract to a friend.

Doan, who is African-American, said she was troubled to discover that her agency was graded "F" in accessibility to businesses owned by women, minorities and disabled veterans. She said she wanted to move quickly to correct the problem by hiring Diversity Best Practices, owned by Edie Fraser, who had been a consultant for Doan's private enterprise.

"It is a passion of mine," she said of diversity efforts. She was forced to drop her plan when she was told such contracts require competitive bidding.

The GSA chief was also challenged for her agency's renewal of a contract with Sun Microsystems, the technology provider, after a lengthy dispute and allegations of pricing fraud that have been relayed to the Department of Justice.

The agency's inspector general, Brian D. Miller, a fellow Bush administration appointee, told the congressional hearing that Doan had broken with GSA precedent by intervening in the contracting process against the advice of career officers.

Moreover, Miller said Doan had exhibited a "lack of candor" when questioned by his staff about her plans to grant a no-bid contract.

The inspector general said his office had been forced to make cutbacks after Doan cut his budget allowance for investigations.

Joining the critics was another Republican, Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, who took the unusual step of speaking out at the House hearing. Grassley, long a defender for the role of inspectors general, added his concerns about the Sun Microsystems contract.

Republican House members stopped short of defending the White House-led political briefing at the GSA, but Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia brushed off the Democratic probe as "trifling" and filled with "accusatory conjecture."

However, Democrat Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts listened to more than three hours of the hearing and told Doan that he was "deeply disappointed in your testimony" for the memory lapses and conflicting details.

The lawmaker promised to "do everything I possibly can to get to the bottom of this."