More on the OSC Doan Report

Earlier today Government Executive reported that the Office of Special Counsel concluded that General Services Administration Administrator Lurita Doan violated the Hatch Act. The 21-page report, obtained by Government Executive, is a sharply worded document that calls into questions much of Doan's recollection, or lack thereof, of the charge that she violated the law by hosting a meeting at GSA headquarters, where a special assistant to the president showed a PowerPoint presentation that analyzed the results of the 2006 midterm election. Doan allegedly asked how GSA could help the Republican candidates.

The report is full of details of Doan's testimony and questions of how it contradicts other witness testimony, most of which we could not fit in the news story. We provide some for you here:

-- Throughout the report, investigator Scott Bloch suggests that Doan did not give an accurate portrayal of the events that occurred at the January meeting. For example, according to the report, Doan told investigators that she did not pay attention to the PowerPoint slide presentation on the 2006 elections because:

she dislikes PowerPoint presentations; she was uninterested in the topic; she does not care about polls; and, she felt the presentation had nothing to do with her or what she does on a daily basis at GSA. Lastly, Administrator Doan testified that she was on her Blackberry ... reviewing emails ... and only periodically looked up and down.

In a footnote, investigators report that Doan contributed $226,000 to Republican candidates and Republican organizations and asked Doan why she contributed to candidates and organizations when "she does not care about polls or election results. Doan responded by testifying that the contributions had been 'taken out of context.'" She told the OSC that she does not believe that $225,000 is a substantial amount in light of her other contributions to nonpolitical organizations, such as giving more than $1 million to her alma mater Vassar College, more than a half a million dollars to the New Harman Center of Shakespeare Theatre and more than $50,000 to fund minority businesses.

"Although Ms. Doan again repeated that her donations to these Republican organizations have been taken out of context," according to the report, "she failed to explain why she donated any amount to these organizations whose purpose is to elect Republican candidates."

Also, an OSC review of her e-mail use during the meeting failed to corroborate that she was checking or sending email via her BlackBerry.

-- The report challenges Doan's claim that she cannot remember whether or not she made any remark along the lines of "how can we help our candidates," but the report provides a long list of events at the meeting she did recall:

Administrator Doan testified that as she was getting ready to leave for the January 26 meeting, she was interrupted by a phone call or her personal digital assistant. She testified that she told Meghan and Brittany, her two assistants, that she would be down to the meeting in a few minutes. She remembered that they took with them the cookies she had purchased previously for the meeting. Upon entering the meeting, she remembers being surprised that the video conferencing system and the refresh rate were working. Ms. Doan also testified that she remembered thinking that there were not that many people at the meeting. Administrator Doan also remembered that she sat near Mr. Jennings and was sitting near a "young perky looking" woman, whom she thought might be a new GSA employee. Administrator Doan remembers that Kevin Messner was sitting at the far end of the table. She also remembered that three or four people left during the presentation including her Associate Administrator for Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs. Despite remembering all of these details concerning the meeting, Administrator Doan testified that she could not remember whether she made any comment about "how can we help our candidates.

Doan also told OSC that she did not give Scott Jennings, who presented the slide show, a tour of GSA's offices and did not know if Jennings went elsewhere in the building after the presentation. But Jennings and GSA White House Liaison J.B. Horton told OSC that after the meeting, Doan gave Jennings a tour of the immediate area around her office and talked about the artwork.

-- Investigators report that Doan tried to defend her contention that she could not remember the statement regarding helping candidates by questioning the memory of the witnesses who testified that she did ask the quesiton:

Administrator Doan's implication that the adverse testimony provided by her political appointees should be questioned because of the alleged variations is unconvincing. Administrator Doan is holding the adverse witnesses to a standard which she does not hold herself. First Ms. Doan does not recall or remember anything about Mr. Jennings' presentation or any of the comments that Mr. Jennings' made, yet she claims to remember the statements made by attendees after Mr. Jennings' presentation concluded. Second, with respect to the alleged statements she can remember, they were preface with a caveat that she could not recall verbatim what she said.