Waxman Confirms Existence Of Rove’s Politicization ‘Teams’

Waxman Confirms Existence Of Rove’s Politicization ‘Teams’

On Sunday, the Washington Post reported on Karl Rove’s politicization of the federal government. The article highlighted that Rove had organized “asset deployment teams” that allowed the White House “to coordinate the travel of Cabinet secretaries and senior agency officials” to secure GOP victories:

In practical terms, that meant Cabinet officials concentrated their official government travel on the media markets Rove’s team chose, rolling out grant decisions made by agencies with red-carpet fanfare in GOP congressional districts, and carefully crafted announcements highlighting the release of federal money in battleground states.

This morning, House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) wrote to the heads of 18 federal agencies who attended the briefings, confirming the existence of the teams:

As part of our investigation, the Committee has received documents that confirm the existence of this “asset deployment team.” According to the documents, the White House invited 18 federal agencies, including yours, to asset deployment meetings in 2003.

Those efforts extended up to the 2006 midterm elections. In his letter, Waxman reveals an e-mail from the White House Surrogate Scheduler “asking 18 federal agencies to provide press clippings from events that the agency heads did at the suggestion of the White House Office of Political Affairs.” The text of the e-mail reads:

WH Liaisons -

If you could, please have your press shops send me any good clips from the media on surrogate events your principals have done (Secretary and Sub-Cabinet), especially if they were as a result of an OPA request.

Folks over here get very excited when they see the results of all the hard work you and your agencies do on these events.

The White House has already admitted that roughly 20 agencies received PowerPoint briefings created by Rove’s office “that included slides listing Democratic and Republican seats the White House viewed as vulnerable.”

The existence of the “asset redeployment teams” adds more fuel to the controversy surrounding Rove’s unparalleled politicization schemes.

Waxman requested that information from the agencies concerning the details of meetings and coordination with the White House be turned over by Sept. 7