Believe it or not, there are some places in Washington, DC where political games are a big no-no.

A few weeks back, I shared a story about how a partisan political presentation given at the General Services Administration by Karl Rove’s deputy Scott Jennings may have violated the Hatch Act. The Hatch Act states that federal government employees may not engage in political activity while they are acting in their official capacity. The fact that this occurred in GSA offices, during work hours and attendees at the meetings say that GSA Chief Lurita Doan asked participants to think about how they could use GSA initiatives to help Republican candidates, this clearly raised some red flags.

Well, it looks like this politicization of government offices may have been more widespread than previously thought.

Earlier in the week, the Office of Special Counsel (not affiliated with the Justice Department), stated that it would begin investigating Karl Rove over allegations that he may be at the center of multiple Hatch Act violations, his role in the attorney firings and the issues of missing White House emails.

In all honesty, this investigation could be a sham but, even a fake investigation could still result in some real questions in the eyes of the public. This must be why the White House is now saying that it has recently held some 20 “political briefings” with federal employees on the election prospects of Republican candidates. The White House claims that there is nothing to see here and everything was done above board. These 20 meetings just cover 2006 and 2007. The White House is not disclosing how many were held in previous years.

So, one has to ask just how many federal agencies were used as tools of the GOP instead of actually being used for the jobs we pay them to do. I would suggest everyone read up on the Hatch Act. I have a suspicion that we’ll be hearing more about it in the coming weeks.

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