Lit_Match

House Oversight Committee calls ex-Rove aide Taylor back to Hill
07-17-07|Raw Story|By Michael Roston

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) has asked Sara Taylor, the former top aide to Karl Rove in the White House, to return to Capitol Hill for a deposition next week.

Taylor complied with a Congressional subpoena and appeared last week before the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify in the investigation of the firing of 8 US Attorneys. Now, Waxman is suggesting that Taylor might be implicated in politicizing government programs that Waxman has called 'historically nonpartisan.'

Waxman, the Oversight Committee's chair, was particularly critical of the White House appearing to deploy the nation's 'drug control czar' and his staff in the Office of National Drug Control Policy to Republican Congressional campaign events.

"As the nation's drug czar, Director [John] Walters has the responsibility to oversee the federal government's domestic and international drug control efforts," he wrote in the Tuesday letter. "It is hard to understand how his ability to perform this essential function would be enhanced by extensive taxpayer-funded travel to 'god awful places' to appear with vulnerable Republican members."

Waxman's reference to 'god awful places' pointed to an e-mail written by Douglas Simon, the White House's drug control liaison, who praised the ONDCP for helping out on Congressional campaigns.

The California Democrat went on to suggest that the trips might not be completely in keeping with existing laws.

"In the case of ONDCP, in particular, the politicization described in the documents appears inconsistent with the agency's tradition of nonpartisanship," he argued. "In 1994, Congress passed legislation to insulate the drug czar and the agency's Senate-confirmed deputies from political pressures by prohibiting them from engaging in political activities even on their own time."

In the letter, four Republican Congressmembers are identified as having received campaign-related visits from the ONDCP: Rep. Jim Gibbons of Nevada; Senator Jim Talent of Missouri; Jon Porter, also of Nevada; and, Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona.

Talent was defeated in his 2006 re-election campaign. Gibbons now serves as Nevada Governor, and is reportedly under federal investigation for bribery accusations.

The letter went on to suggest that the White House was attempting to use government machinery for purely political ends.

"Evidence is mounting that White House efforts to inject political considerations into official government business extend beyond the Department of Justice and the General Services Administration," Waxman wrote to Taylor. "Your memo to ONDCP details an extensive itinerary of pre-election travel, including 20 events with vulnerable Republican members. It appears that even historically nonpartisan federal agencies like ONDCP were expected to use federal resources to assist endangered Republican members."

Waxman asked Taylor to voluntarily appear before the committee's staff for a July 24 deposition. He also suggested that additional topics might be raised in the deposition.

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Donation links to NORML (The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) | MPP (Marijuana Policy Project)

xxdr_zombiexx

[zombienote: I am posting this at Daliy Kos around Noon EST. Those who might have an account there are asked to consider checking there after that time and recommending it. Thanks!]

I keep telling people: cannabis prohibition and the war on drugs are far bigger problems than they know. I keep telling them the GOP uses the war on drugs as a political tool.

Well, here we have Henry Waxman asking the Office of the Drug Czar and John Walters about apparent misuse of tax dollars in "2006 republican campaigns, particularly those described as "struggling". This inquiry is turning up the names of not only John Walters and the Office of National Drug Control Policy, but of one Sara Taylor and Karl Rove.

This is good stuff.

I remember when extremely similar actions were happening back in 2004: The Drug's Czar's office was using their funds - your tax dollars - to help republican candidates. Back at the time The Marijuana Policy Project were after the records of this travel to Nevada to interfere with the cannabis reform issue that was on the ballot in 2004. Of note is a report, also from 2004, that GAO Green-Lights White House Interference in Elections Sure, this mostly focuses on the Drug Czar's attempts to influence elections by lying and whatever other means available, but there's the documentation he was there and that he was there to purposefully influence the election at taxpayer expense. Team Bush is very good with "The 2-fer" - getting 2 or more desirable (desirable to them, not us) impacts out of one shady or overtly unconstitutional act.

Now Henry Waxman has caught hold of it happening in the 2006 elections and is requesting the documents, too, though specifically for "improper politicization", which, I will admit, seems like looking for speeding at a drag race.

Congressman probes drug czar politics Oh Yeah... that Sara TaylorAnd Karl Rove's name gets dropped in the machinationsThe Repub value system is wholly-exposed in this following gnarly statement from that Simon character:Connect the Dots

So we see, despite the bipartisan origins of the war on drugs, the GOP gets no end of political influence with this issue. The Dems just sort of go with the flow. That's bad, but the war on drugs is just not the heartbeat of the Democratic Party.

The way that the "White House spokesperson Scott Stanzel" tosses out "Director John Walters traveled around the country to meet with representatives in communities that have been hit hard by the scourge of drugs" is so very typical. Part and parcel of the larger dynamic I wish more progressives - and anybody else genuinely concerned about the state of freedom in America - would recognize.

Here the "scourge of drugs" appears to mean "cannabis reform initiatives on ballots that are likely to win". Arizona and Nevada have had cannabis reform initiatives on recent ballots.

They did not mean the terrible problems of meth or of heroin addiction.

They meant legal, American efforts to petition the Government for a redress of bad laws. And that. my friends, IS undue political influence, which, of course, is Team Bush's middle name.

And Henry Waxman has ahold of it now, so maybe this too will get more interesting. Maybe the connections will become more apparent, either implicitly or explicitly. With folks like Sara Taylor and Karl Rove being cited, I'd say it's only going to get investigated more now.

The war on cannabis and drugs in general is simply undue political interference, it's openly and proudly based on lying and manipulating elections.

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Torture Good, Healthcare Bad, Marijuana Evil.

There's no money for your issue so long as we're squandering $50 billion a year on the DrugWar. Ben Masel