So look who John ran in to at O'Hare today -- former RNC Chair Ken Mehlman. He's on John's flight back to DC so John had to get a picture, which he promptly e-mailed to me. As far as I know, they didn't get a chance to talk. I doubt that Kenny reads AMERICAblog although we used to write about him all the time:
Check this out. She didn't even try to hide it. From ABC News:
The Office of Special Counsel confirmed to ABC News it has launched an investigation into General Services Administration chief Lurita Doan, probing concerns she may have violated a ban against conducting partisan political activity at government expense by participating in a meeting featuring a presentation by a White House political aide on GOP election strategy.
Doan's agency spends over $56 billion a year on paper clips, office space, car fleets and other necessities for federal agencies.
In January, Doan attended a meeting at which senior White House political aide W. Scott Jennings briefed Doan, a White House appointee, and other officials at a GSA facility on Republican plans to win seats in Congress.
After the presentation, according to some witnesses contacted by congressional investigators, Doan encouraged other attendees to find ways GSA could help "our candidates" in the 2008 election. Doan has told Congress she doesn't recall making the statement, and other witnesses interviewed by congressional investigators are said to have backed her up....
But Doan may not have been the only top official to host a White House political official at her agency. The White House political office has been giving presentations similar to the one at GSA since at least 2002, briefing officials throughout the government on Republican campaign information, according to a recent book by two Los Angeles Times reporters.
"[White House political adviser Karl] Rove and [former Bush campaign chief and one-time Republican National Committee head Ken] Mehlman ventured to nearly every cabinet agency to share key polling data" leading up to the 2002 midterm elections, wrote Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallsten in their book, "One Party Country," "and to deliver a reminder of White House priorities, including the need for the president's allies to win in the next election."
While previous administrations had sent officials to cabinet agencies, the duo wrote, "Such intense regular communication from the political office had never occurred before."
