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40–149 PDF 2008

NEW ALLEGATIONS AGAINST GSA ADMINISTRATOR LURITA DOAN: RETALIATION AGAINST

GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS COOPERATING WITH

INVESTIGATORS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JUNE 13, 2007

Serial No. 110–37

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON OVERSISGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California, Chairman

TOM LANTOS, California

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland

PETER WELCH, Vermont

TOM DAVIS, Virginia

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

BILL SALI, Idaho

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

PHIL SCHILIRO, Chief of Staff

PHIL BARNETT, Staff Director

EARLEY GREEN, Chief Clerk

DAVID MARIN, Minority Staff Director

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on June 13, 2007 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Doan, Lurita A., Administrator, General Services Administration .............. 17

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Davis, Hon. Tom, a Representative in Congress from the State of Virginia, prepared statement of ........................................................................ 14

Doan, Lurita A., Administrator, General Services Administration, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 20

Mica, Hon. John L., a Representative in Congress from the State of

Florida, May 24, 2007 Washington Post article ......................................... 30

Waxman, Chairman Henry A., a Representative in Congress from the

State of California:

Memorandum dated March 29, 2002 ....................................................... 70

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 4

(1)

NEW ALLEGATIONS AGAINST GSA ADMINISTRATOR LURITA DOAN: RETALIATION

AGAINST GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS COOPERATING WITH INVESTIGATORS

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 13, 2007

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room 2154,

Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Henry A. Waxman (chairman

of the committee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Waxman, Cummings, Kucinich, Davis

of Illinois, Tierney, Clay, Watson, Lynch, Braley, Norton, Sarbanes,

Welch, Davis of Virginia, Burton, Shays, Mica, Souder, Platts, Duncan, Turner, Issa, Foxx, Bilbray, Sali, and Jordan.

Staff present: Phil Schiliro, chief of staff; Kristin Amerling, general counsel; Karen Lightfoot, communications director and senior

policy advisor; David Rapallo, chief investigative counsel; John Williams, deputy chief investigative counsel; David Leviss, senior investigative counsel; Steve Glickman and Susanne Sachsman, counsels; Molly Gulland, assistant communications director; Earley

Green, chief clerk; Teresa Coufal, deputy clerk; Matt Siegler, special assistant; Caren Auchman, press assistant; Zhongrui ‘‘JR’’

Deng, chief information officer; Leneal Scott, information systems

manager; Kerry Gutknecht, Miriam Edelman, and Bret Schothorst,

staff assistants; David Marin, minority staff director; Larry

Halloran, minority deputy staff director; Keith Ausbrook, minority

general counsel; Ellen Brown, minority legislative director and senior policy counsel; John Brosnan, minority senior procurement

counsel; Steve Castor and A. Brooke Bennett, minority counsels;

Christopher Bright, Allyson Blandford, and Kristina Husar, minority professional staff member; John Cuaderes and Larry Brady, minority senior investigators and policy advisors; Patrick Lyden, minority parliamentarian; Brian McNicoll, minority communications

director; Benjamin Chance, minority clerk; and Meredith Liberty,

minority staff assistant.

Chairman WAXMAN. The meeting of the committee will come to

order.

This hearing of the House Oversight Committee wants to welcome our witness, Lurita A. Doan, the Administrator of the General Services Administration. This hearing is not being held to reinvestigate Ms. Doan’s violations of the Hatch Act. Our hearing on

March 28th and the subsequent investigation by the Office of SpeVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:18 Feb 25, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\40149.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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cial Counsel provided ample record to assess Ms. Doan’s compliance with this important law. This hearing will focus on other

issues.

First, there are serious questions whether Ms. Doan testified

truthfully during our first hearing. And there are also new allegations that Ms. Doan tried to intimidate and retaliate against Federal employees who cooperated with this committee’s investigation.

Both issues should be of great concern to all members of our committee.

When our committee learned earlier this year that Ms. Doan

may have violated the Federal Hatch Act by asking GSA political

appointees how they could help our Republican candidates in upcoming elections, we appropriately initiated an investigation. As

part of this investigation, six GSA political appointees were asked

to give transcribed interviews or depositions to this committee. All

six agreed to come before the committee voluntarily and all six told

us about a political presentation at GSA Headquarters in January

by Scott Jennings, Karl Rove’s deputy at the White House.

During that presentation, Mr. Jennings identified 20 Democratic

Members as targets in 2008. According to all six employees, Ms.

Doan then asked the GSA political appointees gathered for the

presentation how could they help ‘‘our candidates’’ in the upcoming

elections.

It was not easy for these GSA employees to come before our committee. Like Ms. Doan, they, too, were Republicans. They were political appointees. They knew their statements would be evidence

that their boss violated the Hatch Act. And like all employees, they

must have feared the potential consequences. But they knew that

they had an obligation to tell the truth, and they did.

As a result of the committee’s investigation and hearing, we determined, conclusively, in my opinion, that Ms. Doan solicited her

employees at GSA to engage in partisan political activity on Government property. A clear violation of the Federal Hatch Act.

After the March 28th hearing, the Office of Special Counsel,

which enforces the Hatch Act, interviewed Ms. Doan about her conduct. When Ms. Doan was asked about the six GSA officials who

cooperated with this committee’s investigation, this is what Ms.

Doan told the Special Counsel: ‘‘There’s not a single one of those

who did not have somewhere in between a poor to totally inferior

performance.’’

In her written testimony, Ms. Doan says that she thought her remarks were going to be treated confidentially by the Office of Special Counsel. In fact, she blames the Special Counsel for victimizing

the employees by disclosing her disparaging comments.

Well, there are just two problems with Ms. Doan’s position.

First, her statements about her GSA colleagues appear to be

false. Ms. Doan refused to provide the employees’ personnel records

to this committee. But the Office of Special Counsel did review the

employment records and found that all the employees had satisfactory or better performance. It is wrong for a Federal agency head

to make false or misleading accusations against Federal employees.

It does not matter whether the official expects confidentiality or

not. Unsubstantiated accusations are always wrong.

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Second, Ms. Doan did not just disparage the employees. Under

oath, she told the Special Counsel ‘‘until extensive rehabilitation of

their performance occurs, they will not be getting promoted and

will not be getting bonuses or special awards or anything of that

nature.’’ Apparently Ms. Doan’s position is that it is fine for her to

retaliate against her employees by denying them promotions, bonuses, and awards, so long as she does so in secret and no one

knows about it.

Well I think she is wrong. And so long as I am chairman of this

committee, we are not going to look the other way when there is

credible evidence that Federal officials are threatening their employees, especially when these employees are being threatened for

participating and volunteering information to the Congress of the

United States. We passed, I think unanimously, the Whistleblower

Protection Act because we value Federal employees being able to

come forward without fear of retaliation so that we can learn about

what is going on in Federal agencies when they misuse their power

in those agencies, when they abuse the taxpayers’ trust, when they

waste taxpayers’ dollars.

Our committee has a fundamental obligation to stand up for Federal employees who cooperate with investigators and tell us the

truth. And we have an equal obligation, indeed, a moral responsibility to investigate and hold Federal officials to account if they

threaten to withhold bonuses and deny promotions to employees

who tell the truth to the Congress. I am amazed that anyone would

think we should not do that.

I am equally amazed that a few Members apparently do not believe it matters very much whether Ms. Doan testified truthfully

during her March 28th hearing. I have even heard some Members

say so what if she did political activity on Government property.

What is the big deal? Well, violating the Hatch Act is a big deal.

Fortunately, most members of this committee want to get to the

truth, want to make sure that Federal employees do not face

threats when they act with integrity and honesty.

That is what this hearing is about. I look forward to hearing

more today from Ms. Doan.

[The prepared statement of Chairman Henry A. Waxman follows:]

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Chairman WAXMAN. I am going to recognize the ranking member

of this committee, Mr. Davis. We will not have any other opening

statements. I want to try out something new for our committee’s

deliberation. Mr. Davis, as the ranking member, will have a bank

of 10 minutes time to control during the process of the questioning

to either use or yield to his Members. We will have another bank

of 10 minutes and we will be able to use it or yield it to different

of our colleagues, interspersed in the ordinary proceedings of the

committee. To start the questioning, we are going to do a round of

10 minutes on each side.

Mr. Davis, I want to recognize you for your statement.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With all due

respect, I cannot for the life of me figure out what we are doing

here this morning. The committee and its many subcommittees

held just one hearing this week, and this is the topic we have chosen. Somehow we have lost track of the Good Government agenda

that we pledged to pursue. Maybe that is one of the reasons the

Los Angeles Times yesterday showed Congress with lower ratings

than the administration. For the first time, the Speaker’s numbers

are higher unfavorable than favorable.

The majority says they are concerned about retaliation against

Government officials who have cooperated with investigators. But

no such retaliation ever occurred. The real retaliation here is

against an entrepreneurial African-American woman who, stop the

presses, supports the administration that appointed her and is paying the price for trying to make her organization a better, more efficient and effective place.

Today’s hearing is a gross misuse of committee resources, built

on an unprofessional and seemingly preordained report from the

Office of Special Counsel. It is a farce premised on a sham. There

are so many flaws and injustices and fabrications here I hardly

know where to begin. But let me reel off just a few.

Administrator Doan was obligated to cooperate with investigators when she made the comments the chairman just described.

She did not come forward and volunteer. She was obligated to answer these questions. She was compelled to say what she believed,

under oath. And she did so after assurances of confidentiality were

given to her by the Office of Special Counsel lawyers.

Nevertheless, before the Administrator had a chance to respond

to the OSC report, a draft version was given to the Washington

Post, a version that only OSC possessed and only the Office of Special Counsel could have leaked. I think it is preposterous that we

are again inserting ourselves into unfinished proceedings, this time

an unfinished Office of Special Counsel matter. Under the rules,

the Office of Special Counsel makes their recommendation to the

White House and the White House responds. And here we are in

the middle of this.

But if that is our choice, then our time would be far better spent

looking at the unfair investigation OSC conducted and the special

legal reasoning in the OSC report. Lurita Doan was not afforded

basic due process rights, such as an opportunity to review the testimony submitted against her. Never saw it. Until this week, she

was denied access to the transcript of her own testimony, 10 hours

of testimony, to OSC investigators to prepare for this hearing.

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The Office of Special Counsel report is remarkably harsh and hyperbolic and extremely short on support. The report really cites no

evidence. There are no footnotes, no exhibits. They simply say that

they interviewed over 20 individuals in attendance at the Jennings

presentation. But the report quotes testimony from zero attendees.

Why did they not talk to all the attendees? How did they choose

which ones to talk to and which ones not to?

The shoddy evidentiary support is reflected in the report’s Hatch

Act analysis. The report fails to identify a single election or candidate that Administrator Doan sought to assist, because there

were none. In fact, there was no election going on. The report asserts, without any analysis or finding, that her statement ‘‘how can

we help our candidates’’ solicited or directed employees to engage

in partisan political activity. This was a question that she asked.

I am sure in retrospect she wishes she had not.

She just asked, all right, you have given us this presentation,

how do we help our candidates. It could have been ringing

doorbells, it could have been making phone calls after hours at

phone banks. No effort here to say how do we use the agency to

help our candidates. No allegations that happened. No statements

that happened. Just hyperbole and interpretation from the other

side and from the Office of Special Counsel. Not one employee responded with any proposal to help any candidate on any election.

So it never happened.

How then is her question in itself a solicitation? What if the

question was heard to mean what can we do to legally help our

candidates. Does that change it? A 2002 opinion by the same Office

of Special Counsel advised: ‘‘The Hatch Act does not purport to prohibit all discourse by Federal employees on political subjects or

candidates in a Federal building or while on duty.’’ Yet Administrator Doan’s off-hand comment, without any followup action, is

found to be a solicitation. By that standard, saying ‘‘God bless

America’’ at work could be a violation of the Establishment Clause.

It is clear the Office of Special Counsel recognized they were

short on evidence. So they resorted instead to absurd hyperbole.

They said, ‘‘One can imagine no greater violation of the Hatch Act,’’

the report reads. Well I can. OSC clearly lacks any imagination.

How about an employee who actually uses the Government e-mail

system to send campaign materials? Something the MSPB considered this past December in Special Counsel v. Wilkinson.

Or what about making fundraising calls from the Office of the

Vice President? And this actually happened. In this OSC report, we

are left only with pejorative adjectives, like pernicious, without any

nouns, in other words facts, to support sweeping legal conclusions.

No cases cited. No controlling legal authority relied on.

I think the majority recognizes how tenuous the Hatch Act case

is as well. They realize that what we are witnessing is an Office

of Special Counsel eager to rehabilitate and vindicate itself. And

they realize the other issues that originally brought Administrator

Doan a summons from the committee—remember, it was not that

long ago we were talking about a Federal supply schedule contract

held by Sun Microsystems, the suspension and debarment process,

and contemplated contract with the Diversity Consulting Co. But

those issues bore no political fruit. So here we are, they are

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dropped, and here we are back again looking at something else.

The Hatch Act. How juicy, how convenient, what a short hop, skip,

and a jump to the office of Karl Rove.

I am just not buying that the alleged premise of today’s hearing.

No one is more concerned than I am about protecting the institutional integrity of this committee and the ability of witnesses to

give us the information we need without reprisal. But that is not

why we are here today. After all, if the majority were so concerned

about the integrity of testimony before the committee, there are

other witnesses who should appear to explain their testimony.

Valerie Plame Wilson’s sworn statements to this committee are

irreconcilably inconsistent with her statements to the CIA Inspector General and the Senate Intelligence Committee. She told the

Senate committee: ‘‘I honestly do not recall if I suggested if [her

husband] to go over to Niger.’’ She told us: ‘‘I did not recommend

him, I did not suggest him, and another officer suggested that we

send Joe Wilson.’’ She testified that the uncontested additional

views of three Senators on the Senate committee stating that she

suggested Wilson is incorrect. But her own memorandum, her own

e-mails, on February 12th, her e-mail to the Chief of the CIA said,

‘‘I am hesitant to suggest anything. Again, however, my husband

may be in a position to assist. Therefore, I request your thought

on what, if anything, to pursue here.’’

A question whether an inquiry from the Office of the Vice President prompted Plame to suggest or recommend Wilson. She told us

she had just received a telephone call, that she wrote her February

e-mail after her conversation with a junior officer had just received

a telephone call at her desk from someone, I do not know who, in

the Office of the Vice President. But her own memorandum and

other documents, that was not until the next day. It was not until

the Vice President’s CIA briefer said the VP was shown an assessment that Iraq is purchasing uranium from Africa and he would

like CIA’s assessment of the transaction. That did not happen until

the next day.

The next question, whether a conversation with her Branch Chief

and a colleague prompted Plame to write her February 12th e-mail.

She testified before this committee, ‘‘As I was leaving, my Branch

Office Chief asked me to draft a quick e-mail to the Chief of our

Counterproliferation Division to let him know that this might happen.’’ But in her own memorandum of February 12th, she notes

that ‘‘the report forwarded below has prompted me to send this to

you.’’ So there are many inconsistencies there. But I doubt seriously whether this committee will look at those.

The GSA Inspector General testified before this committee that

he relied on information from the majority’s Web site to support a

key finding in his earlier report on the GSA Administrator. The legitimacy of the committee’s work is at stake if we do not question

the testimony of those witnesses. I am concerned the committee is

becoming a place where witnesses can testify with impunity so long

as they say whatever fits the Democrat’s political agenda.

I think we also need to carefully consider the undue influence

this committee and attendant media reports and leaks have on the

OSC proceedings against Administrator Doan. During their questioning of the Administrator, OSC’s own lawyers acknowledged the

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committee’s previous hearings tainted their proceedings as it became impossible to determine whether witnesses were influenced

by press coverage of that hearing.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, to say we are here to protect Federal employees, then why are we demanding personnel files and giving further air time to what the Administrator said about GSA employees? She said it in a private venue after assurances that these

would not be released and their reputations would not be tarnished

or aired. Why are we meeting in public? Remember, Administrator

Doan thought her testimony would remain confidential. It is only

through the Office of Special Counsel media leaks and your hearings today that these employees are being damaged.

The truth is, I think the Administrator’s testimony before us in

March could have been stronger. She could have been better prepared. I think she could have chosen her words to the OSC more

carefully. And I think, on reflection, she would agree with me. But

I think that the committee and the OSC are guilty of grossly overplaying their hands in response to her inelegant truthfulness and

good faith.

I urge you to refocus the committee’s time and resources on the

countless issues demanding our attention—real ID implementation,

information security, border control, emergency preparedness in

the Nation’s Capital, security clearance backlogs. The list goes on

and on. I would ask, Mr. Chairman, that you issue a subpoena to

Valerie Plame Wilson. Ms. Plame Wilson should be summoned to

appear before this committee and address the substantial irregularities in her sworn testimony. As I have outlined here, before

the Senate panel and before our committee, there appear to be irreconcilable inconsistencies in numerous respects that go to the

heart of your investigation. You want to bring the Secretary of

State before this committee and take time from her busy travel

schedule. We ought to address these as well.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Tom Davis follows:]

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Chairman WAXMAN. Thank you, Mr. Davis. They are certainly

points that I would want to debate with you, but I think we ought

to move on to hear from our witness. A lot of the arguments will

come out in the questioning by our Members.

Mr. BURTON. Mr. Chairman.

Chairman WAXMAN. Yes?

Mr. BURTON. Other Members will not have a chance at this time?

Chairman WAXMAN. No, we are going to go right to our witness.

All Members will get 5 minutes for questioning the witness.

Mr. BURTON. Mr. Chairman, I am very sorry about that. I think

there is some additional illuminating that could be done at this

point. But I will wait for my 5 minutes later.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Mr. Chairman, let me just ask, we have

Members here, maybe we can get it through, I would move the

committee direct the chairman to issue a subpoena to Valerie

Plame Wilson.

Chairman WAXMAN. Are you offering a motion?

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I am. She should be summoned to appear

before this committee and address the irregularities in her sworn

testimony.

Chairman WAXMAN. I would be happy to discuss this with you.

I do not want to issue a subpoena before we invite a witness. She

did come here voluntarily. And if there are questions we want to

ask of her and you feel you need an answer, I will work with you

to get the answers.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. All right.

Chairman WAXMAN. I would like to now call forward Lurita

Doan, the head of the General Services Administration.

Before you even sit down, Ms. Doan, I think you know it is the

practice of this committee to ask all witnesses that appear before

us to take an oath. I would like you to continue standing and raise

your right hand.

[Witness sworn.]

Ms. DOAN. I do.

Chairman WAXMAN. The record will reflect that she answered in

the affirmative.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Before she begins, Mr. Chairman, let me

just say that I accept you at your word and withdraw my motion.

We have a relationship and we will discuss this. Thank you.

Chairman WAXMAN. Thank you, Mr. Davis.

Ms. Doan, we welcome you back to the committee. I am going to

let you proceed however you see fit.

STATEMENT OF LURITA A. DOAN, ADMINISTRATOR, GENERAL

SERVICES ADMINISTRATION

Ms. DOAN. Thank you, Chairman Waxman, Ranking Member

Davis, and members of the committee. In 1989, I took a job that

no other company was willing to do. My task was to upgrade a

computer system in Berlin, Germany. But when I got to Berlin, it

was the day the wall came down and the city went nuts. And like

most Berliners that day, I rented a hammer and a chisel and I did

my little part to chip away the Berlin Wall. Today, I find myself

in a similar situation, where I am caught in the midst of something

much bigger than I am, with very far-reaching ramifications.

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As Administrator of GSA, I have been a tireless advocate for

GSA and have done the best that I can to champion efforts to remove obstacles to performance, promote greater

entrepreneurialism, and provide more support to our beleaguered

Federal contracting community. I am human and imperfect and

make mistakes. But when it comes to GSA, my heart is in the trim.

As I testified earlier, the results of this past year have been spectacular. We regained our clean audit, saved millions of taxpayer

dollars, stood up a new Office of Emergency Response and Recovery

to better help in disasters, rekindled entrepreneurial energies, restored the confidence of our two largest customers, reduced the

time to award contracts by 3 months, successfully executed the

largest reorganization in the history of GSA, launched a governmentwide acquisition contract to provide people who have sacrificed so much for our country, our Nation’s service disabled veterans, with more opportunities to do business with the Federal Government. GSA is focused on results and we were recently voted by

employees as one of the best places to work in the Federal Government.

These are only a few of our achievements, achievements that

have, at times, been overshadowed by allegations against me. In

some instances, the allegations have simply been untrue. In others,

I made mistakes and I said so. In still others, the allegations have

not been presented in fair, accurate, or even complete context.

Since my first days as Administrator I have said that there is no

greater asset than the GSA employees. However, the leak of the

Office of Special Counsel’s report has had serious consequences for

people other than me, and it will have an impact on my testimony

here today. My answers to OSC investigator questions regarding

employees’ performances were made with the expectation that

identifying information about those discussed was to be treated

confidentially, and because I wanted to be fully cooperative with

the investigation team. I never intended or imagined that this information would be carelessly made public by others, and I sincerely regret any unintended consequences that may have resulted.

It is so very sad that people, good people, who have decided to devote some part of their life to serving this country have had to undergo a public discussion of their performance for no good reason.

It is, however, important to note that these performance evaluations occurred prior to the January 26th meeting. I would appreciate the committee’s understanding and agreement on this very

point.

Sadly, though, as I see it, at no time has anyone on the majority

staff asked me questions about GSA’s accomplishments. The nature

of the questions since that hearing, and the overwhelming majority

of the questions that I got in person last time, seem more like a

game of political ‘‘gotcha’’ with me being the ‘‘gotchee.’’ I do not

wish in any way to suggest that I have not made mistakes. I have.

More to the point, I am likely to make more. But my point here

is something more important. The culture of gotcha is inherently

corrosive. Any words or even the hint of something even slightly

controversial is seized upon, magnified, and used to inflict as much

personal harm as possible. More than anything else, actions and

facts are minimized in favor of sensationalism.

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It is frustrating to be accused of playing politics at GSA when

I know that my decisions have been based on merit. Several of my

key political appointees were actually career employees, because I

just wanted the best person for the position. More importantly,

GSA procurements are determined by the priorities of its Government customers, not partisan politics. You may fault me for not remembering, and you may find fault with how I responded to one

or two hypothetical questions posed during the course of a 9-hour

interrogation about that event. Even if you were to do that, and I

feel certain that some of you will be doing that this morning, you

will not be as hard on me as I have been on myself. But none of

my actions, however, have been intended or have resulted in personal or partisan political gain.

I grew up in the ninth ward in New Orleans, and being one of

the first minority students in an all White school taught me a lot

about how to deal with unfairness, with harassment, with hostile

environments, and it taught me that you do not quit just because

things get tough. Because quitting would be far worse than persevering in the face of adversity.

So today I sit before you prepared to answer your questions to

the fullest extent I can, with honesty and with transparency, and

I hope to bring clarity by explaining the context in which many of

my comments were made.

But there are certain things that I would prefer not to do this

morning. First, I will be happy to answer general questions about

policies and procedures, but the privacy rights of GSA employees

is too important for me to be goaded into a discussion of any individual’s performance unless it is to praise them for outstanding

work. I am a firm believer in the old adage ‘‘praise in public, criticize in private.’’

Second, I will not try to make legal arguments because, quite

simply, I am not a lawyer. The letter my attorney wrote in response to the White House Special Counsel speaks for itself. Finally, I will not put blame on others. I will, to the extent possible,

be open and as candid as I know how to be.

What I learned in Berlin in 1989 is that change is difficult. My

first whack at the Berlin Wall had no effect at all. My second swing

of the hammer, when I did that I hit my thumb and it really hurt,

but I kept at it. I did not let mistakes or errors prevent me from

accomplishing my goal. And while it may have taken more than 40

or 50 swings, I did finally break off a piece of that wall. I am grateful for this opportunity to serve and I am excited about the successes GSA has had. We have built a strong team of both career

and non-career employees, and I believe that we are laying the

groundwork for a successful future for this generation of GSA employees.

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Davis, and members of the committee, I hope my appearance here today will answer fully any

questions you might have and will set the record straight. Great

things are happening at GSA and the Nation can and should be

proud of what is being accomplished. The chips are flying. Change

is happening, even if the Administrator occasionally hits her

thumb.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Doan follows:]

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Chairman WAXMAN. Thank you very much, Ms. Doan.

I want to start off our questioning by commenting on the fact

that if you listen to the Republican arguments as articulated by the

ranking member, this is all a partisan activity—you are Republican, the majority is Democrat. But Ms. Doan’s problems started

with her Inspector General, appointed by President Bush. She said

he was out to get her. The next thing that happened was that there

was an Office of Special Counsel that investigated Ms. Doan and

found that she had violated the Hatch Act. That Office of Special

Counsel was appointed by President Bush. It is not a democratic

organization, it is a governmental organization. They are supposed

to enforce the Hatch Act.

The criticisms, people say, are coming from Democrats. But one

of the first people to speak out about the problems at GSA, particularly the sweetheart contracts that we were seeing let out at GSA

that raised questions, was Senator Grassley, the lead Republican

on the Senate Finance Committee, a very well respected man on

both sides of the aisle, but a Republican. And then we have heard

not only is it all partisan, other people have done worse. Oh, Valerie Plame, she lied. Richard Nixon, he lied. Other people have

done worse, they could have been calling directly for contributions.

Well, certainly, people have done bad things. Some have violated

the Hatch Act in ways that are even more troubling. But that does

not mean that Ms. Doan’s conduct by hosting a political briefing to

Republican political appointees, urging them to help our Republican candidates, was not a problem under the Hatch Act, which is

supposed to protect employees from their supervisors imposing

their politics on them.

Now the problem with these people that were criticized by Ms.

Doan was that they testified before this committee, and that got

her wrath. But as I pointed out, those people as well were Republicans, some of them were Republican appointees at the GSA. Let

us look at the facts of this case and determine whether we have

a problem here or not of intimidating Federal employees.

I want to yield the balance of my time to Mr. Braley from Iowa.

Mr. BRALEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. Doan, it is good to have you back. I would like to start by

taking you back to May 31, 2006, which I am sure was a memorable day in your life. Do you remember that day?

Ms. DOAN. Yes. It was the day I was sworn in as Administrator

of the General Services Administration in the afternoon at the GSA

auditorium.

Mr. BRALEY. That is correct. And do you remember the remarks

you shared as part of your appointment that day?

Ms. DOAN. In general. But if you would care to share with me

the specifics that you want to discuss, I am happy to do that.

Mr. BRALEY. Well, one of the comments you made during your

oath of office ceremony speech was that ‘‘the Administrator of GSA

is an important position of trust, and I value the President’s confidence in me.’’ Do you remember that statement?

Ms. DOAN. I believe I would—I am sure you got that off the Web

site. I am happy to agree with you on that.

Mr. BRALEY. Then you talked about some of the goals that you

had set for the agency, and the first goal you mentioned was reVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:18 Feb 25, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00028 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\40149.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
25

turning to President Truman’s vision for GSA—‘‘a clean, honest,

and responsive purchasing agency.’’ Do you remember outlining

that goal?

Ms. DOAN. Yes.

Mr. BRALEY. The reason we find ourselves back here today is to

determine whether you violated your position of trust by engaging

in retaliation against the very government officials who cooperated

with the investigators looking into the allegations of improper conduct by you. And you made reference to the fact in your statement

that you shared with the committee today, you indicated there is

no greater asset at GSA than its employees. That is something that

you believe in.

Ms. DOAN. And have spoken firmly and acted firmly in that area.

Mr. BRALEY. Well, you testified before the committee on March

28th and I asked you about a political presentation by Karl Rove’s

deputy, Scott Jennings, that was hosted at the GSA Headquarters,

and we went through the various Power Point slides that had been

presented by Mr. Jennings, talking about the plans to defend Republican seats and defeat Democrats in 2008. And this committee

was concerned because to us it appeared that those presentations

violated the Hatch Act, which prohibits political activity on government property. Since then, we have learned that the White House

gave similar presentations throughout Federal Government agencies. But when I asked you about that presentation, you claimed

to have no recollection of it whatsoever. Other GSA employees did

remember that presentation, however, and they also remembered

how you followed up by asking your employees how you could get

GSA to help our candidates, meaning, Republican candidates, in

upcoming elections. When I asked you about this statement, you

again claimed to have no recollection.

So, finally, I asked you about the GSA employees who cooperated

with our investigation. All of them told us that you made this

statement. When I asked you whether you had any reason to doubt

their memory or the credibility of these GSA officials, your answer

was, no, you did not, because you could not remember the event.

Do you remember that discussion we had?

Ms. DOAN. I remember the discussion, maybe not the exact give

and take of it.

Mr. BRALEY. Those were your answers on March 28th. But after

that hearing, you testified again before the Office of Special Counsel and there you gave a very different story. We have the transcript here from your testimony and it shows that you said that

these GSA officials were poor performers, you questioned their

memories, and you even suggested that they were not telling the

truth to Federal investigators. These are extremely serious charges

against your colleagues and we want you to explain them.

Let me put up your testimony, if we have that. You stated,

‘‘There’s not a single one of those who did not have somewhere in

between a poor to totally inferior performance.’’ So you testified

that each of the GSA employees who spoke to the Office of Special

Counsel had poor to totally inferior performance. Is that not true?

Ms. DOAN. I think what is important to understand is the context

in which the question was asked to me. They asked me to

speculate——

26

Mr. BRALEY. I think it is important for you to answer the question. Is that not true?

Ms. DOAN. I am trying, Congressman Braley, to answer it to the

fullest of my ability. And that is you have to understand the context in which the Office of Special Counsel investigator asked me

could I please speculate on what and why there might be a difference in the recollections of the events of January 26th. And I

tried to comply as fully and as candidly as I possibly could with

their request. That is the context, and they asked me to speculate,

and I did. I should not have.

Mr. BRALEY. I doubt very seriously whether this transcript would

indicate that the Office of Special Counsel would ask you to speculate on anything. And this committee certainly does not want you

to speculate. We want you to testify about facts. My question to you

was is it not true that you testified that each of these GSA employees who spoke to the Office of Special Counsel had poor to totally

inferior performance. That is a yes or no answer.

Ms. DOAN. I appreciate you giving me the chance, first things

first, if you would turn your attention to page 385, you will see that

indeed the Office of Special Counsel did ask me to speculate. Their

exact statement is, ‘‘I’m asking you to speculate.’’ Now, this is at

the end of 9 hours of questioning. If we were to go to the first 20

minutes, we would also find that they asked me to speculate. And

I started tallying up how many times they asked me to speculate

throughout it and actually I decided this was not time well spent

because there were so many opportunities where they asked me to

speculate.

Was I wrong to speculate? Absolutely. I should not have done

this. We should have focused on facts. The Office of Special Counsel, even if they asked me to speculate, I have to tell you, I really

regret doing that. I should not have done that. That was not right

of me. I did it because I was trying to be compliant and I thought

that it was going to be fully confidential. But I regret doing it.

Mr. BRALEY. Let me ask you, after that preface that you read to

us, do you think anyone at this meeting would make up that you

had made these statements? That was the context of the question.

Ms. DOAN. Yes, it was. And if you look at my response which follows it, you will see that I did not say that they made it up. What

I said is I think it is possible that if a leading question were asked,

yes, I think one or two of them may not wish me well. But what

we had been talking about for about maybe 20 pages beforehand

was the fact that before any of these folks were questioned by any

of the different investigators, there had been repeated news articles, it had been in all the trade journals, and in addition to that,

they had been interviewed by you guys on the committee. And so

what I had said is that there is the possibility that there were lots

of opportunities for them to hear information, and if someone in

that context were to then be asked a leading question, it is possible

that recollections change. I cannot say whether someone misspoke

or not. I can only talk about myself. And I cannot account for

changes in other people’s recollection. That is the context that I

was trying to explain, Congressman.

Chairman WAXMAN. Mr. Braley, I am going to yield you 3 additional minutes.

27

Mr. BRALEY. Were you represented by counsel during this interview?

Ms. DOAN. I had my personal counsel with me.

Mr. BRALEY. Did anybody raise an objection to the question when

it was posed during the interview?

Ms. DOAN. Well, I think when we started going back——

Mr. BRALEY. No. In this specific question, did anybody raise an

objection?

Ms. DOAN. Congressman Braley, no, because in the first hour of

the interview we had gotten into a little bit of a spat because it

was perceived that I was not complying fully when I tried to give

yes and no and avoid these kinds of issues. So in an attempt to try

to be more forthcoming, to show that I was fully open and was trying to comply with the investigation no matter how wild the questions were, and I will say some of these questions got pretty wild,

I tried to comply.

Mr. BRALEY. Well, let us talk about one of the other questions.

I do not have that much time, so I am going to move on to another

question. You also made the statement that impugned these officials when you said that ‘‘I do find it highly disturbing that some

of the most vocal proponents or the most articulate speaking out

against me are also the people I have either moved on or they are,

I don’t want to say permanently demoted but they’re kind of, until

extensive rehabilitation of their performance occurs, they will not

be getting promoted and will not be getting bonuses or special

awards or anything of that nature.’’ So in addition to being poor

to totally inferior, they are now not going to be getting bonuses,

promotions, or awards, and those are very harsh attacks, do you

not agree?

Ms. DOAN. First, there can be no retaliation given that performance reviews were performed well in advance of the January 26th

meeting. The two events cannot possibly be connected. The Office

of Special Counsel’s report is filled with leaps in logic because how

can you have performance reviews that happened any time between September and December, early January, an event, a brown

bag luncheon that happens January 26th, and then claim that a

performance review that was given a month before was in retaliation for an event which happens a month and a-half later. It simply

is not possible.

Mr. BRALEY. You were the one raising concerns about the performance of the witnesses who testified against you, and you were

given an opportunity to present evidence to the Office of Special

Counsel to back up your claims. They reviewed the evidence you

provided and still concluded that your statements were unwarranted in their report to the President. Is that not true?

Ms. DOAN. No, that is not correct, Congressman Braley. Actually,

the first request to talk about performance came from the investigators. The investigators themselves actually asked me would I

talk about the performance. This is when I said that the discussion

covered a whole wild set of stuff. That was on day one. I think you

have been focusing only on day two.

Chairman WAXMAN. Mr. Braley, you only have 14 seconds left.

I want to reclaim my time.

28

Ms. Doan, I am going to make a rhetorical statement, because

when we first heard from you you claimed that you were being

picked on by your Inspector General Brian Miller, a Republican appointee. Then you said you were being picked on by the Office of

Special Counsel. Then you said you were being picked on by these

employees. Can you think that your statements about those employees reflected anything other than anger at them and a desire

to make sure that they do not get promotions because of what they

did to you?

Ms. DOAN. Congressman Waxman, if you could actually point out

to me my language in my previous testimony where I said that the

IG was picking on me. I just do not believe I said that. I just find

that hard to believe.

Chairman WAXMAN. You said who is going to investigate the investigators.

Ms. DOAN. No, that is something totally different. And if you

could still point out to me the exact quotation, I would like to be

able to understand the context to have said that. I still do not remember making that exact phrase. I do think the exact wording,

if we are going to be talking about this, is important. Could you

please maybe just show——

Chairman WAXMAN. My time has expired. I am going to go on

to Mr. Davis. We will see if we can give you the language. But with

your sharp memory, you have me questioning whether I read it

right. But I will get it for you.

Ms. DOAN. OK. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, parliamentary inquiry.

Chairman WAXMAN. The gentleman will state his parliamentary

inquiry.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, we had GSA Administrator in previously and we had questions that have been raised about her alleged violation of the Hatch Act. At that time, we——

Chairman WAXMAN. What is your parliamentary inquiry?

Mr. MICA. Well I have to lead up to this because——

Chairman WAXMAN. Well, I am sorry, but I do not hear a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. MICA. My parliamentary inquiry, sir, is that there was a

leak of information to the Washington Post relating to the Special

Counsel’s draft report which was either leaked by the Office of Special Counsel or by a staffer from this committee. And I would like

to ask when it would be parliamentary appropriate to ask for the

resignation of either the special counsel or the individual on this

committee that leaked to the Washington Post a copy of the Office

of Special Counsel draft report. And I would like this made part

of the record now, this story that appeared on the 23rd——

Chairman WAXMAN. The gentleman is not stating a parliamentary inquiry. But you will have an opportunity, in fact you just took

an opportunity, to ask for the resignation of the Office of Special

Counsel. You ought to check because he is a Republican appointee.

Mr. MICA. When would it be appropriate, sir——

Chairman WAXMAN. When your time comes for questioning.

Mr. MICA [continuing]. To ask for the resignation of a staff member of this committee if they leaked that information.

29

Chairman WAXMAN. The gentleman is out of order. And the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Davis——

Mr. MICA. And I would ask unanimous consent that we include

in the record a copy——

Chairman WAXMAN. Objection is heard.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I will yield to you.

Chairman WAXMAN. Mr. Davis is now recognized on his time and

he can yield to you, and that is certainly appropriate.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I yield the gentleman 30 seconds to put

anything in the record.

Mr. MICA. I would like unanimous consent. I have been on this

committee for 15 years and I have never seen an investigation conducted in this manner. This is a three ring circus.

Chairman WAXMAN. That is what you said on our last investigation.

Mr. MICA. The morning I read this, it was appalling to me to

have leaked to the Washington Post. Then the next day, and I

would like to ask unanimous consent that the article of May 23rd

of be inserted in the record.

Chairman WAXMAN. Without objection——

Mr. MICA. The correction that people should read——

Chairman WAXMAN. If the gentleman will allow. The gentleman

wants it in the record?

Mr. MICA. Yes.

Chairman WAXMAN. Without objection, it will be put into the

record.

Mr. MICA. The correction. Thank you.

[The information referred to follows:]

30

31

32

Mr. MICA. And then I would also like at some point to offer a motion to have an investigation of either the staff or Special Counsel

to find out who leaked this information in this investigation, which

we are taking very seriously in this committee. Someone leaked

that information before even Ms. Doan had that information. I

have never seen the conduct of an investigation like this in 15

years proceed in this manner. And I want an investigation of either

the Office of Special Counsel by this committee or the staff, and I

want the resignation of those individuals. And I will pursue this.

Chairman WAXMAN. Will the gentleman yield. I do want to inform him that we did not see the draft of the special counsel’s report until it appeared in the newspaper. Our staff did not have it.

It was prepared by the Office of Special Counsel.

Mr. MICA. And that, sir, is appalling.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you. Let me just correct a couple

things. I do not believe that there is any allegation, as I read the

Office of Special Counsel’s report, that you were urging GSA to

help our candidates. I think the questions, and they were leading

questions that were asked by committee staff, majority staff, were

how can we help our candidates, not how can we use GSA to help

our candidates, Ms. Doan. But let me just ask this. Did GSA do

anything to help the candidates?

Ms. DOAN. No. GSA is not a partisan agency.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. To your knowledge, has GSA done anything to advance the candidates following that presentation by the

White House?

Ms. DOAN. No. That is not GSA’s mission.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. OK. So asking a question how can we

help our candidates in response to a presentation the White House

foisted on you was not an advocacy, it was just saying all right, you

have given us this presentation, what are we supposed to do, basically. Is that correct?

Ms. DOAN. I do not remember actually making the statement,

but I understand what you are trying to say and that would be

true.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Fine. Did you ever urge any of the people

who were at that meeting to go out and help the candidates? Or

did you simply ask the White House what can we do to help? Do

you remember that at all?

Ms. DOAN. Of course, I would not urge any GSA employee to go

out and help candidates.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. OK. Thank you. Was any Federal employee retaliated against?

Ms. DOAN. No, I do not believe anyone was. And in fact, the

meeting happened months after performance evaluations were performed.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Now there has been a lot made on these

performance evaluations. Could you explain to us how the evaluations work. They are graded 1 through 5, is that correct?

Ms. DOAN. Yes. We have a system 1 through 5.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. And without getting into specifics, there

were several employees there who had talked to investigators, who

had recalled comments that claim you made, they were not clear

on what they made, they were answering leading questions, but is

33

it not the case that in some of these cases the employees received

threes?

Ms. DOAN. That is true.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. And that means what?

Ms. DOAN. Three means no bonus.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. It means no bonus. But it is stated as

what, not a poor performance, but what?

Ms. DOAN. Meets expectations.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. But meets expectations, a three, is a critical score because it means you do not qualify for the bonus; correct?

Ms. DOAN. With a three you get no bonus.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. And an employee who gets a score who

does not get a bonus may feel—this was a speculative answer, as

I understand; is that right? You were answering a speculative

question?

Ms. DOAN. Yes. And I am trying to learn from experience and not

speculate anymore.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. But in that case, an employee who receives a three may feel, I do not know that they did or did not, but

they may feel I deserve the bonus, I did not get one, and they may

feel appropriately not good about that evaluation.

Ms. DOAN. That is very possible. And employees also compare

themselves to their peers, and that is important, too. And they

compare themselves to the rating they got perhaps the year before,

6 months before. All these things go into an employee’s perception

of the performance evaluation.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Now when you made these comments,

you felt, am I correct, that you had assurances that this was going

to stay confidential? You did not volunteer this. They asked you

specifically.

Ms. DOAN. I specifically asked them and they specifically said

that they do not release the transcripts under any circumstances.

Obviously, that was not true.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Had you known that employees’ names

were going to be released in public, would you have even answered

the question?

Ms. DOAN. No way.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. So in no way were you trying to smear

anybody or disparage anyone’s reputation. The names were released by the Office of Special Counsel or someone else in a leak,

because you did not even have possession of the testimony; is that

correct?

Ms. DOAN. Yes. But it is worse. It appears they deliberately went

out of their way to embarrass the employees. I got it online also.

But their original draft version called everyone Employee A, B, and

C. Someone went out of their way to reinsert employees’ names

into a final version of the document. Why would someone choose

to do that and cause embarrassment to young people who are just

serving their country and doing public service. I do not know.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. So in the original draft they did not put

the names in, but in the final draft they did put the names in and

leaked it.

34

Ms. DOAN. And leaked it. And why would you do that? It is so

wrong.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. That is a good question. It is a question

we will have to ask the Office of Special Counsel, and I hope we

will pursue that.

The Office of Special Counsel said at pages 404.01 of your deposition transcript, ‘‘The second thing I think is what you both have

been commenting on throughout this process, is we interviewed as

many people as we possibly could before the hearing, and then as

soon as the hearing became public and it was known to the employees how the Administrator would testify, we were concerned about

employees feeling they would have some concerns if they did not

substantiate the testimony of the Administrator, and that is why

we were extremely disciplined, extremely.’’ And Ms. Vail says, ‘‘No.

I imagine that a number of individuals watched your hearing, and

one of our concerns all along was people’s memories were getting

tainted by the discussions that are being held in GSA, by the news

media, and obviously by any testimony that has been made.’’ Basically, my understanding is that OSC’s interviews were tainted by

the fact that this had already been in the public domain. They read

it in the paper, they may not have remembered what happened

originally, but seeing an allegation in the paper then kind of refreshes their recollection, maybe rightly or wrongly.

The questioning by the majority staff on this, here is one of their

questions: ‘‘Several witnesses have told us that following the presentation Doan addressed the group and she said something to the

effect of how can we use GSA to help our candidates in the next

election. Do you recall this?’’ It is a pretty leading statement.

Ms. DOAN. Yes.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. It was a leading statement and I think

you get a leading answer when you ask those. The Hatch Act investigators did not give you your own deposition transcript; is that correct?

Ms. DOAN. No, they did not.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Was your lawyer permitted to attend the

deposition for the other witnesses?

Ms. DOAN. No, he was not.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. So you were not represented at those?

Ms. DOAN. No.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. You were not given the deposition transcripts for any of the witnesses, were you?

Ms. DOAN. No.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. So you are answering things kind of

blindly in this case, are you not?

Ms. DOAN. Yes, I am.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Were you ever told who the witnesses

were?

Ms. DOAN. No, I was not.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Well how can you retaliate if you do not

know who the witnesses were?

Ms. DOAN. One can only imagine.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I think that would be pretty difficult.

How did this affect your ability to respond to these accusations?

35

Ms. DOAN. As we stated in our letter in responding to the Office

of Special Counsel’s report, it is almost impossible to respond when

you do not know what exactly was said, when, where, why.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you. I will yield to Mr. Burton.

How much time do I have, Mr. Chairman?

Chairman WAXMAN. A minute and 30 seconds.

Mr. BURTON. Mr. Davis, I think I would rather pass and wait for

my 5 minutes, because it is going to take longer than a minute and

a half. You could yield to Mr. Mica.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. OK. Mr. Mica.

Mr. MICA. Ms. Doan, welcome back. I warned you in the beginning when we first talked that they were out to get you. Mr. Waxman went through the little scenario with the $20,000 contract and

could not find anything there, so they went on their fishing expedition. He brought up the Sun contract, which was before you were

there, and there was nothing there. So they managed to find something in this meeting.

Let me ask you one more time, did you initiate the political briefing?

Ms. DOAN. I did not.

Mr. MICA. OK. Did you see the briefing before it was presented

by Jennings?

Ms. DOAN. No.

Mr. MICA. First of all, you are a Republican, a minority, a

woman, a GOP contributor, and they have targeted you and are circling around you to come after you. I did not know that the General Counsel who we turned the Doan investigation over to, one of

the most high profile undertaken by the Office of Special Counsel,

at the end of this article that I inserted into the record, that Scott

Bloch is himself under investigation by the Office of Personnel

Management for allegedly retaliating against employees who disagreed with his policy. Did you know that?

Ms. DOAN. No, I did not.

Mr. MICA. OK. Thank you.

Chairman WAXMAN. The gentleman’s time has expired.

Mr. Cummings.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much. Ms. Doan, I am straining

trying to figure out where the truth ends and something else begins. You have accused this side of the aisle of this gotcha mentality and what have you. But I want to go back to some of your statements, Ms. Doan, and maybe you can help me. When you testified

before our committee on March 28th you stated, ‘‘I do not think

that any Government agency should be engaging in partisan political activity.’’ I know you are reading something but this is very important. Do you remember saying that?

Ms. DOAN. I am sorry, could you repeat the question?

Mr. CUMMINGS. You are taking up my time. You said, ‘‘I do not

think that any Government agency should be engaging in partisan

political activity.’’ That was back before us, sworn testimony,

March 28th. Do you remember that?

Ms. DOAN. Yes.

Mr. CUMMINGS. OK. You also said, ‘‘I have to tell you, polls and

stuff like that, this isn’t my thing. This isn’t what really motivates

me or energizes me.’’ Do you recall that?

36

Ms. DOAN. Yes, I do, sir.

Mr. CUMMINGS. You said the same thing to the Office of the Special Counsel. You said, ‘‘I don’t care about polls and election results.’’ Do you remember that?

Ms. DOAN. Yes.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Even today, your written testimony, Ms. Doan,

states ‘‘None of my actions, however, has been intended for or resulted in personal or partisan political gain.’’ I want to ask you

about the veracity of these statements, your intentions and your

motivations. First, as a matter of public record, both you and your

husband are or have been Republican National Committee Regents.

To be a Regent you have to have raised $250,000 for the Republican Party. And as Regents, you have been invited to fundraising

events with White House officials. Is that correct?

Ms. DOAN. No, that is not correct.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Well, correct me.

Ms. DOAN. You do not have to raise the funding. You can do your

own contributions if you choose.

Mr. CUMMINGS. You did yours?

Ms. DOAN. Yes.

Mr. CUMMINGS. OK. Thank you. We have been informed that on

May 17, 2005, you attended a Regents Breakfast at the St. Regis

Hotel. The speaker was Al Hubbard, who works at the White

House as Assistant to the President for Economic Policy. Do you recall attending the meeting on May 17, 2005?

Ms. DOAN. Yes, basically.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Let me show you a document that references this

meeting. This is an e-mail you wrote to Mr. Hubbard on your husband Douglas Doan’s official Government computer at the Department of Homeland Security where he worked. You wrote it on the

same day you met with Mr. Hubbard at 1:14 p.m. This is your

draft e-mail to Mr. Hubbard and here is what is says, in part:

‘‘Thanks for the excellent comments at the Regents Breakfast

today. I want to thank you again for helping move my bio forward

for consideration as the SBA Administrator.’’ So this was before

you were appointed as GSA Administrator. You were trying to become the head of the SBA. The e-mail then goes on to say something that is extremely interesting. It says, ‘‘As I mentioned, I believe that the Party has a unique opportunity to make about a 5

percent swing of the black votes to the GOP.’’ You go on to say,

‘‘One of the largest concentrations of wealth and influence lies in

the black business community, small black business owners who

represent the largest percentage of participants in the various SBA

programs.’’ Are you familiar with that?

Ms. DOAN. Yes.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Very well. And then in the third paragraph you

say this: ‘‘As the SBA Administrator, I would have an unparalleled

ability to serve as an articulate and impassioned Ambassador for

the President’s agenda and at the same time to be in a position to

encourage both funding and votes to the GOP.’’ Do you recall that?

Ms. DOAN. No. But I am reading it here.

Mr. CUMMINGS. You do not recall that, your own e-mail? All

right. Ms. Doan, this says that you would encourage both funding

and votes to the GOP, does it not?

37

Ms. DOAN. My intention here was to simply be a good example.

I was a private citizen at the time. I was not in a political position

and I had not had a Hatch Act briefing.

Mr. CUMMINGS. But you also said earlier that you were not interested in the political stuff. You were not interested in any kind of

partisan stuff. The problem here, Ms. Doan, is that when we take

all of the things combined, and I have heard you, I have listened

to you and you have given great statements, but when we combine

everything, it leans more toward not pure truthfulness under oath

than truthfulness. I am sitting here and I am trying to get where

you stand in all of this. Because it seems as if when there are questions about your truthfulness, you go off and you say things like,

well, you made a mistake. Well, where do the mistakes end and the

truth begin?

Ms. DOAN. First, Congressman, one e-mail in a lifetime does not

constitute a passion. Second, this is something that occurred as a

private citizen long before I became a political appointee and long

before I actually understood the rules and regulations that surround political appointees—Hatch Act briefings, Hatch Act training, and things of that nature.

Mr. CUMMINGS. But also said, Ms. Doan, in the e-mail about a

very specific goal—5 percent swing of Black votes to the GOP.

Ms. DOAN. Congressman Cummings, I cannot tell you exactly

what the context was in which this e-mail was written at the time.

But what I can tell you is that then I was a private citizen. Now

I am in a political position. I was not the GSA Administrator at

the time. I had not had a Hatch Act briefing.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you. I see my time is up. Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I would yield myself 2 minutes before

you recognize Mr. Burton.

Chairman WAXMAN. Yes.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I could not for the record remember an

e-mail I sent May 17, 2005, and I do not think that makes me

dumb or a liar or anything else. We send out hundreds or thousands of e-mails and to go back 2 years for an e-mail that was not

shown to you before today, was it?

Ms. DOAN. No. I just saw it a few seconds ago.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. How are you supposed to remember what

you said on that date.

Ms. DOAN. I think surprise was the element.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. So do not let them push you around. Second, there is nothing wrong with being an African-American Republican. They seem to put something on it. You are not interested

in the nitty-gritty that was given in this presentation, I gather,

from the White House.

Ms. DOAN. No.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. And when you say it is not your passion

the nitty-gritty of who won by what percent. But as an AfricanAmerican woman entrepreneur who has been successful, understand that being a role model can set a great example for making

inroads for our message to the African-American community. Is

that correct?

38

Ms. DOAN. That is absolutely true. This is a great Party. It is

very supportive of Blacks and Black entrepreneurs.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. And setting somebody up who has been

successful is leading by example. From my perspective, that is not

inconsistent in any way with not having your passion being the

nitty-gritty of winning election campaigns and the percentages.

There are a lot of Americans who are not interested in the nittygritty of politics. They write checks, they have certain philosophical

beliefs, they want to serve their country, on both sides, good people,

but that does not mean they are into the nitty-gritty of politics.

Frankly, if I were you and this was my introduction to the nittygritty of politics, coming before this committee, I do not think I

would want to know more about it or be involved with it. So from

my perspective, I do not see any inconsistency here. But I see a desire on the other side that you are an African-American Republican

so you have a big bull’s eye on you, and I understand that.

That is the end of my 2 minutes. I think we are ready to recognize Mr. Platts.

Chairman WAXMAN. Gentleman’s time is yielded back. Mr.

Platts.

Mr. PLATTS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I regret I need to leave

for another meeting. I would like to yield my time to the gentleman

from Indiana, Mr. Burton.

Mr. BURTON. I thank the gentleman for yielding. You know, this

is very amusing to me. Under the guise of being fair and thorough,

the chairman is saying he wants to conduct investigations to get

to the bottom of the ‘‘illegal activities’’ that may have taken place.

But you cannot get him to bring Stephen Hadley before this committee. Stephen Hadley was destroying and sneaking classified information—no, Sandy Berger. Correct that.

Chairman WAXMAN. We cannot get Stephen Hadley in here,

sorry. [Laughter.]

Mr. BURTON. Correct that. Sandy Berger was stuffing classified

documents into his socks and destroying them. But we cannot get

you to bring him before the committee. I would really like to know

why. In addition to that, Valerie Plame. The ranking Republican

on this committee asked that you bring Valerie Plame before the

committee. I do not think we ought to hold our breath on that. We

would probably die of suffocation.

But when you were in the minority and Al Gore went to a Bud- dhist temple and got $65,000 in campaign contributions, you defended him. When Bill Clinton took money in the White House, according to Johnny Chung, Johnny Chung said it was like a turnstile over there, you put the money in and you get in and get what

you want, you guys would not do anything to investigate that, tried

to block it. When money came in from Communist China, from the

head of the Communist China intelligence agency, that was given

in Hong Kong to Johnny Chung, you guys did not want to investigate that. When James Riady was getting money from the Lippo

Group, millions of dollars for the Clinton campaign, and John

Wong testified to that effect, you did not want to do anything about

that.

We sent five criminal referrals to Janet Reno, five, and those

criminal referrals were very, very clear, to the point, and we had

39

documented evidence that should have resulted in indictments of

people in the Clinton administration. Five. Janet Reno, the Attorney General for President Clinton, blocked every one of them.

Never even looked into them. She was the greatest blocker, greater

than anybody I ever saw in the NFL. The minority did not want

to do anything about it. They just kept saying we were on a witch

hunt, witch hunt, witch hunt. Well, I do not know, but what do you

call this? And why will you not bring in people that we know broke

the law, like Sandy Berger and Valerie Plame? Bring her in and

let her testify as to what she said. You just do not want to do that.

I cannot understand this when you defended the corruption in

the Clinton administration so vigorously, even though there were

over a hundred people that fled the country or took the fifth

amendment because they were trying to protect that administration, even though we had people from the White House come down

here time and time and time again and say they could not remember anything, they had an epidemic of memory loss down there. At

least Ms. Doan is here testifying. She is not saying she forgot everything, like we had the Chief Counsel down at the White House

and all the subordinates down there saying I cannot remember who

hired him and who hired them, who did what, and who did what

when.

And so what I cannot understand, Mr. Chairman, is why there

appears to be such hypocrisy on your side of the aisle. If you would

not do a thorough investigation when the Clinton administration

was very clearly violating the law time after time after time, and

we had witnesses at that table time after time after time, why is

it that you are pursuing this? Why are you creating this kind of

an investigation? This is really a witch hunt. When we did have

documented evidence. We had people under oath very clearly stating that they personally were involved in campaign contributions

that were illegal that involved the President and his staff and others in the administration, and you blocked and blocked and blocked

and stopped them every chance you got. The Attorney General

blocked them. That whole administration blocked everything. And

there is no question that the corruption was throughout the entire

White House.

So all I can say, Mr. Chairman, is I think this ought to be made

apart of the record, all this information, because this, in my opinion, what is going on today is really a witch hunt. To pursue this

the way you are doing it, when you will not bring Sandy Berger

or Valerie Plame before this committee and yet you will subpoena

the Secretary of State, who has a little bit to do around the world,

it just does not make sense to me.

Chairman WAXMAN. The gentleman’s time has expired. I will not

comment on your statement. The historical record will speak for

itself.

Mr. BURTON. I know you will not.

Chairman WAXMAN. It is now Mr. Clay’s turn. I yield.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Ms. Doan,

for being here. Ms. Doan, prior to your May 31, 2006 start as Administrator of GSA, you were in the private sector; correct?

Ms. DOAN. I was retired, actually.

40

Mr. CLAY. You were retired. And then prior to that, how long did

you support and work for President Bush’s election and reelection?

How far does that go back?

Ms. DOAN. I have been a Republican for decades.

Mr. CLAY. So, since 2000 you have worked on behalf of President

Bush’s election?

Ms. DOAN. Actually, initially, it was Elizabeth Dole. As a woman,

you have to support another woman running for office.

Mr. CLAY. Sure. Sure. And is it possible that once you got to GSA

you perhaps did not come out of the campaign mode but still

thought you were campaigning as far as helping Republican congressional candidates, helping the Republican Party look good?

Ms. DOAN. Absolutely not, Congressman Clay.

Mr. CLAY. Is it at all possible?

Ms. DOAN. No way. This is a leading question and the answer

to that is, no. The answer is no, no, and flat no.

Mr. CLAY. OK. That is all I wanted. Now let me ask you, in your

opening statement you say that you have pursued increasing opportunities for minority women and disadvantaged small business enterprises. Can you give me some examples of how you have helped

minority-owned businesses and disadvantaged businesses with

GSA?

Ms. DOAN. The largest contract that GSA has awarded internally

for IT infrastructure support has gone to a service disabled veteran

company that is also an 8A company. It is a historic contract. We

are really proud of it. It was initially targeted for a full and open

competition, and GSA has done an incredible job of making these

opportunities available. The largest governmentwide acquisition

contract vehicle, Vets, which we just awarded, is a multibillion dollar contract vehicle, the first time ever, and we have managed to

garner the support of the Veterans Administration and the Department of Defense to utilize these vehicles on behalf of these service

disabled veterans. These are achievements of which I am enormously proud. The 30-day schedule challenge, which is making the

opportunities for the schedules available to more small and minority businesses, collapsing the time that it takes them to get an

award so they can offer those goods and services to the Federal

Government sooner is the biggest help we can give.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Doan, for that response.

Let me go on to another question then. In your written testimony

for today’s hearing, you argue that you never intended to suggest

that any GSA employee was lying to the Office of Special Counsel.

Here is what you said: ‘‘I have never accused nor intended to accuse anyone of maliciously trying to mislead or lie to the Office of

Special Counsel or Congress. Characterizations of that sort are

simply not true.’’ But when you look at what you actually said

about your GSA colleagues, the only reasonable conclusion anyone

could draw from your statements is that you were implying that

these GSA officials were not telling the truth. Let us just go right

to the transcript. When OSC investigators asked whether you

thought these GSA——

Ms. DOAN. Could you please point me to the page number,

please?

41

Mr. CLAY. Excuse me, ma’am. Let me finish the question. Whether these GSA officials would make up these stories about you, you

responded, ‘‘I think one or two of them did not wish me well.’’ In

that statement, are you not saying that GSA officials are lying to

Congress and the Office of Special Counsel? That they fabricated

their accounts?

Ms. DOAN. No, I am not. What I said is that I think it is possible,

the operative word there being possible, that if, if is another important word, if a leading question were asked, these are all supposed,

these are all subjective supposes——

Mr. CLAY. Wait a minute now.

Ms. DOAN. Yes, this is a direct quote from the transcript.

Mr. CLAY. Ms. Doan, you said they do not wish you well, therefore they are not telling the truth, right?

Ms. DOAN. No, that is not——

Mr. CLAY. That is what you said.

Ms. DOAN. No, I did not say that. If you go to base number 385,

please——

Mr. CLAY. I have it right here.

Ms. DOAN. The quote, there is nothing in there. It says, ‘‘I think

it is possible that if a leading question were asked, yes, I think one

or two of them do not wish me well.’’ Period. End of statement.

There is nothing about mistruth. There is nothing about lying.

Mr. CLAY. Ma’am, I have a limited amount of time. Let me go

on, OK.

Ms. DOAN. But you want to get to the truth I thought.

Mr. CLAY. Later in your interview you explained why you do not

believe the testimony of the other GSA officials. According to the

transcript, you stated that the witnesses were not credible because

they have an axe to grind. That is on page 391. They have an axe

to grind, so therefore they are not telling the truth, that is what

you meant, is it not?

Ms. DOAN. No, that is not what I meant.

Mr. CLAY. Well what did you mean?

Ms. DOAN. We are still in the period of conjecture.

Mr. CLAY. What did you mean then?

Ms. DOAN. If you look at the context in which it was asked, after

the first I guess 5 hours of the second day, so that puts us somewhere around 8 hours into the interview process, they said, now,

is there anything else that you can think of that could possibly, you

know, cause this confusion, this, that, and the other. And then we

talked about the fact that the information was in the press, we

talked about the fact that they had been asked leading questions,

the fact that they had been interviewed in advance, and, in fact,

we tried to find out had they been interviewed by the committee

before being interviewed by the Office of Special Counsel, which,

sadly, it is possible they had been. All of these, we were talking

about in the context of could this have influenced the outcome. This

was one of several different and fairly lengthy discussions during

an hour of what could possibly, what could you suppose could have

made this happen. That is the context in which it happened.

Chairman WAXMAN. The gentleman’s time has expired. Do you

want 1 additional minute?

Mr. CLAY. Yes, sir.

42

Chairman WAXMAN. I yield you another minute.

Mr. CLAY. What you also stated during the investigation is that

they had poor to totally inferior performance. They are totally inferior, so therefore they are not telling the truth; is that right?

Ms. DOAN. No. This is something totally different. This was a

discussion I believe that happened earlier. And as I mentioned,

within the first 20 or so minutes of the interrogation process or

interview process, whatever you are calling it, the folks actually

started bringing up the concept of performance reviews and they

wanted to know in detail about what happens during performance

reviews, how are they done, what happens to people if they get a

poor performance review. It starts from the very beginning of the

interview process. There are several places, Congressman, where I

said where are we going with this, what is this all about, because

it was not clear to me. And they said we ask the questions.

Mr. CLAY. That is right. And that is all a part of the interrogation process, Ms. Doan. And one of the problems I have is that it

is very hard to believe your testimony because you are always

changing your story. You tell the Special Counsel under oath that

you think the employees are making up stories, and then you tell

us you never said that.

Ms. DOAN. I did not say they were making up stories.

Mr. CLAY. I do not know how anyone can have confidence in

what you are saying today.

Ms. DOAN. I did not say they were making up stories. I said that

if they were given leading statements, they might misunderstand

what they heard. You are trying to put words in my mouth, Congressman. I know you do not intend that. But you are not quoting

from the transcript.

Mr. CLAY. I am quoting what you——

Ms. DOAN. You are not quoting from the transcript.

Mr. CLAY. I am quoting from your testimony.

Ms. DOAN. No, you are not. You are not quoting verbatim anyway.

Mr. CLAY. Yes, I am.

Chairman WAXMAN. The gentleman’s time has expired. I am

going to yield 1 minute to Mr. Cummings out of our bank.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. As I listened to the comments of Mr. Burton and having served on this

committee for 11 years, I just want to read from the 1998 version

of the investigation of political fundraising improprieties. It says at

page 3927, according to Norman Ornstein, a congressional expert

at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, ‘‘the Burton investigation is going to be remembered as a case study in how not

to do a Congressional investigation and as a prime example of investigation as farce.’’ According to the New York Times, ‘‘the Committee’s efforts are a House Investigation travesty and a parody of

a reputable investigation.’’ The Washington Post called the investigation in its own cartoon, ‘‘a joke and deserved embarrassment.’’

Thank you Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Sali is next.

Chairman WAXMAN. Mr. Sali is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Are you going to yield your time, Mr.

Sali?

43

Mr. SALI. Yes, Mr. Chairman. I would like to yield my time to

Mr. Issa.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you. Before we do that, I would

like take a minute out of my bank and give Mr. Burton an opportunity to respond. I hate to go back and reverse the past, but I

want to make sure everybody gets their point across.

Mr. BURTON. I think it is very important that we do not pay attention to what newspaper accounts like the Washington Post said

about our investigation. We had 100 people flee the country or take

the fifth amendment. That is fact. We had people testify that they

were getting money through the White House, that they were getting money through the Lippo Group in Indonesia, that they were

getting money from the communist Chinese CIA that was given to

the campaign of the Bill Clinton administration. Now that is fact.

You can say anything you want to and read what the Washington

Post said, but the facts are the facts.

Chairman WAXMAN. Mr. Sali is recognized.

Mr. ISSA. He yielded to me, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman WAXMAN. Just a minute. Let me start the clock so that

you get your full time.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Sali, and thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The way we do business here, you are probably figuring out, is that

one side badgers you and one side leads. One side quotes out of

context. Then, usually the other side, that would be us right now,

we are supposed to rehabilitate the false statements, the innuendo,

and all the things that were done earlier.

I am not going to do that because I think you have done a very

good job of explaining that you are consistent, that you have in fact

told the truth and the whole truth. And if you have made any mistake, it has been in fact allowing those leading questions and what

ifs from people who were trying to make a case on you. From a

prosecutor who is not independent in the sense of unbiased but in

fact who gets paid to try to find mixable cases, who asked you unreasonable questions and clearly, clearly lied about the fact that

this would be kept private. He either lied through his action or lied

through his subordinates’ action when information that was given

under oath, confidentially, under that assurance consistent with

the Federal laws, was leaked.

And I am sorry. I am sorry for your agency and for those men

and women who may have gotten threes or fours or twos—not necessarily perfect scores—but who in fact deserved not to have their

private lives and their performance made public.

I do want to talk about one thing, though. And perhaps because

you and I are in fact both unabashed loyal Republicans who have

given to a number of campaigns over the years, including several

former presidents, I just want to put something in context. You

know, they talk about you and your husband over a period of 5 or

6 years, three or four campaigns, giving $20,000 or so per year per

each of you as a huge amount of money. And it is. I think people

look and say that is a lot of money to give, even if it is a $1,000

each to 20 candidates.

But I want to put something in context because I do not think

you will. And I think it is fair that we should put it in context. Is

it true that you have given, to the best of your recollection, to

44

Women Corporate Directors Education Fund, the American Women’s Business Centers, which is a film project, the Washington, DC,

Rape Crisis Center, the Washington, DC, House of Ruth homeless

shelter, primarily for women I presume, the Whitman Walker

AIDS research program, the New York Stage and Film Foundation,

and CARE? So far, are those all correct?

Ms. DOAN. Yes.

Mr. ISSA. How about, as Mr. Davis mentioned, Mary Lander? I

understand you also gave to her, but we will not consider that a

charity at this point, will we? Not yet.

Ms. DOAN. Yes, we went to high school together.

Mr. ISSA. You have given to Girls, Inc., to the United Negro College Fund, to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, to the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship, something you know a great

deal about, to the Committee of 2,000 education foundation?

Ms. DOAN. Committee of 200.

Mr. ISSA. Committee of 200, I am sorry. It is growing. The

Shakespeare Theater of Washington, DC? You know, we have a

fine center in San Diego. We should talk later. The University of

Tennessee, Knoxville, which you attended? To Vassar, which you

also attended?

Ms. DOAN. Yes.

Mr. ISSA. And my understanding, because it has been made pub- lic, is that these contributions each are as much as $1 million.

Ms. DOAN. Not every single one, and besides, I do not want to

get a lot of mail.

Mr. ISSA. No, I am not trying to out you as the generous philanthropist that you are. I just want to put it in context that when

you give out five or tenfold as much to charity every year to try

to make America a better place, would it be unreasonable to give

a fraction as much to people who you believe, including Mary Lander apparently, will make America a better place? Is that not sort

of a consistent balance of your giving back that you have done all

your life?

Ms. DOAN. Yes.

Mr. ISSA. Well, I hope I have not badgered you too much by

bringing these out. But it does seem to me that we need to bring

balance to this hearing. One statement was made that you have

said you regret, a statement which is up to others to decide whether or not was outside the bounds, and if it was how venal it was.

And it appears to be probably not outside the bounds. But even if

it was, it is a pretty de minimis statement compared to many of

the things we have heard here today.

As this hearing goes on, I hope you are given a full and complete

ability to do so and I am sorry that I did not give you a chance

to answer more. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman WAXMAN. The gentleman’s time has expired. Mr.

Tierney.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Doan, I just want

to cover a little ground. I heard you testify earlier that you did not

want to speculate and that you thought the Special Counsel was

asking you for speculation. I continue to be concerned about comments that you made about the performance of the individuals that

work with you. So I went to the transcript and you say that you

45

‘‘do not want to begin to speculate how this could have come up.’’

So you are clearly discounting speculation.

But then you go on to say, ‘‘But I do find it,’’ so it is no longer

speculating here, you are finding it ‘‘highly disturbing that some of

the most vocal proponents or the most articulate speaking out

against me are also the people who are the people who I have either moved on or they are, I don’t want to say permanently demoted, but they are kind of.’’ Then you reply to say, ‘‘Until extensive rehabilitation of their performance occurs, they will not be getting promoted and they will not be getting bonuses or special

awards or anything of that nature.’’

Now, before you tried to say, well that is impossible for me to retaliate because there are reviews that happened months before.

You are not talking about months before here when you are talking

to the special counsel. We are talking about things that you apparently intend that will occur in the future. You say, until that rehabilitation, they will not be getting promoted, they will not be getting special awards. Do you want to respond to that?

Ms. DOAN. Yes, I would love to. The fact of the matter is that

as Congressmen you have to look at this once again in the context

in which it occurred. First, it was speculation——

Mr. TIERNEY. No, you stop there. Stop.

Ms. DOAN. No, I will not.

Mr. TIERNEY. Stop. We are not going to let you run the table on

this, Ms. Doan. I am going to ask you a question and if I have to

ask the chairman to instruct you to be responsive, I will.

Now what I am telling you is that I am reading the context of

your thing where you clearly say ‘‘I don’t want to begin to speculate.’’ So enough of the speculation. Then your next statement directly is, ‘‘But I do find it highly disturbing that some of the most

vocal proponents or the most articulate speaking out against me

are also the people who are the people I have either moved on or

they are, I don’t want to say permanently demoted, but they are

kind of. Until extensive rehabilitation of their performance occurs,

they will not be getting promoted and they will not be getting bonuses or special awards or anything of that nature.’’ That is the

context. That is the exact language you used.

Ms. DOAN. Congressman, you do not have to raise your voice to

me. I came here willingly.

Mr. TIERNEY. Well, I had to madam, because you would not stop

when I asked you to stop. So now the question to you is do you intend to hold back these people’s bonuses or promotions?

Ms. DOAN. This is an inappropriate comment to have because we

have to talk about the context in which it happened and the tense.

Mr. TIERNEY. No, we are not going to go there again. I am asking

you do you intend——

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Mr. Chairman.

Ms. DOAN. There is only one place to go there.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman would you please instruct the witness to be responsive.

Ms. DOAN. I will not have a discussion——

46

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Mr. Chairman, I would be happy to use

my minute, since Mr. Tierney does not, to give her that extra

minute to put her——

Mr. TIERNEY. You do not have that option, Sir.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I have a minute I can use to allow her

to answer the question. She ought to be allowed to answer the

question.

Chairman WAXMAN. Mr. Davis, she ought to be allowed to answer the question, but it is Mr. Tierney’s time and no one can take

that time and interfere with that. So let me just try to put some

order to this.

Ms. DOAN. I would appreciate that.

Chairman WAXMAN. We have 5 minutes for each Member to ask

questions. When the 5-minutes are up, if you are still answering

the question, we let you complete it. But if a Member asks you a

question, it is not an opportunity to start on a monolog. You have

to answer the question because otherwise it uses up the 5-minutes.

Let us be fair to each other.

Ms. DOAN. But what if they are really wrong?

Chairman WAXMAN. Well then you have an opportunity to answer the question and correct the record, but not to go on and on

and on about it. Five minutes could be used up like that. Mr.

Tierney, I am going to allow you to continue and I am going to

make up this time that has elapsed.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The importance of this

is that you stated specifically what will happen in the future. So

I think it is very relevant here to find out whether or not you have

the intention of not promoting these people or not giving them bonuses or special awards or anything of that nature, as you used in

your language. Keeping in mind, the Office of the Special Counsel

found that there was nothing on their records that comported with

your statement that they needed ‘‘extensive rehabilitation’’ or had

poor performance.

Ms. DOAN. The Office of Special Counsel’s record report is flawed.

It omits critical evidence and it is riddled with errors. And I simply

believe that it cannot be trusted. I have already commented on that

in my comments in response to the report.

I will tell you, as I tried to explain earlier, the performance review process at GSA has multiple levels and phases. Everybody at

these meetings are not my direct reports. So I have no input into

whether or not they are getting a performance review of this or

that, or that rating, a bonus or not a bonus. That is their manager’s determination.

Mr. TIERNEY. So then why would you make a statement that

they will not be getting promoted and they will not be getting bonuses or special awards? You seem to be pretty clear under oath

there.

Ms. DOAN. No, we were still in the area of supposition and conjecture in my mind.

Mr. TIERNEY. The word ‘‘will’’ is supposition and conjecture?

‘‘They will not be getting promoted and they will not be getting bonuses.’’

Ms. DOAN. Actually, I noticed as I went through the transcript

that I have probably some problems sometimes with tense and as

47

well as with personal pronouns. So you will see that there are some

issues.

Mr. TIERNEY. Let me suggest to you what the Office of Special

Counsel thinks your problems are. ‘‘In summary, none of the performance reviews indicate that any of the witnesses who provided

testimony adverse to Ms. Doan were poor to totally inferior performers as she alleged. Thus, Administrator Doan’s implication

that the adverse witnesses were biased against her simply is not

credible. Finally, it is troubling that the Administrator Doan made

the above unsubstantiated allegations during an official investigation of her actions. It arguably indicates a willingness on her part,

not only to use her position in a way that is threatening to anyone

who would come forward, but also suggests a willingness to retaliate against anyone who would be so disloyal as to tell the truth

about a matter that she confesses she does not remember.’’ So he

thinks that your recollection is particularly bad on that. And there

are comments replete throughout the record on that situation.

Ms. DOAN. Well this is a good example because he chose not, or

they chose not to actually mention another portion of my testimony

where I talked about how the performances were occurring. And I

actually commended some of the employees for certain portions of

their performance. But they neglected to report these comments,

and these are things that I pointed out in my response to the report.

Mr. TIERNEY. But you did use the words, ‘‘they will not be getting

a promotion.’’ And that, you want us to believe, is some sort of

speculative or tense issue issues?

Ms. DOAN. You have to look at what came before. And yes, we

were talking about what goes on in a process and how does a performance review process happen. But I will tell you, no, I do not

retaliate and will not retaliate against employees because their advancement, their bonuses are based on performance.

Mr. TIERNEY. And did you use the word that you ‘‘will’’ retaliate

against them just for the fun of it under oath?

Ms. DOAN. This is unfair, Congressman. You have no facts to

substantiate this.

Mr. TIERNEY. It is not unfair. It is a direct question. It is a direct

statement. I am reading from your statement.

Ms. DOAN. I do not and will not retaliate against employees. I

have been the strongest advocate for my GSA employees and I will

continue to be so.

Mr. TIERNEY. Was it being a strong advocate when you said that

rehabilitation was needed, their performance needed to be improved, they will not be getting promoted, they will not be getting

bonuses?

Ms. DOAN. Congressman, I am all about improvement. And the

answer there is, no.

Chairman WAXMAN. The gentleman’s time has expired.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Let me take 1 minute, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman WAXMAN. Mr. Davis, for 1 minute.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Ms. Doan, did you say you were going

to retaliate against them? He just alleged that you said you were

going to retaliate against them. You never said that.

Ms. DOAN. No, they are putting words in my mouth.

48

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. That is not in the transcript. I have read

the whole thing. This is conjecture and interpretation.

Ms. DOAN. Yes.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. As I understand the situation, this was

a 9 or 10 hour interview where they asked you to conjecture why

employees may have said certain things. You referred back to some

of them having employee reviews that may not have been ‘‘poor’’

but they did not allow them to get bonuses. Is that correct?

Ms. DOAN. That is true.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. And you conjectured that maybe this was

something. You did not bring this up, did you?

Ms. DOAN. I did not.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. This was brought up by the questioners

in what, the 9th hour?

Ms. DOAN. Well, it started in the 1st hour but again in the 9th

hour, throughout the entire 9 hours.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. You did not even know who all these employees were, did you?

Ms. DOAN. No, I did not.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. They did not share their testimony with

you, did they?

Ms. DOAN. No, they did not.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. So, this was all conjecture. You do not

even in many of these cases have the authority to rate these employees, do you?

Ms. DOAN. No, they do not report to me.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. So, if you wanted to retaliate, did you

have the authority to retaliate?

Ms. DOAN. No, I do not.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Against any of them? Maybe one or two?

Ms. DOAN. This goes back to the first point. There were only one

or two that were in my mind throughout this entire process because only one or two people report to me.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. So this is just basically a wild goose

chase. Thank you.

Chairman WAXMAN. Mr. Mica is next.

Mr. MICA. Thank you. Let me pursue that a bit. Chairman Waxman, in his opening comments, said this is an example of supervisors imposing their politics on employees. I am not very good at

shorthand, but I took down his words. So you were imposing your

politics on employees. Was this a Schedule C?

Ms. DOAN. Brown bag lunch, yes.

Mr. MICA. All what, Presidential appointees?

Ms. DOAN. All Presidential appointees.

Mr. MICA. And you were imposing your politics on these Presidential appointed employees. That is what you are guilty of, right?

Ms. DOAN. So the chairman says, yes.

Mr. MICA. Again, I just about fell off my chair, just about spit

up my coffee. And I saved the Washington Post when I read, after

we thought we were going to get this handed to an impartial review, your alleged Hatch Act violations, to find out in fact that the

draft was leaked to the Washington Post and the media before you

got that. Is that correct?

Ms. DOAN. That is true.

49

Mr. MICA. In fact, it was such a stumbling bumbling thing. I still

wish to pursue, Mr. Chairman, either in a motion or just a request

from you that the Oversight and Government Reform Committee

investigate the leak of the draft of the Doan OSC report. How could

we have a witness who we were investigating, and we really deferred to OSC to conduct the investigation and then get that information? That is where this was left. Then to have leaked the draft

to the press. Now either the OSC, and I think they admitted to

leaking it, but I want to find out who the individual is or if anyone

cooperated on the staff of this committee.

That is not the way this investigative committee should operate.

Elaine Kaplan, who is Scott Bloch’s predecessor, this is the OSC,

has commented widely in the press. I do not know if you knew this,

Ms. Doan, that the harsh report raises questions. Kaplan has suggested that Doan’s comments may be a much more minor violation

than Bloch is reporting. I asked you the question if you knew.

And here is another report today about Bloch. I am trying to figure this out. He is an appointee. Now why is Bloch going after her

in such a harsh manner? Here is today’s Washington Post. ‘‘Meanwhile, the Inspector General, again of the Office of Personnel Management, at the behest of the President’s Office of Management

and Budget, is examining a complaint by OSC staff members and

others who accuse Bloch of interfering with Hatch Act cases.’’

This is absolutely astounding. You had some misfortune first of

all. You know, you got into a little hassle over trying to do something about a bad diversity record at GSA. And you tried to move

forward on a contract which never, incidentally, was executed. Is

that right?

Ms. DOAN. That is true.

Mr. MICA. They could not find anything there so they found this

26th meeting. Again, did you initiate that meeting?

Ms. DOAN. I did not.

Mr. MICA. Did you receive the report beforehand?

Ms. DOAN. No.

Mr. MICA. Who was invited to that?

Ms. DOAN. The political appointees were invited by the White

House liaison.

Mr. MICA. Had you ever been to or heard one of those before?

Now this was in January.

Ms. DOAN. No.

Mr. MICA. I guess at a political event like this, with political

people——

Ms. DOAN. Well, it is a brown bag lunch.

Mr. MICA. Maybe you had a false impression. Maybe Scott Jennings wanted to discuss spring planning protocols in Virginia. Do

you think that was his——

Ms. DOAN. I thought we were going to have a motivational

speech.

Mr. MICA. OK. All right. The OSC, the Office of Special Counsel,

admits that at least four different versions of your alleged comments have been reported; is that correct?

Ms. DOAN. Yes, but they vary quite a bit.

Mr. MICA. OK. And so what they have tried to do today is, again,

because you are a Republican, because you contributed to RepubVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:18 Feb 25, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00053 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\40149.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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licans, because you are a minority Republican, and because you are

a woman—the first time you came, I must admit, I thought they

had you spooked a bit. But I want to tell you that today you

creamed them. You have shot back. That is what you have to do.

You said you were going to fight, you were not going to let them

get you down. But counter them. Do not be afraid to counter them.

And when they try to cut you off, you tell the context, do not give

them a yes or no answer, you tell them the context in which they

are trying to take your words out of context. Did you ever threaten

any of these employees?

Ms. DOAN. No.

Mr. MICA. Let me say, did you ever threaten any of the political

appointees?

Ms. DOAN. No.

Mr. MICA. Before or since?

Ms. DOAN. No.

Chairman WAXMAN. The gentleman’s time has expired. Ms. Watson.

Ms. WATSON. I want to thank the chairman for holding this hearing. It is very, very insightful. I have sat here through the testimony on both sides and I have heard the attacks on the Chair, the

attacks on our former President and former people in service. I

have heard Ms. Doan’s responses. One thing that is very troubling

to me is that race has been interjected into the hearing. I originally

thought this hearing was about the Hatch Act and whether it was

violated or not. And I want to ask this question directly to you,

Mrs. Doan. Do you feel that you are being attacked because you are

a woman and an African-American?

Ms. DOAN. I believe that this hearing has a completely different

agenda that even I probably am not aware of and not experienced

about. So, I think this is a political thing that is going on here.

Ms. WATSON. Can you give me a yes or a no.

Ms. DOAN. Because everybody keeps saying I am under oath, I

do not think this is a race think, I think it is a political thing that

is going on here.

Ms. WATSON. Oh, good. So you do not think it is because you are

a woman or because you are Black?

Ms. DOAN. I try never to think in those terms.

Ms. WATSON. Can I get a yes or no.

Ms. DOAN. I do not know what the reality is here. What I know

is that I try never to project those things onto others.

Ms. WATSON. Wait a minute. Can you give me a yes or a no on

that question. I am asking you a direct question.

Ms. DOAN. I can tell you that I do not interject race and assume

those motives to other people. I do not do that because it is not

helpful.

Ms. WATSON. OK. Good. So let us dismiss—and I want to say

this to the people who have injected race and gender into this questioning—that you feel that it is for another agenda but not about

race and gender?

Ms. DOAN. No. What I said is I cannot begin to understand what

everyone’s agenda is. I only know about myself.

Ms. WATSON. OK. Fine. I am a female and I am African-American and I resent the fact that race and gender is always thrown

51

into it, because I do not feel that this committee or the chairman

of this committee would ever bring you in front of us because you

are a woman and because you are a Black. I hope we have an understanding on that, and I hope it will not be entered into this debate.

My concern is about the Hatch Act. And I am going to ask you

a direct question and I would like to get a direct answer. Did you

violate the Hatch Act on that hearing under question when someone came in from the administration and talked about how we can

get more Republicans elected? Do you feel that your actions, your

presence violated the Hatch Act?

Ms. DOAN. I do not believe that I violated the Hatch Act, and

that is what I believe I responded to the Office of Special Counsel

in my letter that went back in response to their report. I do not

recall, and I have tried to tell everyone what I did recall from that

day. What is curious is that we have probably over 30 folks who

attended that meeting, and apparently people have talked to part

of them, but for whatever reason they chose not to talk to all of

them. I do not know why we credit the few who appear to remember something but we do not credit the ones who say they remember nothing. There is a lot of stuff going on here that I do not understand what went into the flawed report. But it is what it is and,

as I have said, I will live with it. I did my response and I have

made my comments to the counsel.

Ms. WATSON. I am trying to get some direct answers and it is

really difficult in this hearing.

Ms. DOAN. As I said, I do not believe I violated the Hatch Act,

and then I tried to explain to you what I did to explain that.

Ms. WATSON. All right. Did you make any statements that would

encourage your subordinates to go out and recruit more Republican

candidates?

Ms. DOAN. As I said in my testimony, I find it hard to believe

I did. I do not recollect making the statement the Office of Special

Counsel says that they heard other people say that I made. But it

is my belief that I do not recollect that. I tried as hard as I could

to tell them everything else I remembered about the meeting. And

as I said before, I respect the right of the Office of Special Counsel

to make their decision. They have forwarded it on to the

President——

Ms. WATSON. Reclaiming my time.

Ms. DOAN. Oh, I am sorry.

Ms. WATSON. I find that you equivocate. We have had two sets

of hearings and I do not see you as a person who has faulty memory. Some things you can quote verbatim, you are looking at the

testimony. I do not buy the fact that you do not remember, and it

is my assessment that you have violated the Hatch Act.

Ms. DOAN. This is unfortunate. I am remembering——

Ms. WATSON. My time is up.

Ms. DOAN. I do not——

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I do not think she needs to respond. It

is an opinion.

Mr. Chairman, could I take 1 of my minutes at this point?

Chairman WAXMAN. Yes, Mr. Davis.

52

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Let me just ask, the race and gender

issue did not come from Ms. Doan. It was interjected on the other

side today by introducing a 2-year-old e-mail that they had discovered from you, Ms. Doan, that you had sent to the administration

where you talked about some of your qualifications for helping to

raise the Republican message when you were looking to be head of

the Small Business Administration.

She has never brought this into the context. This was brought in

by the other side and now they are trying to make it look like you

are hiding behind it. This is the problem with these kind of hearings, it starts off going after one thing and it is a moving target.

You have a lot of information you are supposed to be held accountable for. How in the world someone is supposed to know what email they sent 2 years ago was is beyond me. I know I certainly

could not do it.

And just to finish up my time, OSC stated that it interviewed

over 20 individuals in attendance at the Jennings presentation but

they quote testimony from zero attendees. In their report, they

stated they wanted to keep witnesses anonymous for their own protection. How can you retaliate against people if you do not even

know who they are? They do not identify them by number, which

they could have done, they omit any reference to their testimony

at all. Do you have access to this?

Ms. DOAN. No, I do not.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you.

Chairman WAXMAN. Mr. Davis, I want to point out that the first

reference at this hearing to the fact that Ms. Doan is AfricanAmerican and a woman, which may be pertinent to the hearing,

was in your opening statement.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. But we did not talk about her being prosecuted for that reason. We just talked about her life experience.

Chairman WAXMAN. Thank you. Mr. Bilbray.

Mr. BILBRAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Madam Administrator,

the Hatch Act is a very personal thing with me. I was one of five

so-called vulnerable Republicans that was a target of three Federal

employees under the Clinton administration. They ended up being

indicted for violating the Hatch Act in a dirty tricks operation

against Republican Members of Congress. So this is very, very personal and very serious in my opinion. Now there may be people up

here that feel that you might have said or did not say something

at some meeting. None of us up here were at that meeting. There

are those that claim to be at that meeting that say you said something, and you have said, no, you have not. I will take that at face

value.

When I hear somebody talk about a statement or an e-mail that

you sent prior to being in public service, and especially those of us

who are elected officials, and Mr. Chairman, I have just got to say,

I hope to God that none of us has constituents that are going to

take political statements or even brochures we sent out before we

were elected, we all know we say things. And the perception of

what we will do once we get into public services changes dramatically once you realize the rules of the game, get the briefing, and

you actually get into it.

53

And so I say in all fairness, I think it is really inappropriate, especially for elected officials, to say that somebody said these kind

of statements before they started public service and, obviously, that

is what they have done ever since. I think that is very unfair. And

I hope to God none of us have people go back and look at our public

statements before being elected and then bring it back up to us

now and claim all of that has been our earmark since service.

Mr. Chairman, at this time I would like to yield my time to the

gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. Shays.

Mr. SHAYS. Ms. Doan, I think you are a remarkable person. I

think you are a beautiful person. I regret that you have been treated the way you have been treated. They talk about it being an interrogation. We had last week a Democratic Member say I have a

lot of questioning. But I have to say that after being here for eleven

years, I hate it when witnesses are attacked. It bothers me, particularly when they are trying to do the best they can, in the words

of Thurgood Marshall, with what they have. Well, with what you

have, you have a lot. You have created an extraordinary business,

you have given to charities, and you have shown an interest in politics, and frankly, in a very naive way, because you just wanted to

help.

I do not care what the press thinks about what I am going to say

or anybody else. I just want to say to you that you are a remarkable person and you have been attacked and attacked and attacked

and you have held your head up high. I just wish you would sometimes wait to let people finish the question because you answer a

question they have not even asked you and then they twist it by

saying, well, you know, whatever. I want to know who have you retaliated against?

Ms. DOAN. No one, to my knowledge.

Mr. SHAYS. I would like someone in this hearing to tell me who

she has retaliated against. Give me names. Give me names of people she has retaliated against.

Chairman WAXMAN. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SHAYS. Yes.

Chairman WAXMAN. What Ms. Doan said to the Office of Special

Counsel——

Mr. SHAYS. I would like a name. All I want is a name. You asked

her for a question, just give me a name.

Chairman WAXMAN. OK. We will get the names of the people

who testified about her to this committee, and those were the people she referred to as getting a poor performance standard when

they did not.

Mr. SHAYS. That is totally a misstatement.

Chairman WAXMAN. And those were the people she said would

never get bonuses.

Mr. SHAYS. I reclaim my time. The bottom line is there is no

name. You have not retaliated against anybody. And you are being

accused of doing something in the future which you have not done.

Then they talk about the fact that there was a performance rating,

as if you retaliated against somebody. The facts are clear that happened before. I find this hearing astonishing. I just want to say,

you have retaliated against no one, you have made an assessment

of your employees fairly, you believe that some employees may not

54

like you and you are being criticized for that. I think there are

some employees in my own office that sometimes do not like me.

And I know there are a lot of people who have worked for me that

may not like me. You know what? I do not think that is a surprising thing to say. What is surprising is that you had to answer

questions under interrogation for 9 hours, and this is it?

This is it. All that we have come up with is a meeting should not

have happened and maybe she said how can I help the candidates.

That is it. There has to be a point where this hearing is ended and,

if anything, owe her an apology for what you put her through. I

yield back.

Chairman WAXMAN. The gentleman’s time has expired. The

gentlelady from California, Ms. Watson wanted a half a minute,

and I yield to her.

Ms. WATSON. Yes. I made a statement that race and gender was

injected and then there was a response that it came from this side.

I will get the recording of this hearing to show that I think it was

the ranking member that first injected that and someone else on

that side. But we will get the evidence and have it played, because

I want to be sure Ms. Doan is not being targeted because she is

a female and because she is an African-American.

Chairman WAXMAN. Thank you, Ms. Watson. Everybody is going

to be investigating everybody here. [Laughter.]

We will find out what is happening. Mr. Yarmuth, your turn for

5 minutes.

Mr. YARMUTH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Doan, you I am

sure do not know this, but before I came to Congress I was a writer

and editor and I know good writing when I see it and when I hear

it. And I want to commend you on your opening statement because

I thought the Berlin reference was a nice touch as well as your use

of the term ‘‘gotchee.’’ That gives me a segue into what I perceive

is a typical response throughout this whole thing; which is, always

to lay blame, question the motive of others, and I understand why

you may want to question the motives of others, but it extends also

to your attorney, and this is in relation to the leak of the Office

of Special Counsel.

Your attorney essentially charged this was a ‘‘carefully planned

campaign to cause maximum damage,’’ and accused essentially the

OSC of leaking the report. And in response, the Special Counsel

Scott Bloch has claimed that actually someone from GSA has

leaked the report. In a letter to your attorney in May, just a few

weeks ago, he stated, ‘‘Someone from GSA obtained a copy of OSC’s

report to your client from your client and then faxed it to the

press.’’ So I am going to ask you a series of questions about that

just to get it on the record since you are now under oath. When

did you receive your first copy of the OSC report?

Ms. DOAN. At 2 p.m. on Monday afternoon. The first reference in

the media was 7:45 a.m. that morning.

Mr. YARMUTH. OK. And how did you receive the copy of the report?

Ms. DOAN. It came by courier in a sealed envelop. There were

folks who watched me undo the seal of the envelope and pull it out.

Mr. YARMUTH. OK. Did you share the report with anyone at that

time?

55

Ms. DOAN. It was really bad, so the answer to that is, no. What

I did was I took it myself because I was a little concerned and I

went to the photocopy machine and I made a copy for my Chief of

Staff. He and I sat in my office, it took us a little while to read

it, and we sat there together while we read it through the afternoon. But meanwhile, we had already I guess it was about 7 hours

before started getting the questions from the press citing

quotations from the report. So we kind of knew they already had

it.

Mr. YARMUTH. OK. Thank you for that. Now in response to——

Ms. DOAN. Oh, I am sorry. And Congresswoman Watson, I do not

mean to make it look like I am not being clear. The one thing that

is so odd about this is there are at least two reports. That is why

I think you had that reference to it looks like it is a concerted attack. The report that I am talking about that I got is a May 18th

report. Then there was this draft report that was actually already

out there from May 17th. We never saw that one, ever, and even

now to this day. I got it off the Internet.

Mr. YARMUTH. OK. In relation to questioning that Mr. Tierney

engaged in with you, you talked about this statement that you

made ‘‘until extensive rehabilitation of their performance occurs,

they will not be getting promoted and will not be getting bonuses

or special awards or anything of that nature.’’ I have two questions.

One is, you said sometimes you have a problem with tense. Basically, there are only three tenses.

Ms. DOAN. No, that is not true.

Mr. YARMUTH. Past, present, and future.

Ms. DOAN. No. There is like present perfective, there is present

progressive, past progressive, past—[laughter.]

Mr. YARMUTH. Yes. But in the time continuum, that is grammar,

but in the time continuum, it either happened, it is happening, or

it will happen.

Ms. DOAN. Or it is ongoing as we talk.

Mr. YARMUTH. I am trying to get a handle on exactly where the

issue of tense might relate to whether or not you actually were

speculating about what you might do, what you may have in fact

done, or what you were in the process of doing?

Ms. DOAN. Well, I thought I was using like a hortatory subjunctive right there.

Mr. YARMUTH. OK. One other question. You said you were not

in a position to either deny benefits or promotions or so forth, or

to provide awards to the people in question here. Are you familiar

with the United States Code, Chapter 45, 4503, Agency Awards. It

says: ‘‘The head of an agency may pay a cash award to and incur

necessary expense for the honorary recognition of an employee who

by his suggestion, invention, superior accomplishment, or other

personal effort contributes to the efficiency, economy, or other improvement of Government,’’ blah, blah, blah. It also says that a

cash award under this section, this is 4505(a), ‘‘shall be equal to

an amount determined appropriate by the head of the agency but

may not be more than 10 percent of the employee’s annual rate,’’

so forth and so on. Does that seem to contradict the fact that you

could have or had the power to reward or to deny awards to the

people in question?

56

Ms. DOAN. I will admit I was not familiar with that code that

you just read to me. We are going to make a note of it and look

into it. I will tell you, though, there is a very big difference in the

way that our performances are done and you have to segment the

difference between a spot award, an individual award, a group

award, and a bonus, which is based on performance. These are all

different types of compensation available to employees and each

one of them has different levels of authority and who makes the

decision about it.

Chairman WAXMAN. The gentleman’s time has expired. Ms.

Doan, you said you did not have the authority, now you find out

you have the authority.

Ms. DOAN. Well, he just told me, and I appreciate that knowledge.

Chairman WAXMAN. And you did not know that. I see.

Ms. DOAN. Well I think, with all due respect, Mr. Chairman, I

try to allow my managers to make their own decisions because that

usually works best since they know the people who report directly

to them.

Chairman WAXMAN. I am going to yield myself a minute. What

is confusing me is you know about authority or you do not know

about authority that you may or may not have when it is convenient for you at our hearing. You indicated to the Republican appointee head of the Office of Special Counsel that you will make

sure these people do not get these bonuses. And then when you are

asked by Mr. Tierney do you have the authority to retaliate, you

said I do not have the authority. And now Mr. Yarmuth reads to

you the provision that gives you the authority, and you said well

I did not know I had that authority.

Ms. DOAN. No. I thought I said I was not aware of the code that

he read to me, but I was happy to have heard it. We are going to

look it up in its entirety. I also think that when I was talking to

the investigators for the Office of the Special Counsel we were still

in the area of conjecture about how you do things.

Chairman WAXMAN. I know. You have already told us that future

tense sentence did not mean it because you did not know future

tense or you know something about a hortatory something or other.

I kind of feel like Tony Soprano. The point is, you either know or

you do not know about the authority you have. And it looked like,

according to a strict reading of those words, that you in the future

will use your authority to make sure they do not get the rewards,

they do not get the bonuses, they do not get whatever benefits they

might otherwise get.

Ms. DOAN. That is incorrect.

Chairman WAXMAN. OK. Those words do not mean what they

say?

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Mr. Chairman, let me take 1 minute, if

I could.

Chairman WAXMAN. The gentleman is recognized.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I will give myself 2 minutes, if that is

all right. Two minutes of my time. First of all, I think it is very,

very clear they are beating a dead horse at this point. As the head

of the agency, I guess you have ultimate authority to do all kinds

of things. But as I understand it, you do not get into the performVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:18 Feb 25, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00060 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\40149.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ance ratings and that the individuals in question, some of them at

least, had threes, which did not qualify them for a bonus.

Ms. DOAN. True.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. You could not do that. And there is zero,

zero evidence that you retaliated against anybody.

Ms. DOAN. True.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. You did in a speculative question that

they asked you under seal, which was never supposed to come out

to the public, you said, well, they might have had performance

problems. And frankly, if they did not get a three or whatever, they

could not get a bonus anyway.

But I am beginning to just see this hearing as kind of a waste

of time. What are we doing? We ought to be talking about why can

we not close our border, why do we have constant gasoline shortages, how can children in foster care systems end up abused, why

does it cost so much to adopt, why is it so hard for American businesses to hire qualified students from other countries, how well

does foreign trade serve small businesses, why is it so hard to build

a nuclear plant in America, what are the plans to repair our interstate highways, what did Speaker Pelosi tell Syria when she visited

there, what are we doing to stop terrorists, what are we doing to

reduce gang violence, what are we doing to stop human trafficking,

how is the war on drugs going, what can be done to improve security clearance backlogs and processing, why have we not examined

first responder interoperability closer, how is National Guard readiness. Those are the issues we ought to be focusing on, not who

said what in an e-mail 2 years ago.

But let me ask you while I have you here, what issues at GSA

alone could the committee look at that would help you improve and

help the American taxpayers to help improve the effectiveness of

the agency?

Ms. DOAN. First and foremost is the important role that procurement officers play in our mission and what can we do to attract

more into government service, how can we protect them, how can

we stand up for them, and how can we make sure that there is effective balance in their actions and the work that they do that is

so critical to our agency. This is the pivotal issue facing GSA right

now.

Chairman WAXMAN. Mr. Souder.

Mr. SOUDER. I thank the chairman. I am going to use my 5 minutes while you are here to actually raise a substantive GSA issue

rather than the latest rounds of I gotcha games. It is actually

somewhat ironic because as a Republican who got only 54 percent

last time, I have found that the GSA has been incredibly unfair to

the people of my district. And so I certainly was not the beneficiary

of any bias. I want to lay out the issue for the record and hope we

can do followup.

We have a new social security office in the city of Fort Wayne

and it has been built at the edge of the city where there is no mass

transit access. Point one is, this is now the second time GSA has

done this to Fort Wayne, a city of 240,000 people. The last time

was a disability office where they put it beyond bus transit access.

The second point is that they did contact the city of Fort Wayne

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for a suggested site, then after they got the recommended site they

redid the map that excluded the site by one block.

Then GSA sent the bid out and the bidder that was selected happens to be not from our area and has won almost all the regional

bids, including for the other office. Apparently, and the only reason

we know, because apparently these bids are not made public, the

losing bidder came to us and complained about the process because

he thought there was a requirement that you had to have mass

transit, which apparently there is not. The next point would be

that GSA then explained to us that the second bid would have cost

the GSA $30,000 more a month, or $360,000 more a year. But now

because mass transit is required, it is just unclear whether it has

to be accommodated in the building, the city of Fort Wayne may

be paying up to $1.2 million a year to get mass transit there. Now

taxpayers are taxpayers. The fact is this is a net loss to taxpayers

of $850,000 and right now we are having trouble trying to figure

out how to do it.

This raises some fundamental bidding process questions, some

fundamental requirement questions. I would hope that GSA and

social security will continue to work with us for some kind of a

compromise of how we can work this through. The building is up.

Oh, by the way, they did not inform our office or the city that the

building was being built.

So unless you happened to find some little obscure thing in a

massive Congressional Record or hire a beltway bandit to look for

it. They told us that they could not tell us that they were building

this building because of Homeland Security concerns when you

build a government building. This is kind of bizarre. I know the

Oklahoma City bombing question and all this kind of thing.

But it is not like this is a secret. It is standing there now. It has

been on all the TV stations. It is sitting outside the city. Seniors

are calling my office, low income people are calling my office, just

like they did with the disability office.

Now, I would like to be able to work with the chairman and the

Oversight Committee because if, indeed, the law does not require

it in a major metro area where bus access is, it should. Second,

there needs to be a more open and transparent bidding process. We

are getting flooded now with people who say we have buildings in

this area, we can meet the requirements. They did not have any

way of knowing that a bid was out. Unless they hire somebody

from inside Washington to figure out between March 15th at 2 and

March 17th at 5, they do not know what is being built. It gives inside bidders incredible opportunity. Then the few people who figure

it out sometimes are inexperienced and do not kind of know what

the bidding process is, so one guy keeps cleaning up and getting

all these type of bids. And, once again, we are burned on the mass

transit question.

I wanted to raise those questions to you. I look forward to continuing to work with it. But I believe it is something substantive

our committee ought to be looking at because seniors who cannot

drive, seniors who do not have a car need to have a relative, a

friend, or somebody get them there if they cannot use mass transit.

This is just an unbelievable discouraging thing to happen twice in

my home area.

59

Ms. DOAN. Congressman, please give me an opportunity to work

with your team and with the people in Fort Wayne, let our regional

folks take a look at this if something is wrong. These are the kind

of issues that I want to be here to try to resolve, to try to expedite

the process, make it transparent, and be held accountable for our

actions. So please allow GSA the opportunity to respond back to

you. I was not aware of this. I will be looking into it.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to make sure it

is on the public record so nobody thinks she is doing it because I

am a Republican. [Laughter.]

Mr. ISSA. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. SOUDER. I will yield my last 30 seconds.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you. I would add to that I do think the issues

of national bundling, a lot of the other issues that this committee

historically has worked on, and the Committee on Small Business,

are also appropriate. Being a Vassar graduate, I hope you will appreciate that, as a Kent State graduate, I know an awful lot of

small business people who definitely would appreciate your having

time to focus on that. And I appreciate your agreeing to do so. I

yield back.

Chairman WAXMAN. The gentleman’s time has expired. Mr.

Welch.

Mr. WELCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Doan, when you testified here on March 28th, I asked you several times, repeatedly,

in fact, whether you as the head of the agency believed that the

political presentation by the White House at your offices was appropriate. I asked whether you thought it was a proper use of taxpayer money and Federal Government resources to be discussing

political tactics and political strategies for winning Republican congressional seats.

Every time I asked you the question you refused to answer it,

stating that there was an ongoing investigation by the Office of

Special Counsel. I emphatically disagreed with your refusal to answer the question. Nevertheless, the OSC investigation is now over,

as you know, and I would like an answer to my question. So today,

after you have examined the issue backward and forwards, do you

believe it is appropriate to gather together Federal Government officials on Federal property during work hours to discuss how to

help Republican candidates win congressional seats in future elections?

Ms. DOAN. Congressman Welch, actually, the Office of Special

Counsel’s investigation on the Power Point presentation is not concluded, and they said so in the report and the letter they sent to

the President. But what I can tell you is that while I will not Monday morning quarterback, what I have tried to do, especially given

the concern of this committee, is take action. One of the things I

have done is I have initiated processes to fully review future presentations.

Mr. WELCH. That is not my question. Ms. Doan, I would appreciate it if you would answer my question. If you are going to refuse

to answer it, you can tell me you are going to refuse to answer the

question. But it is not helpful to me for you to answer a question

that I did not ask.

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Ms. DOAN. Oh, I am sorry. I was trying to correct a

misstatement. You misstated when you said that the investigation

was closed on the presentation, and it was not.

Mr. WELCH. I have a letter here that was just handed to me. It

is the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, dated June 8th, stating that

the Office of Special Counsel has completed its investigation into

the Hatch Act allegations.

Ms. DOAN. No. They completed the investigation into the alleged

statement. But later on in that—I do not know if the young lady

has it—if you go a few more pages into it, they will actually say

that they have not yet finished their investigation into the Power

Point presentation.

Mr. WELCH. OK. It is kind of hard getting our questions answered when you spend a lot of my time answering questions that

I did not ask. Basically, the situation is this. With respect to the

Hatch Act investigation, the Special Counsel says that his investigation is over. You say it is not.

Ms. DOAN. No. That is not what I said, Congressman.

Mr. WELCH. Hold on. Let me just ask this. Do you believe, or are

you willing to answer now whether you believe, that it is proper

to gather together Federal Government officials on Federal property during work hours to discuss how to help Republican candidates win congressional seats in future elections?

Ms. DOAN. I will not Monday morning quarterback, and I will not

prejudge the Office of Special Counsel’s decision in that matter.

Mr. WELCH. No. I am asking you.

Ms. DOAN. I have just given you my straight answer. I am not

going to give you a yes or a no, which is what you are trying to

do, because I do not know. I am not a legal person. I am not a

Hatch Act expert. I guess that is why I am here.

Mr. WELCH. But you are the head of a governmental agency. So

you do not have an opinion?

Ms. DOAN. And you did not want my answer when I said I am

trying very hard, I have put in place processes to vet any kind of

presentation and the person who comes.

Mr. WELCH. Let me ask you this. If the White House called you

up and said Mr. Rove is coming over, great news, and he has a

Power Point presentation and he can identify the 10 congressional

candidates that your office can do the most for, let us have a nice

lunch, are you saying you would say come on over, or would you

say you cannot come?

Ms. DOAN. I would say we have put in place a process. Follow

our process, send it to our ethics officer and that ethics officer will

review any person and any presentation who is coming to our agency. Because I am focused on the mission and I just want to get our

mission accomplished. So we have a process in place now.

Mr. WELCH. So you will not answer?

Ms. DOAN. That is the answer. We are going to send it to the

process.

Mr. WELCH. You know, on June 1st, one of your attorneys, Mr.

Nardotti wrote a letter stating that the White House Power Point

presentation on its face raises Hatch Act concerns. That is your attorney.

Ms. DOAN. General Nardotti, yes.

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Mr. WELCH. I assume you agree with your attorney. Is that correct?

Ms. DOAN. That was actually a statement of the open investigation, as I mentioned, that is ongoing right now by the Office of Special Counsel. I think it says something like it may——

Mr. WELCH. Do you agree with your attorney?

Ms. DOAN. Yes. There is an open investigation right now on the

Power Point presentation.

Mr. WELCH. No. No. He said that the Power Point presentation

on its face raises Hatch Act concerns. The question is very simple.

Do you agree with that or not?

Ms. DOAN. I said yes, it is public knowledge that the Office of

Special Counsel is looking into this matter. That is what the whole

sentence says, if you read that in the letter.

Mr. WELCH. Mr. Nardotti also gave an interview in which he

stated that the White House demonstrated a lack of responsibility

when it presented this briefing to you. Let me ask you this. Do you

agree——

Chairman WAXMAN. The gentleman’s time has expired. Do you

have an outstanding question you want to ask? Have you completed your question?

Mr. WELCH. I do.

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Chairman, are you yielding the Member additional

time?

Chairman WAXMAN. The gentleman is given an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. WELCH. Do you agree with your counsel that the White

House has demonstrated a lack of responsibility for this?

Ms. DOAN. I will simply say the letter speaks for itself in its entirety.

Chairman WAXMAN. The gentleman’s time has expired. Mr. Issa.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you. I am going to use my time to give you an

opportunity to answer these questions the way they should have

been able to be answered. You know, ask a question, if there is a

flaw in the question you should be able to point out the flaw. Let

us start with, as I understand, the question that was asked by a

previous interrogator had a flaw in it. Would you like to explain

why that was a flaw so people understand. You were attempting

not only to answer but to answer in a way that we would get the

best understanding.

Ms. DOAN. Yes. The way the Office of the Special Counsel chose

to pursue this is they investigated only an alleged statement, and

that is what the report is discussing. There is a second investigation which is ongoing even as we speak into the Power Point presentation itself and its contents, and that has not been resolved.

Mr. ISSA. OK. So if I can characterize the full truth here. They

have closed the investigation as to whether or not this one statement you made at the end of a briefing in which you spent a lot

of time knowing that there were cookies there and working on your

Blackberries, that, in fact, is going to the President.

Ms. DOAN. It is at the President.

Mr. ISSA. It is at the President and he will make a decision about

whether or not——

Ms. DOAN. And I will live with it.

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Mr. ISSA. And we all will live with it. That is the law. However,

the underlying question that is alluded to here is whether or not

the very public concept that apparently came out of some people involved with the President of putting these informative slide shows

together and so on for candidates, whether that crossed the line or

not, which is a legal question you are not able to answer. But that

is still underway, as far as you know?

Ms. DOAN. Yes, it is.

Mr. ISSA. And we will live with the decision there, too, I am sure.

The other question that was cutoff, as I understand it, you have

implemented a policy that is more than just a non-lawyer skilled

business woman making a decision on something that you have not

seen but somebody is saying I want to come over and present something. As I understand it, you have implemented a program where

that presentation must be prescreened by an ethics expert before

it is given, no matter what the source. Is that correct?

Ms. DOAN. That is true, and it is for every office within GSA.

Mr. ISSA. You know what I find amazing is that here in Congress, on both sides of the isle, we caucus and talk about each other’s—We draw the line. We do not talk about fundraising, but we

talk about how to defeat the other party and how to deal with candidates and who is vulnerable. We do that in conferences here all

the time. It is a little bit of hubris that one body cannot do something without the other body pretending that we do not do what

we do. The activities that go on inside Members’ offices and even

in conferences with 200 Members would amaze you.

Chairman WAXMAN. Did you want to yield to me?

Mr. ISSA. Of course, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman WAXMAN. There is a very big distinction between political candidates and people in Congress and even at the White

House in the political office and the head of the General Services

Administration.

Mr. ISSA. In reclaiming my time, and not for a minute do I pretend that there is not a difference, but it is sort of interesting that

the very idea that Republicans might meet as Republicans is a little disingenuous to the public. The fact is, our rules are different.

And I know that you are going to live with the outcome of the

rules, but there are also rules for the Office of the Special Counsel

or inquisitor or interrogator or prosecutor, as they have been more

appropriately called today. Would it surprise you to know that the

Special Counsel on April 26th disparaged you? That, in fact, they

said you had amnesia? And they did that before Mr. Waxman and

his committee. Would that surprise you?

Ms. DOAN. Yes.

Mr. ISSA. Well, it was actually before his committee staff. That

would surprise you? Well, it does not surprise me because it happened. And so here you have the staff, these appointees if you will,

these employees who are supposed to be so unbiased, and they are

coming before the biased committees and they are disparaging you

prior to that time. Would it also surprise you to know that next

week the Office of Special Counsel will be here asking Chairman

Waxman for reauthorization?

Ms. DOAN. Yes, that would surprise me.

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Mr. ISSA. Well, it is going to happen. And would it surprise you

that a good showing of toughness might in the back of the mind

of the Special Counsel somehow benefit that reauthorization?

Would that surprise you? Do not speculate, please do not speculate.

Ms. DOAN. I am not. I am trying to learn from experience.

Ms. NORTON. I must object, Mr. Chairman. I know that you are

long suffering.

Mr. ISSA. Well, hold on a second. This is my time.

Ms. NORTON. Yes, but I object. If you could take down words,

that is what I would be doing. You have cast aspersions on the

chairman with no predicate of evidence in doing so.

Chairman WAXMAN. Gentlelady, thank you for your support. The

gentleman has another few seconds of his time left.

Mr. ISSA. In reclaiming the time I would have had, just to answer, I was actually disparaging if you will, the conduct of the Special Counsel in coming and disparaging this lady before committee.

I am not for a minute believing that the chairman would look toward reauthorization based on this preferential and unreasonable

conduct that appears to have gone on by the Special Counsel. I

trust the chairman will be fair in all things. I yield back.

Chairman WAXMAN. Boy, am I glad that I gave you that extra

time. Whose turn is it now? Mr. Sarbanes, I think you are next.

Mr. SARBANES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I hope that my mother is watching. She is a Latin teacher and I am just going to take

issue with your citing of the hortatory subjunctive. The actual

tense that was used in the statement about ‘‘will not be getting

promoted’’ and so forth, that is just clearly the future tense. It is

not future perfect or future pluperfect or anything of that nature.

Actually, the best example of the use of hortatory subjunctive is the

statement, ‘‘How can we help our candidates.’’.

Ms. DOAN. No.

Mr. SARBANES. Yes, because the hortatory subjunctive is used

when you are exhorting people to do something, which is exactly

what that statement was. That was an exhortation in the subjunctive tense, not using the word ‘‘let’s’’ as it is usually seen, but using

this other construction of, ‘‘How can we help our candidates.’’ I just

wanted to correct the record on that. We can debate it after if you

would like.

I agree with Congressman Shays that you are a truly remarkable

person. I do not think I have ever seen a witness have this much

fun or view the interchange with the committee as a sport in the

way that you have. The lack of contrition and humility that you

have displayed to me and this committee is, frankly, truly breathtaking. But let me dispense with the introductory remarks.

Let me ask you about the statement that allegedly was made,

‘‘How can we help our candidates.’’ Do you agree that if that statement had been made that it would have been a violation of the

Hatch Act? I know you claim that you do not remember making it.

Ms. DOAN. No, I do not remember making it. But I have to tell

you, I am not sure I would be able to say a yes or no unless I understood the context. In fact, there is actually a long discussion

from the Office of Special Counsel people in the testimony on that.

It depends on what did it lead off with, what was happening in the

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middle. There is a whole lot of stuff going on there that I do not

want to get involved in.

Mr. SARBANES. Let me ask you another question. Your attorney

appeared to agree initially, in some testimony we have here, that

you do not remember whether you said that or not. But then later,

it is Mr. Nardotti——

Ms. DOAN. General Nardotti.

Mr. SARBANES. Yes. He said, ‘‘It appears that Administrator

Doan’s alleged question at the end of the presentation was not directed to the GSA Presidential appointees but to Mr. Jennings.’’ So

I am confused. He appears to be conceding the statement but just

sort of disputing who it was addressed to. Yet in another place he

is agreeing with you that it did not happen.

Ms. DOAN. No. I think what he was trying to do was provide context of if you did this, it is X, if you did this, it might be Y, if you

did this, the end result might be Z. Since he is right there, you

probably ought to talk directly to him.

Mr. SARBANES. OK. And context is very important. You have

used the word context I think hundreds of times in the course of

this, and we are trying to get as much context as we possibly can.

Let me ask you this. You understand the Hatch Act, clearly. If you

did not before the hearings, we all certainly understand it now.

Would you agree that there is different gradations of violation of

the Hatch Act? I mean, there is degrees to which a violation can

occur.

Ms. DOAN. Yes, there appears to be degrees.

Mr. SARBANES. And if you looked at sort of indirect political

statements or activity occurring sort of down in the rank and file

level, that is a less egregious kind of violation of the Hatch Act

than you might have if you had a high level official engaged in

more direct sort of political exhortation. Would you agree with

that?

Ms. DOAN. No, I would not. I would have to know more about all

the scenarios surrounding it. As I said before, I am not a Hatch Act

expert, although I have obviously read up on it as much as possible

in preparation for my stuff. But there is a lot that apparently goes

into the decisionmaking when the Merit Protection Board evaluates

the Hatch Act. So I do not even want to try to speculate, Congressman.

Mr. SARBANES. The statement, some on the other side have dismissed this statement as, you know, it is just one statement, one

sentence, it was one remark. I am assuming it happened. It was

one remark. So it does not mean that even if it happened, it was

a little thing and we are making this huge deal out of it. But that

is everything. That statement is everything, particularly if it is a

statement made by a person who is as direct as you are. I mean,

I do not see you, based on your testimony here today, being somebody who is a wallflower at a meeting. I just cannot imagine that.

So if you take the directness of your personality and you combine

it with a statement, a very loaded statement like that, the combination of that I think is very plausibly a serious violation of the

Hatch Act. And I notice you said here——

Chairman WAXMAN. Mr. Sarbanes, your time has expired.

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Mr. SARBANES. I am sorry. Let me just finish my noting that you

said in your testimony, ‘‘One of the best things about me is that

I am direct. Of course, that is probably also one of the worst things

about me.’’ In combination with that statement, I think it did have

a terrible affect inside the agency. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. DOAN. This is a leap in logic.

Chairman WAXMAN. The gentleman’s time is expired. Ms. Doan,

we have a very few more questions of Members. But I think it

would be appropriate to take a break for 10 minutes and then we

will come back and conclude the hearings.

Ms. DOAN. Thanks.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, how many Members are left? I am

just curious, how many Members do we have left? I have my time.

Who else has time?

Chairman WAXMAN. That is not pertinent.

Mr. SHAYS. I am just asking.

Chairman WAXMAN. We are going to take a break and then we

will be glad to give you the information.

[Recess.]

Chairman WAXMAN. The committee will come back to order.

The next person to question the witness is Ms. Norton. You are

recognized for 5 minutes.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Doan, as you know,

I have come to know you and certainly to admire you personally.

I know you in connection with my own jurisdiction over the GSA

and other——

Ms. DOAN. Excuse me, Congresswoman, could you talk just a tad

louder.

Ms. NORTON. As I said when we had our last hearing, I have

come to know you and to admire you personally, this out of our

contact with you in my jurisdiction of my subcommittee in another

committee. If I did not know how sophisticated you were and that

the administration apparently acknowledged that it has done this

with upwards of 20 agencies, I would think of you as a babe in the

woods given what has been found. As you know, I believe everybody is accountable for her own actions. But I am quite amazed

that White House personnel would have put any agency head in

this position, even though they know or should have known of how

to behave and react.

Ms. Doan, this matter is here this time in a wholly different posture where findings have been made, where conclusions have been

drawn by an independent body, at least one not connected with us.

And I recall that at the last hearing you said that you would live

with the findings. You acknowledged that the Office of Special

Counsel is independent and impartial. Are you still willing, given

what the Office has found, to live with it; that is, to accept its findings?

Ms. DOAN. The answer, if I could just say right off the bat, is,

yes. There are two parts. There is the Office of Special Counsel’s

final draft. I am allowed to comment on the draft. The two are put

together with a cover letter——

Ms. NORTON. We want your comment on the draft now.

Ms. DOAN. No, no, no. I am saying——

Ms. NORTON. Your draft has been sent to the President.

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Ms. DOAN. And we are done. There is nothing more to be said.

Ms. NORTON. Done is the word for it. Now I am asking you a

question, and I am held to my 5 minutes. In light of what you said

at the last hearing, are you willing to live with the findings of the

Special Counsel now that they have been made?

Ms. DOAN. I am willing to live with the combination of the report, which is what I was talking about. I will live with the report,

which is his findings and my comments to his findings, and his recommendation to the President.

Ms. NORTON. So you do not accept his findings then?

Ms. DOAN. This report is flawed.

Ms. NORTON. When you refused to answer our questions before,

you constantly referred to the impartial body that was considering

this matter. It has now considered. It has now made its findings.

It has now made conclusion. Those were not the conclusions and

findings of this committee. Now you said you would live with them.

I am asking you, are you willing to live with those findings as you

told us you would?

Ms. DOAN. It is a flawed report and I accept that they are allowed to submit that report and I must live with it. But these are

two different issues.

Ms. NORTON. Do you accept that they are an impartial body not

connected with this committee or with you or with anybody else of

interest or of imputed interest in this matter?

Ms. DOAN. I do not believe that this report was impartial. I believe it was flawed. It omitted critical information. But whatever

the findings are, I have decided, as I said in the last meeting, that

I will live with the President’s decision. The findings, the report

has gone to the President. It is on his desk. Whatever it is——

Ms. NORTON. Ms. Doan, reclaiming my time, you have to live

with the President’s ultimate decision.

Ms. DOAN. Yes. We all must do that.

Ms. NORTON. You are, of course, contesting. So you are living

with it but you are contesting the impartial findings.

Ms. DOAN. No, no. I am not contesting the President’s decision.

Ms. NORTON. You know, if you would listen to my questions you

would not answer some other question.

Ms. DOAN. OK. That is fair.

Ms. NORTON. Because I am not interested in the President’s findings because he has not issued them. You are contesting the findings and conclusions of the impartial body that you yourself said

was independent and impartial; is that not the case? Yes or no.

Ms. DOAN. Yes, it is because that is part of the process. The report has two parts. Mr. Bloch’s cover letter——

Ms. NORTON. I do not need you once again to take me to school

on the report, thank you.

Ms. DOAN. Yes. But Mr. Bloch’s cover letter explains the process

and he tells you in the cover letter there are two parts to it, his

findings and I am allowed to comment on it. It will not be

changed——

Ms. NORTON. I have just said that, Ms. Doan.

Ms. DOAN. OK. I am sorry.

Ms. NORTON. That you yourself were allowed to make your own

comments. Let us talk about the comments.

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Ms. DOAN. Yes, please.

Ms. NORTON. The impartial and independent Office of Special

Counsel used language that it seems to me anybody would take seriously. This is a body that looks at Hatch Act violations, could

imagine no greater violation of the Hatch Act, pointing at you

using the machinery of the agency for partisan campaign to retake

the Congress and certain Governors’ mansions.

Chairman WAXMAN. The gentlelady’s time has expired.

Ms. NORTON. Could I just ask the question. Your attorney called

this report reckless and inflammatory, overblown. Do you believe

that these findings by the impartial and independent Office of Special Counsel are inflammatory and reckless, etc?

Ms. DOAN. I believe they are inflammatory, showing leaps in

logic totally unsubstantiated by the facts. And I think if you look

at the sheer number of errors, I am not going to say that some of

them——

Ms. NORTON. Why do you think the Special Counsel went out of

its way to be reckless with you?

Ms. DOAN. I do not know. That is a question I really would love

to have an answer to. I do not know.

Chairman WAXMAN. The gentlelady’s time has expired.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Mr. Chairman, may I take 1 minute?

Chairman WAXMAN. Yes, Mr. Davis.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you. Look, the OSC makes its

finding, she makes her retort, and the President makes the decision. That is the process. She is going to live with it. It is not complicated. We know what she thinks of the report because they

wrote a 15 page or so rebuttal to that. That is on the record. We

do not need to waste our time going through that.

But it is not just Ms. Doan who takes exception to the report.

Elaine Kaplan, by the way, I believe a Democrat appointee, who

was Mr. Bloch’s predecessor, has commented widely in the press

that the harsh report raises a number of questions. She suggested

that her comments may be much more minor violations than Mr.

Bloch is reporting. She adds that there are nuances here that have

not been carefully explored. Her comments may have been getting

the employees to take action in their private capacity, it could have

been construed that way, a point I raised earlier. Given this was

a group of political appointees, such a statement would not be

nearly as harmful. The report glosses over the fact that each of the

employees that attended the briefing was a Presidential appointee

rather than a civil servant and thus the core concerns of the Hatch

Act were not implicated.

Now there are other issues that are raised. But it is not just her

that is questioning the OSC’s report. I just think the record should

reflect that.

Chairman WAXMAN. The gentleman’s time has expired. The

Chair is going to yield himself 5 minutes. The report has been concluded but the Office of Special Counsel and the recommendations

of the Office of Special Counsel is that you be given the maximum

possible penalty for violating the Hatch Act, which would be firing.

Now people could disagree with the report, they could disagree

with the recommendations. The President will make his own decision.

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Ms. Doan, I want to ask about conflicting statements that you

seem to be making quite frequently, and I am using that present

tense but it is also past. When you testified before our committee

at our March hearing you repeatedly claimed you could not recall

any information about the January 26, 2007 meeting or the White

House political presentation. You had absolutely no memory of asking GSA employees how they could help Republican candidates in

the upcoming elections. That is what you told us. We questioned

you over and over again. You remembered there were cookies, you

remembered you came in late, you remembered that some employees did not attend, but beyond that you told us you had no further

information. Five weeks later you testified before the Office of Special Counsel and suddenly you had new and rich details about the

meeting and your statements. According to your own OSC testimony, you said you asked the White House presenter ‘‘how can

GSA help its cabinet liaison understand that the opening of the

San Francisco Federal Building would be a perfect event for President Bush to attend.’’ Did you say that to the Office of Special

Counsel?

Ms. DOAN. Yes, I believe I did.

Chairman WAXMAN. You also told them that Mr. Jennings suggested you write a white paper or a one-pager explaining why it

would be relevant for the President to attend. But you did not tell

that to our committee. During your interview with the OSC, you

testified you had refrained from providing this committee with full

information about the meeting. You testified that you were advised

not to engage in a ‘‘substantive discussion’’ of the political briefing,

that you believed that OSC investigators should have ‘‘first dibs’’

on this information. That makes it sound like when you told us you

did not recall you were really holding back information. You did

tell us under oath that you did not remember, and then you told

the Special Counsel under oath that you did remember and you

were even saving the information for him. When you appear before

this committee and you testify under oath, you are supposed to testify honestly and completely. That is an obligation that people have

and it is to be taken seriously. And I put that out there.

Then the last time you testified before this committee several

Members expressed concern about the veracity of your responses.

Reading the report of the Office of Special Counsel, it looks like

they shared that concern as well. You told the Office of Special

Counsel that one of the many reasons you could not recall Mr. Jennings’ Power Point presentation was that you were using your

Blackberry. Is that not correct?

Ms. DOAN. Yes, it was.

Chairman WAXMAN. Then the Office of the Special Counsel did

something I find a little surprising, but makes sense. They asked

you to turn over your Blackberry. And they looked at documents

to see whether it corroborated that you were using your Blackberry. They said that you provided no documents to corroborate

that you ‘‘read, sent, composed, deleted, or moved‘‘ any e-mails during that January 26, 2007 meeting.

Ms. DOAN. That was one of the critical omissions that I have

mentioned throughout this hearing, Mr. Chairman. They omitted to

mention that there 220 e-mails in my inbox. And as I said in my

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testimony, I think my direct statement was that I was reviewing

e-mails during that time and looking up occasionally. That is what

I actually said to the OSC.

Chairman WAXMAN. Now another allegation made against you

was that after the White House presentation you asked how to get

a prominent Republican like Senator Martinez to attend a courthouse opening in Miami. When OSC asked you about this allegation you said that you do not believe that there was ever a discussion of Miami at all at the meeting. Not at all, you said. But then

we had 10 GSA officials testify under oath that they remembered

the discussion of the Florida courthouse and your statement about

getting Senator Martinez to attend the event.

Well, there is also the question that you said you just thanked

Mr. Jennings when he got there and you left. But then others testified, including your own GSA liaison, that is J.B. Horton, he told

OSC investigators that you gave Mr. Jennings a tour of your office

and even showed him artwork displayed there.

You told Mr. Tierney that you did not have control over any bonuses so you could not retaliate. Mr. Yarmuth indicated that you

could give bonuses. You said you were pleased to know that. But

I want to include in the record a memo from the White House on

March 29, 2002. It says, ‘‘To clarify, the political appointees are eligible for performance based awards, and I ask you personally to review any awards proposed for political appointees.‘‘ So you did not

know the statute but you did, presumably, get this memo. So it

seems to me that you remember things selectively.

[The information referred to follows:]

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71

Ms. DOAN. Mr. Chairman, there is a difference between a performance based bonus, a Spot award, an individual award, a group

award, and an organization award. I believe Congressman

Yarmuth actually talked about Spot awards in his dialog. I think

we would have to check the record, but that was my understanding. He was talking about Spot awards.

Chairman WAXMAN. Well, the testimony before the Office of Special Counsel is, they will not get any of these promotions, they will

not get any of these bonuses. Well, you knew you had some control

over some of them and those were the bonuses that it appears you

were not going to give them.

Ms. DOAN. I think what we talked about was one or two. There

is a whole lot of stuff going on. I would like to mention one other

thing, though, Congressman. And that is that in our hearing on the

28th, I believe a lot of the dialog and the discussion centered

around the presentation itself and that was what I remembered.

Congressman Braley actually was the person who was asking me

those questions. And so I think we would need to look at which

part of that we were talking about.

Chairman WAXMAN. My memory is you looked a little guilty and

said I just am embarrassed but I cannot remember any of these

things. That is my memory. Mr. Shays, it is your time.

Mr. SHAYS. I think my collegue has to leave and would like to

yield time. Is that true?

Mr. JORDAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield time to Ranking

Member Davis.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Let me note the memorandum that you

were supposed to get was a March 29th, as Mr. Waxman accurately

stated, 2002 memo. You were not in the administration March 29,

2002, were you?

Ms. DOAN. No, I was not.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. In fact, there were literally hundreds, if

not thousands, of memorandums that predate your coming there.

Are you familiar with every one of them?

Ms. DOAN. No, but I have to say I do know that there are memos

that are out there about Presidential appointees and their different

types of bonuses. And it is important to distinguish the different

types of bonuses when we are having these discussions.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Instead of focusing on one sentence

taken in a context that is disputable over 9 hours of testimony, I

am going to just ask you to restate again under oath for the record,

did you retaliate against anybody in terms of withholding bonuses?

Ms. DOAN. I did not.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. So that never happened?

Ms. DOAN. No, it did not.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. So why are we here. I am going to address the OSC report which has been construed as objective and

nonbiased and everything else. The OSC report, the Office of Special Counsel report fails to mention your testimony that you were

distracted by other pressing events which could account for not remembering the briefing or alleged comment. It also does not note

that you were preoccupied with response to documents coming from

this committee due to OMB the afternoon of January 26th. Now

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they also wrongly state you disparaged all employees interviewed

by this committee. Is that correct?

Ms. DOAN. That is not correct.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. You did not wrongly disparage all employees, did you, that testified that you had said something?

Ms. DOAN. I did not.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. In fact, as I read the record, you praised

the New England regional administrator, who was one of those

interviewed by the committee. You testified, as I understand it,

that he was one of the highest performance evaluations in the

agency, and you stated that affirmatively. Is that correct?

Ms. DOAN. That is true.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. So you did not disparage him.

Ms. DOAN. No.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. You did not threaten him, did you?

Ms. DOAN. No.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. They failed to address the mitigating fact

that Hatch Act concerns are less among a group of political appointees. They never mentioned that, did they?

Ms. DOAN. No, they did not.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. The report glosses over the fact that each

of the employees that attended the briefing was a Presidential appointee rather than a career civil servant. So the core concerns of

the Hatch Act, which were that administrations maybe come in

and try to intimidate Federal employees into political activities,

really for political appointees it is a different level, is my understanding. You do not need to say anything.

My judgment on this report is that as an independent nonpartisan Federal agency, the OSC officials have an obligation to

conduct themselves professionally. And if you look, the preliminary

report was even worse than the other report. There was a tone

throughout that they were out to hang you. That is my opinion.

The report wrongly questions your credibility that you were not

interested in the details of specific elections by imputing such an

interest because of your political contributions. That was shocking

to me. First of all, it is not unknown for cabinet appointees and

high level appointees to be not only members of the President’s political party but oftentimes contributors or active workers. That is

more or less the standard, not just this administration but with

previous administrations as well.

I think they wrongly jumped to the conclusion that contributing

money to political candidates equates to an interest in polls and esoteric topics such as micro-targeting. We got to that before. You

have an interest philosophically in the party and being able to enhance it, and that goes back to the e-mail that was introduced into

the record by Mr. Cummings earlier. But that does not equate to

an interest in polls and micro-targeting. Have you ever shown a

great interest in that?

Ms. DOAN. No. Just because you buy a ticket to the baseball

game does not mean you are a professional ballplayer. Just because

I contribute to the Party does not automatically make me a politician or a politico.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. The report spends more than half a page

on what I consider, this is on footnote 8, an irrelevant and disparVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:18 Feb 25, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00076 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\40149.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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aging footnote that does not change your underlying testimony that

you simply do not remember making the comment. I do not understand why they unnecessarily published information about your

comments about former GSA employees and outed those employees.

Do you have any idea why they did that?

Ms. DOAN. I do not. It is so very wrong because these people do

not deserve to have their names bandied about in public, to have

their performance ratings evaluated in public. It is just very wrong.

It is hurtful to me that I even in any way speculated that allowed

this to happen.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. You regret having even speculated.

Ms. DOAN. Deeply. And I actually, like the Congressman who

said that I did not show contriteness, I feel terrible about this. I

apologize to my employees. This is horrible. Horrible. I just want

their names not to be bandied about anymore.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you.

Chairman WAXMAN. Mr. Shays.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. Congressman Sarbanes was critical of

your lack of contrition and humility. In fact, I think he said he had

never seen a witness show so little contrition and humility. Coming

from a Member of Congress, we are not quite known for our showing contrition and humility. That was one mouthful. Congress plays

by its own rules. We exempt ourselves from laws we impose on the

rest of the Nation, the general public and the executive branch. In

fact, some Members get in trouble when they leave Congress and

go to the executive branch because they still play by the same rules

and find out they cannot. The public cannot FOIA my documents.

My e-mails are not going to be public. So I do not think Members

of Congress should be beating our chests and talking about the

shame of other departments when we play by totally different

rules.

The Special Counsel document is a charge by a prosecutor. He

is a Special Counsel, correct, it is a charge, is it not?

Ms. DOAN. Yes.

Mr. SHAYS. It is somewhat like an indictment.

Ms. DOAN. Yes.

Mr. SHAYS. And my Democratic colleagues continually lecture on

when someone takes the fifth I think they are guilty, and when

someone is charged I sometimes say, you know, I think they may

be guilty. And they say no, you are innocent until proven guilty.

In your case, before this committee you are guilty until proven innocent. That is what we are seeing. And I am seeing it on the other

side of the aisle from people who continually lecture me about you

are innocent until proven guilty.

Now there are two things that I think happened that should not

have happened. A meeting should not have happened. I thought it

was January 2006 and that somehow you had been involved in

helping someone in the last campaign. I find out this was January

26, 2007. And the second thing that should not have happened in

my judgment is that the comment should not have been made,

‘‘how can we help our candidates?’’ You are not sure if you made

this. You may have made some statement like that. You may have

given that impression. Who knows right now what that is. So those

two things bother me.

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Frankly, I would have thought that you could have been reprimanded. You could have been told that this is not what you do.

I have things that I do in my office and sometimes my staff say,

boss, if you do this you are going to be breaking a law. And I say

we better not do it. And they stop it. They are entitled to shut

down my office any time they think we are doing something wrong.

But in 20 years, I have not suggested everything that should be

right. Once in a while I have to be corrected. So it seems to me

the appropriate thing for dealing with you should have been simply

to say you know what, you made a mistake, it should not happen,

do not let it happen again. And you know what, knowing your character and what I have seen, you would have said, thank you, it will

not happen again, and yes, we will check with the ethics before we

do anything because this is not like the businesses that I used to

run.

Now, one Democrat said that when we combine everything it

looks bad for you. I would change that. When they twist everything. And I mean no disrespect to the chairman, but the chairman

said to you that you were threatening your employees and saying

they will not get a bonus. You never said that. You never, ever said

that. What you did say was in explanation to why you thought

someone who got a rating of three would be unhappy because they

would not get a bonus. That is what you said. That is what the

record needs to say. You never threatened your employees. It was

an explanation of why some employees may not get it. So I want

to know, who have you retaliated against?

Ms. DOAN. No one.

Mr. SHAYS. I would like to know what candidates have you

helped as a result of this January 2007 meeting?

Ms. DOAN. None.

Mr. SHAYS. So no employee was retaliated against. No candidates

were helped as a result of this meeting. And at one time you were

being chastised because you had a friend who you would have like

to have a contract, it was for $20,000. Did that friend get the contract?

Ms. DOAN. No.

Mr. SHAYS. So I have a very difficult time understanding why we

have spent so much time. I do not disparage the committee for saying let us look into it. But once you looked into it, my God, it seems

to me we could have done some more important stuff.

Ms. DOAN. Congressman, it does seem to me that what happens

is they are trying to take that slide or two that was in the presentation and they are trying to say that something happened with

some of those guys. And that is just not how GSA works. Our priorities are determined by our customers.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me just say something to you. You have already

been put on the record as saying that. I just wish that meeting

never happened. And you wish it never happened. Had it not happened, we would have been a lot better off.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Why not ask her if she wishes it never

happened.

Mr. SHAYS. Well do you wish the meeting never happened?

Ms. DOAN. After the amount of time we have spent on it, clearly,

clearly.

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Mr. SHAYS. Of course. But I do not think you need to rip your

clothes and cry and say I have sinned, I have sinned, I have

sinned. I just want to thank you for your service. I hope it does not

discourage other people like you to get into this. And I will say this

to you, and this is my own view, but I find it when an AfricanAmerican happens to be a Republican somehow she is treated differently by Congress, unfairly so.

Chairman WAXMAN. The gentleman’s time has expired. The

gentlelady from Washington, DC, for 1 minute.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to clarify because I

think this is just an error that was made as a matter of law. The

posture before us was, if the analogy is to be made, more in the

nature of an indictment. That is not the word that can be put when

there have been findings and conclusions by an independent body.

The most that can be said is maybe you are on appeal. But you are

not even on appeal because all the President can do is to decide

what, if any, punishment. If you were on appeal, he could turn

around what had happened.

So this was not an indictment. And it is very important that the

record show what we had here—an impartial decision by an impartial body. Maybe you disagree with it, but there is no way in which

the Member who thought this was an indictment with something

yet to be proved. As a matter of law, it is not an indictment, and

I am a great admirer of the gentleman. But just as a matter of

keeping our terms straight, because if this were an indictment,

which is where we were in the last session waiting or the Special

Counsel, I could agree with you. But the Special Counsel has spoken. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman WAXMAN. Thank you. The gentlelady’s time is up. Mr.

Braley for 5 minutes.

Mr. BRALEY. Ms. Doan, I got the distinct impression from one of

the comments that Mr. Mica addressed to you that you had an opportunity to meet with the Republican Members of the committee

before you testified today. Is that true?

Ms. DOAN. I offered to meet with all of the members of the committee, whether you were Democrat or Republican, before that last

meeting and none of the Democratic folks chose to take me up on

the offer apparently.

Mr. BRALEY. No. I am talking about your testimony here today.

Did you meet with Republican Members of the committee in anticipation of your testimony here today?

Ms. DOAN. Yes, I met with Congressman Davis.

Mr. BRALEY. Just Congressman Davis?

Ms. DOAN. No, there were a few other Congressmen.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I can answer that, Mr. Braley. We called

her up and wanted to see her ahead of time before she came up

here.

Mr. BRALEY. I just wanted to clarify that for the record.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Absolutely. We do this routinely with

witnesses, by the way.

Mr. BRALEY. I never got the invitation to meet with you before

the last hearing. So that is why I was just curious.

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Ms. DOAN. I could meet with you tomorrow any time you want,

Congressman Braley. I would love to sit down with you and talk

with you about what GSA is doing.

Mr. BRALEY. OK. Let us talk about Mr. Burton’s comment. He

made the remark that this hearing was very amusing to him. Do

you find this hearing very amusing?

Ms. DOAN. I am sorry. Did you say abusing?

Mr. BRALEY. Very amusing.

Ms. DOAN. Oh, I am sorry. No. This is very serious. This is my

career, this is my reputation that is being impugned here. This is

people alleging that I am maltreating employees and doing all sorts

of shenanigans. This is not true. Yes, this is very serious.

Mr. BRALEY. Very serious. And when Mr. Davis asked a rhetorical question why are we here, let me answer you why I am here.

The U.S. Office of Special Counsel is an independent Federal agency appointed by President Bush to investigate alleged Hatch Act

violations. And last month, the Office of Special Counsel concluded

that you broke the law during this January 26th meeting at GSA

Headquarters that we have been talking about.

In its conclusion that was forwarded on to President Bush, this

is what the Office of Special Counsel wrote: ‘‘Despite engaging in

the most pernicious of political activity prohibited by the Hatch

Act, Administrator Doan has shown no remorse and lacks an appreciation for the seriousness of her violation.’’

Ms. DOAN. This is an example of why it is flawed, though.

Mr. BRALEY. One of the other points that I want to ask you about

is you have denied that you violated the Hatch Act during that

meeting.

Ms. DOAN. I have said I do not believe I violated the Hatch Act

during that meeting because I cannot remember exactly what I

said but I do not believe that I violated it. I cannot remember

which Congressman asked me.

Mr. BRALEY. In your counsel’s letter to the Office of Special

Counsel, your own attorney suggested that the real violation of the

Hatch Act occurred when Scott Jennings made the Power Point

presentation. Were you aware of that?

Ms. DOAN. I am not Monday morning quarterbacking, as I have

told you, Congressman Braley.

Mr. BRALEY. Let me read to you what he wrote to the Office of

Special Counsel: ‘‘If anything, it was that briefing which OSC concedes Administrator Doan had no role in preparing or arranging

that may have violated the Hatch Act. However, rather than focusing on the presentation, which on its face raises Hatch Act concerns, the OSC has aimed its ire at a single comment, the phrasing

of which is disputed even among those who remember it being

made at all.’’

So when you talk about this ongoing investigation for potential

Hatch Act violations, do you agree that the presentation of that

Power Point slide to your employees on Federal time was a violation of the Hatch Act? And the record should reflect that the witness has been conferring with counsel and has just been handed a

document.

Ms. DOAN. Thank you for making that clear, Congressman. The

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view it in its entirety, it does speak for itself. What I will also tell

you is that I am not, I have said it before, I am not a Hatch Act

expert. The Office of Special Counsel has still said it has not made

its determination. Congressman Braley, I do not know why you are

trying to ask me to opine on this, especially given that opining has

gotten me to this point here.

Mr. BRALEY. Let me tell you why it is important. You have repeatedly stated that certain things occurred before you received

Hatch Act briefings and Hatch Act trainings. But there is no dispute that between the date you took over your job and the date of

the Scott Jennings briefing we have been talking about you did receive Hatch Act training and Hatch Act briefings; is that not true?

Ms. DOAN. I did. However, I did not know what the content of

the meeting or the presentation was going to be.

Mr. BRALEY. When you testified just now that you did not do

anything to help your candidates, I want to go back to these slides

that we talked about last time where there were 10 targeted Democratic House races and another slide that says 2008 GOP Defense

and it list, the people who are Republican Members of Congress

who could be targeted in the 2008 election. So when you as the

head of the agency suggest how can we help our candidates and

after they have seen this slide, can you understand how reasonable

people could conclude that those political appointees may be feeling

pressure to do something to help these candidates?

Ms. DOAN. No. I am not engaged in partisan political activities,

and I have not directed anyone to do anything.

Chairman WAXMAN. The gentleman’s time has expired. I want to

make some closing comments, then Mr. Davis will be recognized to

do the same thing. I want to just give you my observation, Ms.

Doan.

The committee has now investigated multiple allegations against

you in your first year as GSA administration, including the following: That you violated Federal contracting rules by awarding a nobid contract to your close personal friend; that you intervened in

contract negotiations on behalf of Sun Microsystems, potentially

costing taxpayers millions of dollars; that you violated the Hatch

Act by encouraging Federal employees to use Government resources to help Republican congressional candidates; that you made

false and misleading statements to this committee, to Senator

Charles Grassley, to the Office of Special Counsel, and to the press;

that you disparaged the credibility and professional credentials of

colleagues in retaliation for their cooperation with investigations

into your actions. This seems to be a pattern. You refuse to take

any personal responsibility and you attack others for doing their

jobs.

When the GSA Inspector General concluded that you improperly

awarded the no-bid contract to your friend, you said he was out to

get you. You called him a terrorist and you threatened to cutoff his

funding.

When this committee investigated your intervention on behalf of

Sun, you claimed our motives were partisan.

When your colleagues at GSA testified that you asked them to

help Republican candidates, you claimed they were poor performers

with an axe to grind.

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And now that the Special Counsel has concluded that you violated the Hatch Act, you have accused them of bias.

What I have not seen is any recognition that your own conduct

might be the reason you are here today. And after reviewing this

record, I see little evidence that you acknowledge your responsibility or have any remorse for your actions. I have no confidence that

you learned anything from the experience of this 1 year time at

GSA.

I have to say, this is my opinion, it is unusual for me to ever call

for the resignation of a Federal official, but in your case I do not

see any other course of action that will protect the interests of your

agency and the Federal taxpayer. No one can be an effective leader

who has abused the trust of her employees and threatened to deny

promotions and bonuses to employees for telling the truth. And no

one can be an effective leader who has lost the public’s confidence,

politicizing the agency, and violating the Federal Hatch Act. Yet

that is exactly what you have done.

I give you my opinion, just as others have given you their opinion. It will be up to the President of the United States who appointed you to decide what to do with the recommendation by this

Office of Special Counsel that recommends the President remove

you from this office. I would urge he remove you from service.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Mr. Chairman, the Office of Special

Counsel simply makes a complaint, they are allowed to respond to

it, and the President makes his decision. You are trying to interject

this committee and this Congress in what is an administrative review, which is your right as the chairman to do this. But I draw

completely different conclusions, Mr. Waxman.

First of all, Ms. Doan, let me just say thank you on the networks

contract. That is out there, that will save the Federal Government

literally billions of dollars over the next decade. I think this is the

most proactive and far-reaching communications contract that we

have ever had. And I particularly appreciate your intervention with

the Treasury trying to go their own way on this and trying to keep

all the Government interconnected. This is one of the things that

we have been preaching in this committee for years. It would not

have happened without your active intervention. Previous holders

of your position would sit back there in the bureaucracy and get

picked to death by other agencies.

I want to congratulate you for the Federal acquisition system,

the merging of the FTS and the Federal supply system. This again

will save the taxpayers billions of dollars over the next few years.

We can now put technology, goods, services all under one contract

instead of having to go separate vehicles. This will allow us to get

the best value for the taxpayer dollars.

Ultimately, this committee should be concerned about making

sure that when taxpayers pay their dollars that they are getting

the best value for those dollars. This committee is basically the

intersection of three committees. One was the old Government Operations Committee, which was melded together from a number of

different committees back in 1950 that used to oversee Federal expenditures and tried to make sure that Government dollars were

being spent correctly. I do not think this hearing and these hearings have gone anywhere in terms of furthering that purpose. Then

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you had the old Post Office and Civil Service Committee and the

District of Columbia Committee that were merged together in

1995.

I know what politics is. I know there is a lot of pent up frustration on the other side about the inability of Republican Congresses

to look at Republican administrations. But I think this is a bridge

too far. I think they have beaten a dead horse. They have taken

a few facts, cobbled them together, and I think you have held up

well today in the testimony putting them in an appropriate perspective. It is not always pretty. But 9 hours of testimony under

oath by a very accusing prosecutor, in this case the Office of Special Counsel, you are going to get statements sometimes that in

retrospect you might have answered a little bit differently.

But I do not find any problem here with any kind of perjury, any

kind of bullying witnesses or retaliation. In fact, the evidence here

I think suggests there was no retaliation. No one can show any retaliation. They can show some statements that might have said you

were going to retaliate, but no retaliation. And by the way, no overt

political activity from your agency that furthered Republican candidacies. No actions on that. Just a statement by others, they did

not, by the way, interview everybody that was there, and conflicting statements among the people they did interview over exactly

what you did say. Some said you invoked GSA’s name. Others said

you did not do that, you just said how can we help the candidates.

And as you look at this, these were all in response to leading questions.

But I guess most importantly what we have to ask and what the

American people have to ask is why are we this week with everything else going on holding this hearing at this time. We have serious immigration issues and we ought to be looking at how we can

close our borders, why we have gasoline shortages, how children in

foster care systems end up continuing to be abused, why does it

cost so much to adopt, why is it hard for American businesses to

hire qualified students from other countries, how can we improve

the security clearance backlog that is costing us hundreds of millions of dollars in the process breakdowns, why have we not examined first responder interoperability closer, what is the plan to ensure Census accuracy, what oversight errors we have seen in military pay, are they better off, a number of other issues that in my

judgment we would deem much more important.

Ultimately the American public will judge. It is interesting to

note that the Los Angeles Times yesterday for the first time published a poll giving this Congress ratings and, because of the over

abuses that we are seeing now, finding out that the Congress is

lower than the President and the lowest that it has been in years.

That in fact the new Congress, with the number of other abuses

going on, and we walked through this last night on the floor of the

House over earmarks and the like, is no different from before and

in some ways just has a vengeance for partisanship. This hearing

I think is evidence of that.

I have a very high regard for my chairman. I just want to say

we have worked a lot of tough issues together. We happen to disagree on GSA and your role in this. I look forward to working with

him on a number of other issues. But I think this is not an accuser,

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this is an abuser in this case and they have overplayed their hand.

I wish you the best of luck.

Chairman WAXMAN. Thank you. That concludes our hearing. We

thank you very much for being here.

[Whereupon, at 1:25 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

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