Chairman Waxman on "Asset Deployment"
The text of the letter follows:
August 21, 2007I am writing to request information about your agency's involvement in the "asset deployment" program managed by Karl Rove and other White House officials.
The Oversight Committee has been investigating the political presentations that White House officials gave to federal agencies across government, including yours. On Sunday, The Washington Post reported that these political briefings were part of a systematic and coordinated effort by White House officials to leverage the resources of the federal government "to ensure the maximum promotion of Bush's reelection agenda and the Republicans in Congress who supported him." The Post reported that Karl Rove, the President's political advisor, organized an "asset deployment team" that enabled the White House "to coordinate the travel of Cabinet secretaries and senior agency officials, the announcement of grant money, and personnel and policy decisions" with the chief White House liaison from each Cabinet agency. According to the Post, the meetings of the asset deployment team occurred sometimes as often as once a month.
As part of our investigation, the Committee has received documents that confirm the existence of this "asset deployment team." According to the documents, the White House invited 18 federal agencies, including yours, to asset deployment meetings in 2003. The agencies that were invited to these asset deployment meetings were the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Justice, Labor, Transportation, Treasury, Veterans Affairs, the Environmental Protection Agency, the General Services Administration, the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the Small Business Administration, and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The White House asset deployment program apparently continued during the 2006 election cycle. In June 2006, the White House Surrogate Scheduler asked 18 federal agencies to provide press clippings from events that the agency heads did at the suggestion of the White House Office of Political Affairs, writing:
WH Liaisons --If you could, please have your press shops send me any good clips from the media on surrogate events your principals have done (Secretary and Sub-Cabinet), especially if they were as a result of an OPA request.
Folks over here get very excited when they see the results of all the hard work you and your agencies do on these events.
To assist the Committee with its investigation, I request that you provide the Committee with documents relating to any "asset deployment" activities involving your agency, including any documents relating to meetings of the asset deployment team or communications about asset deployment with White House officials. This request also includes documents relating to the White House's involvement in suggesting, scheduling, or coordinating travel or events for agency officials or the award or announcement of agency grants.
I also request that you provide the Committee with a list of all of the events with federally elected officials or candidates for federal office that you or your predecessor attended outside of Washington, DC, during 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006. For each event, please provide the date and location of the event, a brief description of the purpose of the event, the identity of the elected officials or candidates for office attending the event, a statement whether taxpayer funds were used to travel to the event, and whether you or your predecessor attended the event in an official capacity.
Please provide these materials to the Committee by September 7, 2007.
The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is the principal oversight committee in the House of Representatives and has broad oversight jurisdiction as set forth in House Rule X. An attachment to this letter provides additional information about how to respond to the Committee's request.
I would appreciate your cooperation with this request. If you have any questions regarding this letter, please contact Susanne Sachsman or David Leviss of the Committee staff at (202) 225-5420.
Sincerely,
Henry A. Waxman
Chairman