We’re hearing that this morning at the Gaggle, Dana Perino has a new line about those GOP campaign briefings for goverment officials: They’re “perfectly lawful” apparently.
Michelle Malkin and friends slide deeper and deeper into self-parody.
From Perino this morning on the GOP campaign briefings violating Hatch Act…
Reporter: How about this political interference with the Hatch Act?
Perino: There wasn’t political interference within the Hatch Act. What you’re talking about is —
Reporter: Use of the government agencies?
Perino: It is perfectly lawful for the political appointees at the White House to provide informational briefings to political appointees at the agencies. No laws were broken, and we provided more information about that last night.
Reporter: Was that all vetted through the Counsel’s Office prior to those sorts of sessions happening? What sort of oversight was done within the White House?
Perino: Yes, generally — because it’s not unlawful and it wasn’t unusual for informational briefings to be given. They were run by Sara Taylor and Scott Jennings.
Reporter: But there’s a higher standard, obviously, at the White House than no laws were broken. Aren’t there ethical questions, as well?
Perino: There were no — what ethical (rules) would have been broken?
Reporter: No, in terms of using federal resources, federal people to encourage people. The allegation is out there that people were being encouraged to help Republicans.
Reporter #2: And targeting certain Democrats —
Perino: There is no prohibition under the Hatch Act of allowing political appointees to talk to other political appointees about the political landscape in which they are trying to advance the President’s agenda. None.
Reporter: You say it’s not a violation of the Hatch Act.
Perino: Not a violation of law, or of ethics.
Reporter: So why is the Office of Special Counsel investigating it, if you’re still saying that it’s clearly fine, why would they be investigating?
Perino: You’ll have to ask them. You’ll have to ask them.
Update: It’s like we said over at TPMmuckraker this morning: it’s all about plausible deniability.
Breaking: Paul McNulty’s predecessor, former Deputy Attorney General James Comey will appear before the House Judiciary Committee next Thursday to discuss his role in planning for the US Attorney firings.
Late Update: Most of you probably know Comey as the guy who appointed Pat Fitzgerald to head up the Plame investigation. Also of note, Comey did play some role in early discussions of possibly firing some US Attorneys after the 2004 election. One of the document dumps actually had Comey’s proposed list of firees. The telling point, however, is that Comey’s list was very different from the one the post-Comey team came up with. His appeared to target incompetent US Attorneys, not ones who made the mistake of indicting Republicans.
Rep. Renzi (R-AZ): Two hundred grand here, two hundred grand there … who can keep track?
White House flack Dana Perino: Americans voted for “surge” in the 2006 elections.
Are you crazy to think all the recent news on Republican corruption investigations is connected to Al Gonzales and Co. not being able to obstruct them any longer? We think you’re on to something. And we run down the evidence in today’s episode of TPMtv …
“We are one signature away from ending the Iraq War.”
The Presidential candidates react to the news that both Houses have now passed the Iraq withdrawal bill.
You probably remember a few weeks ago when NBC’s Andrea Mitchell went on the air and announced that the American people supported pardoning Scooter Libby when they actually overwhelmingly opposed it, according to all available polling.
Well, this morning TPM Reader CG caught her at it again, this time with Nancy Pelosi. And we grabbed the clip for a TPMtv Extra.
Take a look …