How Rove Directed Federal Assets for GOP Gains

But the Office of the Special Counsel, which protects whistleblowers, has concluded that the Hatch Act was violated during one such briefing, conducted for General Services Administration political appointees by J. Scott Jennings, the White House's deputy director of political affairs. Special Counsel Scott J. Bloch said he hopes his investigation of political briefings will have "an educational benefit and a deterrent effect" in reminding federal employees about their legal obligations. "Yes, people have their political parties, and that is good. But they have to check those affiliations at the door when you do the people's business," he said in an interview last week.

'How We Can Work Together'

An invitation to a March 12, 2001, political briefing for federal officials -- one of the Rove team's earliest -- framed the mission this way: "How we can work together."

In practical terms, that meant Cabinet officials concentrated their official government travel on the media markets Rove's team chose, rolling out grant decisions made by agencies with red-carpet fanfare in GOP congressional districts, and carefully crafted announcements highlighting the release of federal money in battleground states.

"We did that from Day One of the administration, strategically utilizing the president's appointees to sell his agenda," Drew DeBerry, the Agriculture Department's liaison to the White House between 2001 and 2005, recalled in an interview last week.

The scope of Rove's ambitions was unprecedented.

"Karl's ability to see the chessboard and deploy all of the various pieces to the maximum effect is flat-out unrivaled," said Mark Corallo, a longtime GOP operative who worked with Rove as a top Justice Department communications official and later as a private consultant. "At the same time, he was always thoroughly aware of the limits and of the boundaries."

To lead the charge, Rove had his "asset deployment team." It comprised the chief White House liaison official at each Cabinet agency. The team members met -- sometimes as often as once a month -- to coordinate the travel of Cabinet secretaries and senior agency officials, the announcement of grant money, and personnel and policy decisions. Occasionally, the attendees got updates on election strategies.

White House officials say Rove had two basic rules: the first was to avoid meddling with grant and contract decisions made by career government employees; the second was to make sure they complied with the Hatch Act. "What was surprising was how adamant Karl and his whole team was that we involve the lawyers in our discussions to make sure we didn't come up with things that ran afoul of the law," DeBerry said. In March 2002, then-White House lawyer Brett Kavanaugh gave such a briefing on the "do's and don'ts regarding your participation in politically related activities," according to the invitation.

Most of the political briefings, officials said, were held at the White House or Old Executive Office Building for the liaisons or the agency chiefs of staff. But once or twice a year, Rove's team sought to spread the message beyond this core team. Attendees were presented a slide show with the latest polling data, election talking points and maps identifying competitive media markets, congressional races and presidential battleground states.

The subjects for such meetings -- which involved at least 18 agencies -- ranged from "a political update" and "mid-term election trends" to "outreach" and "coalition activities/organization," according to invitations gathered by congressional investigators.

DeBerry requested one such meeting at the Agriculture Department about five months before the 2004 election.

"We would like to hold a briefing for our political appointees on the strategy we should focus on over the next several months," he wrote on June 15, 2004, to Barry Jackson, the White House chief of strategic initiatives. "The briefing you gave the Asset Deployment team about a year ago would be perfect."