Report Details Bush Officials' Partisan Trips

John Walters, the White House's director of drug policy, attended 19 events suggested by Karl Rove's office to help GOP candidates in 2006. (John Vizcaino - Reuters)

The report details the activities of Sara Taylor, a Rove aide who ran the White House political office until last year and coordinated the effort. During the first 10 months of 2006, she sent periodic updates to the White House scheduling director, as well as White House liaisons at each agency, about which candidates deserved federal agency support.

White House e-mails to agencies urged officials to pay attention to "our top priorities going into November" in order to achieve "a good result on 11/7." Trips by Cabinet officials became so routine that Taylor's office developed a standard form to send around, titled "Secretary _____ Suggested Event Participation."

A July 2006 White House e-mail said that as the elections got closer, officials would have to participate in at least five "recommended events" per month. The message went to the appointed liaisons at 18 departments and agencies, who sometimes functioned like political commissars, enforcing discipline and rallying top appointees to the cause.

Taylor's office also ensured that orders were carried out, and e-mailed the liaisons when agency or department heads shirked their responsibilities or went to events with lawmakers who were not on the office's priority list of beleaguered Republicans.

In all, senior administration officials participated in 425 suggested events, according to the committee's tally, including 92 Republican Party events and 326 appearances with Republican candidates. Secretary of Commerce Carlos M. Gutierrez was the most enthusiastic recruit, showing up at 59 events. Four other Cabinet secretaries -- of agriculture, housing and urban development, labor, and veterans affairs -- attended more than 20 apiece.

Walters made it to 19 events in 2006, while then-Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales went to two. Walters's office did not reply to a request for comment, but his aides have previously said the trips had legitimate, official purposes.

Agencies and departments questioned by investigators said that 185 of the 303 out-of-town trips urged by the political office were justifiably to attend what were considered official events, and were paid by tax dollars. The agencies could not determine whether another 59 trips were paid by tax dollars and did not say whether the events were "official."

Despite all the energy poured into the effort, it was hardly a sterling success. The report lists Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.) as the target of 20 visits by Bush officials, and he was overwhelmingly defeated. Rep. Heather A. Wilson (N.M.) got 12 visits, and she held onto her seat by only 875 votes. Rep. Steve Chabot (Ohio), who got 10 visits, won a healthy 53 percent of the vote in his district, but Rep. Nancy L. Johnson (Conn.) collected just 44 percent after getting 10 visits herself.

In a contentious deposition, Taylor characterized all the out-of-town trips as efforts to "be helpful" to members of Congress who requested assistance, but she said she could not recall more precisely why some members were aided and others were not.

The committee judged her remarks during the deposition "evasive" and misleading, a conclusion that her lawyer W. Neil Eggleston said was an unwarranted "partisan slap." He said Taylor's testimony was "honest and forthright."

The committee report urged that the Hatch Act be amended to eliminate the political affairs office at the White House or to force it to serve "the interests of the taxpayer rather than the political party of the President."

The Republicans' report was less sanguine. No statute, it said, "can repeal the laws of political gravity."