A Partisan Office of National Drug Control Policy

The House Oversight and Government and Reform Committee chaired by Henry Waxman has discovered documents which reveal an orchestrated partisan effort by the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) to aid vulnerable Republican candidates in the last election. Drug Czar John Walters and his deputies appeared at 20 events in the months prior to the 2006 contest.

The evidence includes an e-mail, written by Douglas Simon, the drug policy office's White House liaison, which described a meeting where Karl Rove praised the campaign endeavor. Simon asserted that, “The Director and the Deputies deserve the most recognition because they actually had to give up time with their families for the god awful places we sent them.” Meanwhile The Washington Postreports that “The drug control office has had a history of being nonpartisan, and a 1994 law bars the agency's officials from engaging in political activities even on their own time.”

Hat tip to Bill Piper

Cross posted on The Trebach Report