Garrett, Rove/Taylor & the ONDCP

Well, it looks like the White House was worried about our Representative Scott Garrett last year after all. In the on-going investigation into the politicization of every Executive Branch department, Rep. Henry Waxman and his committee uncovered a memo where former White House political director Sara Taylor reported on the progress of events the Directory of the Office of National Drug Control Policy and his deputies were "suggested" to attend.

Right there, listed on July 22, 2006 were the events Garrett held in Paramus and Augusta, that Garrett invited people to through a Garrett Gazette, was touted by the Bergen County Republicans, and if memory serves, received coverage in the NJ Herald for the Sussex part of the trip.***

At the behest of the White House's political director, taxpayers footed the bill for Garrett to have a meet and greet with the Deputy Director of the ONDCP. The overall program was so successful, an e-mail was sent out to everybody who participated. Here's a taste:

I just wanted to give you all a summary of a post November 7th update I received the other night. Presidential Personnel pulled together a meeting of all of the Administration's White House Liaison's and the WH Political Affairs office. Karl Rove opened the meeting with a thank you for all of the work that went into the surrogate appearances by Cabinet members and for the 72 Hour deployment. He specifically thanked, for going above and beyond the call of duty, the Dept. of Commerce, Transportation, Agriculture, AND the WH Drug Policy Office.

The WH Drug Policy office is the ONDCP. Now, while one might think that this is a coincidence, the e-mail that probably best explains how the system works was one sent from the USDA (Agriculture):

We would like to hold a briefing for our political appointees on the strategy we should focus on over the next several months. Everyone knows the general strategy, but I think people need a pick-me-up reminder.

[snip]

Specifically, I feel like people need to hear the message about resisting the urge to travel to the districts of key committee chairmen and members for the sake of building relationships...that the White House determines which members need visits and where we need to be strategically placing our assets.

Wow. Taxpayer funded "asset placing", to White House determined members needing visits. Sounds an awful lot like Garrett got some taxpayer funded campaign help from the ONDCP. We'll see what, if anything, comes of this; however it's fishy as hell and our Garrett is caught in the stink.


***I can't get their archive search to work, but as soon as I have a link I'll put it up