Waxman: Taxpayer money used for GOP

WASHINGTON — When Karl Rove's office requested special help for beleaguered Republican congressional candidates before the 2006 elections, the head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy jumped to the task. Director John Walters was called a "superstar" by a Rove aide after carrying half-million-dollar grants to news conferences with two congressmen and a senator.

Walters' visits to Utah, Missouri and Nevada were among at least 303 out-of-town trips by senior Bush appointees meant to lend prestige or bring federal grants to 99 politically endangered Republicans that year, in a White House campaign that House Democratic investigators Wednesday called unprecedented in scope.

Federal law prohibits the use of public funds for partisan activities — and specifically barred Walters from any involvement in a federal election campaign — but the agencies involved said most of the trips were paid by taxpayer funds, according to the draft report issued Wednesday by California Rep. Henry Waxman, the Democratic chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The report accuses the White House of requesting the travel to save money for the Republican congressional campaigns.

The administration also authorized mandatory political briefings for agency political appointees with the aim of helping Republican candidates, the report charges.

Waxman concedes that other administrations have been accused of using government resources to help the president's party win elections, including the last Democrat in the White House, Bill Clinton. However, he asserts that the "extent of political activity by the current White House ... " is unprecedented. The committee's senior Republican, Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., disputed this statement, however. "The same kind of things [were] done by every administration since Eisenhower," he said.

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said the Democratic report was merely "an attempt to score political points."

Information from McClatchy Newspapers is included.