On March 28, General Services Administration (GSA) chief Lurita Doan testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to account for incidents of alleged mismanagement and politicization of GSA resources. In her testimony, Doan mostly offered unsubstantiated denials and accusations while professing ignorance or a faulty recollection of key actions. Since assuming the top position at GSA in June 2006, Doan has been accused of being involved in repeated incidents of misconduct, including an attempt to award a contract to Doan's personal friend, an improper intervention in a contract negotiation with Sun Microsystems, an assault on the independence of the GSA Office of Inspector General (OIG), and the politicization of federal resources. (See this brief background article on the allegations). The hearing's scope included all of these allegations, and the committee also heard testimony from Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and the GSA Inspector General. The Office of the Inspector General Grassley's testimony strongly criticized Doan's attempts to reduce the budget of the OIG. Inspectors General, by law, remain independent from the agencies they are charged to hold accountable. Grassley asserted that Doan did not have the authority to reduce the OIG's budget and that her intervention undermined its independence and ability to conduct oversight. Doan defended her actions by denying that her goal was to encroach on the OIG's authority. However, she did not address Grassley's concern that the effect of her actions would be a less-independent OIG. Doan instead claimed she changed the OIG budget request because she wanted to root out wasteful spending. Yet the examples of wasteful spending she offered in her testimony — out-of-date information technology and bad management of the human resources department — are not related to the reductions in the OIG's budget she made, which concerned the OIG's authority to conduct preliminary audits of government contractors and a proposed expansion of the OIG's regional offices. In addition, Doan alleged that the OIG has created a "gotcha atmosphere" at GSA, which makes agency work more difficult. However, Doan did not offer any examples of when this "atmosphere" had made a negative impact on GSA performance, nor did she explain how the OIG could make it harder to effectively administer contracts. Politicization of Federal Resources Doan also gave an unsatisfactory explanation of a meeting she attended where a staffer from the White House political office, headed by Karl Rove, briefed GSA staff on the 2008 election. In a striking exchange (for which video is available), Doan said the meeting was a "team-building" exercise and claimed she did not remember a presentation that included a map where certain Democratic congressional districts and Senate seats were highlighted and labeled "targets." Witnesses of the meeting have told committee staff that at the end of the presentation, Doan asked GSA officials, "How can we use GSA to help our candidates in the next election?" Doan testified at the hearing she does not remember asking that question. The Congressional Research Service has analyzed whether this meeting constituted a potential violation of the Hatch Act, which prohibits using federal resources for partisan purposes. The paper came to the conclusion that if Doan did ask the question about "our candidates," she could have violated the Hatch Act. Preferential Treatment in Contracts Doan also defended her attempt to direct a contract to a friend and former business associate. Doan denied there was any "intentional wrongdoing," and, refreshingly, admitted to making "a mistake in my eagerness to begin to solve an urgent problem." But she did not dispute that she attempted to improperly award a no-bid contract to a long-time business associate. In regard to another controversial contract, Doan denied she had any involvement in the resolution of a protracted contract dispute with Sun Microsystems. The OIG had found that Sun was overcharging GSA and that GSA could have secured a more favorable contract with another company. Sen. Grassley's investigation uncovered evidence Doan pressured GSA contract negotiators to agree to unfavorable terms.