Thomas Milburn Davis III is an American lobbyist and former Republican member of the United States House of Representatives who represented Virginia's 11th congressional district in Northern Virginia. Davis was considering a run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by five-term incumbent and fellow Republican John Warner in the 2008 election, but decided against it. He announced on January 30, 2008, that he would not seek reelection to an eighth term. Davis resigned from Congress on November 24, 2008.
The General Services Administration (GSA) is an independent agency of the United States government established in 1949 to help manage and support the basic functioning of federal agencies. GSA supplies products and communications for U.S. government offices, provides transportation and office space to federal employees, and develops government-wide cost-minimizing policies and other management tasks.
Fred Fisher Fielding is an American lawyer. He held the office of White House Counsel for US Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush in addition to serving as an Associate and Deputy White House Counsel for Richard Nixon under John Dean. Fielding was also of counsel to the presidential transition of Donald Trump and a member of the 9/11 Commission. An alumnus of Gettysburg College, he is the namesake of that school's Fielding Center for Presidential Leadership Study.
The Hatch Act of 1939, An Act to Prevent Pernicious Political Activities, is a United States federal law. Its main provision prohibits civil-service employees in the executive branch of the federal government, except the president and vice president, from engaging in some forms of political activity. It became law on August 2, 1939. The law was named for Senator Carl Hatch of New Mexico. It was most recently amended in 2012.
The United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is an independent agency of the United States Federal Government that manages the US civilian service. The agency provides federal human resources policy, oversight and support, and tends to healthcare (FEHB) and life insurance (FEGLI) and retirement benefits for federal government employees, retirees and their dependents.
In the United States, Office of Inspector General (OIG) is a generic term for the oversight division of a federal or state agency aimed at preventing inefficient or unlawful operations within their parent agency. Such offices are attached to many federal executive departments, independent federal agencies, as well as state and local governments. Each office includes an inspector general and employees charged with identifying, auditing, and investigating fraud, waste, abuse, embezzlement and mismanagement of any kind within the executive department.
The United States Office of Special Counsel (OSC) is a permanent independent federal investigative and prosecutorial agency whose basic legislative authority comes from four federal statutes: the Civil Service Reform Act, the Whistleblower Protection Act, the Hatch Act, and the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA). OSC's primary mission is the safeguarding of the merit system in federal employment by protecting employees and applicants from prohibited personnel practices (PPPs), especially reprisal for "whistleblowing." The agency also operates a secure channel for federal whistleblower disclosures of violations of law, rule, or regulation; gross mismanagement; gross waste of funds; abuse of authority; and substantial and specific danger to public health and safety. In addition, OSC issues advice on the Hatch Act and enforces its restrictions on partisan political activity by government employees. Finally, OSC protects the civilian employment and reemployment rights of military service members under USERRA. OSC has around 140 staff, and the Special Counsel is an ex officio member of Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE), an association of inspectors general charged with the regulation of good governance within the federal government.
David Hossein Safavian is an American former lawyer who worked as a congressional aide, lobbyist, and later as a political appointee in the George W. Bush administration. A Republican, he served as Chief of Staff of the United States General Services Administration (GSA). He is a figure in the Jack Abramoff lobbying and corruption scandal, having worked with the lobbyist on the Mississippi Band of Choctaw account. After serving with Abramoff as a lobbyist, in 1997 Safavian co-founded lobbying firm Janus-Merritt Strategies with Republican activist Grover Norquist.
Susan Bonzon Ralston, is public relations and business consultant. Ralston was formerly Special Assistant to President George W. Bush and a deputy to Karl Rove, the Deputy Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor at the White House, from 2001 until her resignation in 2006 after being linked to Jack Abramoff's lobbying.
Jeannemarie Aragona Devolites Davis is an American politician. She served in the Virginia House of Delegates 1998–2004 and the Senate of Virginia 2004–2008. She was a candidate for the 2013 Republican nomination for Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, but was eliminated in the first round of voting at the 2013 Republican convention in Richmond, Virginia. Her husband, Tom Davis, was a member of the United States House of Representatives.
On December 7, 2006, the George W. Bush administration's Department of Justice ordered the unprecedented midterm dismissal of seven United States attorneys. Congressional investigations focused on whether the Department of Justice and the White House were using the U.S. attorney positions for political advantage. Allegations were that some of the attorneys were targeted for dismissal to impede investigations of Republican politicians or that some were targeted for their failure to initiate investigations that would damage Democratic politicians or hamper Democratic-leaning voters. The U.S. attorneys were replaced with interim appointees, under provisions in the 2005 USA PATRIOT Act reauthorization.
Scott Jennings is an American writer and conservative commentator. He is an on-air contributor for CNN, and writes for CNN.com, USA Today, and the Los Angeles Times.
During the 2007 Congressional investigation of the dismissal of eight U.S. attorneys, it was discovered that administration officials had been using a private Internet domain, called gwb43.com, owned by and hosted on an email server run by the Republican National Committee, for various official communications. The domain name is an abbreviation for "George W. Bush, 43rd" President of the United States. The use of this email domain became public when it was discovered that Scott Jennings, the White House's deputy director of political affairs, was using a gwb43.com email address to discuss the firing of the U.S. attorney for Arkansas. Communications by federal employees were also found on georgewbush.com and rnchq.org. Congressional requests for administration documents while investigating the dismissals of the U.S. attorneys required the Bush administration to reveal that not all internal White House emails were available. Conducting governmental business in this manner is a possible violation of the Presidential Records Act of 1978. Over 5 million emails may have been lost. Greg Palast claims to have come up with 500 of the Karl Rove emails, leading to damaging allegations. In 2009, it was announced that as many as 22 million emails may have been lost.
Scott Bloch is an American attorney and former political appointee of President George W. Bush. Bloch served as United States Special Counsel from December 12, 2003, when Bush signed his appointment, filling out his five-year statutory term on December 11, 2008.
Howard J. "Cookie" Krongard, is an American attorney and former government official who served as Inspector General of the Department of State during the George W. Bush Administration. After being accused of averting probes into contracting fraud in Iraq and a possible conflict of interest regarding investigations into Blackwater Worldwide, Krongard left his post on January 15, 2008, and was not eligible for retirement.
Beth Nolan was vice president and general counsel of the George Washington University. She was also Bill Clinton's final White House Counsel, as well as the first woman to hold the office. Prior to serving as White House Counsel, Nolan worked in other White House and Department of Justice positions, taught law, and worked in private practice.
The Harvard-Navy lacrosse game of 1941 was an intercollegiate lacrosse game played in Annapolis, Maryland, between the Harvard University Crimson and the United States Naval Academy Midshipmen on April 4, 1941. Before the game, the Naval Academy's superintendent told Harvard that the Navy team would not play against a racially integrated team. Harvard's one black player, Lucien Alexis Jr. of New Orleans, left of his own accord after Harvard's athletic director told Harvard's coach to send him home. Harvard's players, supported by their coach, had voted to forfeit the game rather than play without him. The game went on as scheduled. Both Harvard's and the Naval Academy's administrations were criticized for their actions.
Martha N. Johnson is an American human resources executive and government official who served as Administrator of General Services from 2010 to 2012. Johnson resigned on April 2, 2012, following a scathing Inspector General report that revealed a "gross misuse of taxpayer dollars" on an internal conference that was "excessive, wasteful, and in some cases impermissible."
Rachel Lee Brand is an American lawyer, academic, and former government official. She served as the United States Associate Attorney General from May 22, 2017, until February 20, 2018, when she resigned to take a job as head of global corporate governance at Walmart. Brand was the first woman to serve as Associate Attorney General. She also served as Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Policy in the George W. Bush administration and was appointed by President Barack Obama to serve on the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. Prior to becoming Associate Attorney General, Brand was an associate professor at Antonin Scalia Law School.
Emily Webster Murphy is an American attorney and former government official who served as the administrator of the General Services Administration (GSA) from 2017 to 2021. Before serving in the GSA, Murphy was an attorney for the Republican National Committee and worked for several congressional committees and executive departments in the field of acquisition policy.
