Digging Deep on Doan

Next Tuesday's House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on GSA Administrator Lurita Doan's management of the agency has been postponed, but don't think that Doan is out of the woods. Sources say that the committee wants more time to prepare for the hearing, as well as give more preparation time to the GSA inspector general, who is investigating a public relations contract that GSA awarded to a friend of Doan and has accused Doan of undermining the office through reducing its 2008 budget increase. A new date has not been set.

To get an idea of how closely the committee, chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., is investigating Doan, sources tell us that the panel has more than 1,500 pages of information, including a banker’s box of information from GSA.

Sources say that Doan's staff has been working overtime and on little else in responding to the committee's requests and preparing Doan for the hearing Tuesday. The committee this month requested Doan appear before the committee to "address evidence gathered by investigators suggesting she may have engaged in improper political and contracting activity," we reported.

In the meantime, Quin Hillyer at the American Spectator blog has been writing in support of Doan since the investigation started. In a recent post, Hillyer writes that Waxman's hearing is "about utterly piddly complaints about her management." Hillyer wants conservatives to provide support for Doan "before and after the hearing" because "rarely" has she "met an administrator more excited about cutting waste, improving efficiency, bolstering service, and better using the resources of government where they can be better used rather than letting them be wasted." Hillyer saw Doan speak at the Heritage Foundation's, weekly meeting of conservative bloggers.