Lurita Doan’s tenure as the General Services Administration’s administrator seems to be in serious jeopardy. The Office of Special Counsel (OSC) said Doan violated the Hatch Act, and the decision of whether she remains head of the federal agency now is in President Bush’s hands.

Special Counsel Scott Bloch submitted his report, obtained by Federal Computer Week, to Doan May 21 for her comment. In it, he lays out her consistent contradictions of events surrounding a Jan. 26 political briefing by J. Scott Jennings to 30 GSA political appointees. Toward the end of the meeting, OSC  contends, as do numerous attendees interviewed by investigators, that Doan asked a simple but troubling question: “How can we help our candidates?”

Those six words, or some derivation of them, could cost Doan her job. The report shows in stark detail the doubts swirling around Doan’s denials of what happened and whether she did anything wrong.

“The facts of this case establish that Administrator Doan violated the Hatch Act,” the report states. “Considering the context in which Ms. Doan posed this question, it is clear that her question was an activity directed toward the success of the Republican Party and Republican candidates. It was inherently coercive for administrator Doan to ask and/or encourage her subordinates to engage in political activity.”

Doan has until June 1 to respond to OSC’s report before Bloch sends it to the White House.

A GSA spokesman issued the following statement May 23 in response to FCW's request for a comment: "The administrator is again disappointed [about ] the failure to protect what remains an ongoing and confidential process. It would be inappropriate for the administrator to comment on the investigation until the process has been completed."

The Hatch Act prohibits federal employees from engaging in partisan activity on federal property and during work hours.

Bloch also said in the report that Doan “displayed no reservations in her willingness to commit GSA resources, including its human capital, to the Republican Party. Her actions, to be certain, constitute an obvious misuse of her official authority and were made for the purpose of affecting the results of an election.”