Monday, July 18, 2005

Valerie Plame's Political Contributions

Sometime this weekend in listening to the Rove controversy, someone noted that Valerie Plame donated $1,000 to the Gore 2000 campaign. I found a web site today which indicates this (I assume it is a reliable web site). http://newsmeat.com/washington_political_donations/Valerie_Plame.php

I don't recall if the 1939 Hatch Act has been changed significantly--as far as my memory serves me government employees may donate to political candidates and parties, but there are rules to prevent supervisors from forcing federal employees to donate to political candidates or parties. However, my concern is that she may have done this through a CIA front organization, Brewster-Jennings & Associates. If this is accurate, I do have a problem with this because it raises the possiblity of political abuse -- government organizations funneling money through dummy corporations. Of course, with CIA front organizations it may be impossible to really find out how much of this kind of thing has happened in the past.

No comments: