A visit from the White House drug czar to western North Carolina last year has raised questions in a congressional investigation into the politicization of the national drug policy office.
Drug czar John Walters met with Republican Reps. Patrick McHenry and Charles Taylor in their home districts in August.
The meetings, each with local sheriffs, were held behind closed doors but highlighted in local newspapers at the time.
According to a memo and e-mails obtained by a House oversight committee, the visits appeared to be part of a larger program to have officials from the Office of National Drug Control Policy visit districts of vulnerable GOP members of Congress.
They included visits to 20 events across the nation to towns that an official described in an e-mail as "god awful places."[..]
The memo, authored in part by White House political affairs director Sara Taylor, describes 31 suggested or completed visits by Walters to Republican districts around the country.
According to U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman, the Democratic chairman of the oversight committee, most of the GOP members were faced tough re-election races. Several, like Charles Taylor, lost their jobs.
Henry Waxman has said that he will investigate if using Walters in this way was a violation of a ban on using government resources for election politics:
"Non-partisan officials like the drug czar should not be enlisted to help Republican candidates," Waxman said. "There is growing evidence that the Bush administration has crossed the line."
Barry McCaffrey, who served as drug czar under President Clinton, said the drug czar's office is prohibited from engaging in election politics. "I think it's extremely harmful to turn the drug issue into one of partisan warfare. It simply won't work," he said.
