DOJ audit complete: Libs and Dems need not apply!

[StanOU]

Not even the most ardent Bush backer or GOPer can defend this.  

Can you imagine the hell that would be raised if this had happened during the Clinton Administration?!?  

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/24/national/printable4205538.shtml

Audit: DOJ Weeded Out Liberals, Dems

WASHINGTON, June 24, 2008
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(CBS/ AP) Ivy Leaguers and other top law students were rejected for plum Justice Department jobs two years ago because of their liberal leanings or objections to Bush administration politics, a government report concluded Tuesday.

In one case, a Harvard Law student was passed over after criticizing the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. In another, a Georgetown University student who had previously worked for a Democratic senator and congressman didn't make the cut.

Even senior Justice Department officials flinched at what appeared to be hiring decisions based - improperly and illegally - on politics, according to the internal report.

"Individuals at the department were rejecting any of our candidates who could be construed as left-wing or who were perceived, based on their appearances and resumes and so forth, as being more liberal," Kevin Ohlson, deputy director of the department's executive office of immigration review, complained to Justice investigators.

The report marked the culmination of a yearlong investigation by Justice's inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility into whether Republican politics were driving hiring polices at the once fiercely independent department.

The investigation is one of several that examine accusations of White House political meddling within the Justice Department. Those accusations were initially driven by the firings of nine U.S. attorneys in late 2006 and culminated with the ouster of Alberto Gonzales as attorney general last September.

In 2006, under Gonzales' watch, political party and ideology were the chief criteria for getting highly-coveted entry-level jobs in the department, reports CBS' Stephanie Lambidakis. Two former top officials, Mike Elston and Esther Slater McDonald, are accused of outright misconduct for violating civil service laws that ban discrimination, according to the audit.

Elston and McDonald scoured Google and MySpace to screen top Harvard, Yale and Stanford graduates for their political leanings.

For example, Lambidakis points out, three candidates were rejected as "leftists" because they belonged to Greenpeace and anti-poverty groups and a top Harvard law school graduate was flagged for being a member of the Council on American Islamic Relations. One Justice Department official even wondered in an e-mail whether striking another highly qualified Harvard graduate who worked for Planned Parenthood "could be perceived as politically motivated."

The report issued Tuesday concluded that politics and ideology disqualified a significant number of newly graduated lawyers and summer interns seeking coveted Justice jobs in 2006.

As early as 2002, career Justice employees complained to internal watchdogs that Bush administration political appointees had largely taken over the hiring process for summer interns and so-called Honors Program jobs for newly graduated law students. For years, job applicants have been judged on their grades, the quality of their law schools, their legal clerkships and other experiences.

But in 2002, many applicants who identified themselves as Democrats or were members of liberal-leaning organizations were rejected while GOP loyalists with fewer legal skills were hired, the report found. Of 911 students who applied for full-time Honors jobs that year, 100 were identified as liberal - and 80 were rejected. By comparison, 46 were identified as conservative, and only four didn't get a job offer.

The political filtering of applicants ebbed for the three years between 2003 and 2005, the inquiry found, then resumed by 2006.

Of 602 Honors candidates that year, 150 were identified as liberal - including 83 who were cut. Five of 28 self-described conservatives were rejected.

Investigators blamed two political appointees on a three-person screening committee for the preferential treatment. It also singled out one of them, former deputy attorney general staff chief, Elston, for failing to make sure the hirings were proper - and giving evasive and misleading answers about why they were not.

An attorney for Elston, who is now in private practice, did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

Although federal law prohibits discriminating against government job applicants based on their politics, it's unlikely that any of those involved in the hiring process will be penalized since they no longer work at the department. A Justice official said the department is not considering pressing criminal charges or taking or civil actions against them.

Democrats quickly seized on the report to bludgeon the Bush administration for playing politics with a department sworn to uphold the law fairly.

"This is the first smoking gun," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee. "We believe there will be more to come. This report shows clearly that politics and ideology replaced merit as the hiring criteria at one of our most prized civil service departments."

Gonzales' successor, Attorney General Michael Mukasey, said he agrees with all the audit's recommendations to prevent politics from influencing the screening process and has already moved on them.

"I have also made clear, and will continue to make clear, that the consideration of political affiliations in the hiring of career department employees is impermissible and unacceptable," Mukasey said in a statement.

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quote:Originally posted by StanOU



Can you imagine the hell that would be raised if this had happened during the Clinton Administration?!?  

The Clintons cover their tracks well.

[StanOU]

For all the things the Clintons did that raised ethical questions, I can't remember any political litmus test applied by a bureaucratic hack for any mid to low level administration appointees.  If anyone can produce evidence of that then mea culpa.  

This is why the GOP brand of dog food is tainted.

[Conan71]

The press was more interested in Travelgate instead of the 93 U.S. attorneys Clinton asked to resign.  They definitely made a bigger deal of Bush's firings.

Presidents tend to stack the courts and DOJ with preferred appointees.  Sounds like they got excessive in lower level bureau appointments.  I'm still trying to figure out how you even find a conservative in DC anymore.  

If you think you are making any great revelations about Bush's Presidency being a train wreck, this isn't news to anyone who reads our comments frequently.  It's an election year, McCain is going to get a lot of guilt by association w/ Bush since he's the GOP nominee.

[cannon_fodder]

I won't defend Bush on this one.  Evidence is piling up that he rewarded loyalty and ideology above competence and experience.  Some departments need to remain relatively unpolitical - DOJ foremost.  The first sign of trouble was the increase in all prosecutions that are mostly political; ie. the "obscenity task force."

I fear more and more will come to light as the administration winds down.  Loyalty > competence seems to be the reason Iraq went bad (or at all), of course the DOJ, and perhaps even some of the economic issues.  Who knows, but I certainly don't have a good feeling and am in the majority that lacks faith in the leadership.

Then again, I won't defend or insist that the Clintons were much better.  Just much less blatant.  And it still doesn't mean GWB eats babies and/or all the rest of the conspiracy theories.

[FOTD]

They call him a maverick .... he's really a rennegade conservative in wolf's clothing....

"In other words, McCain wasn't much of a maverick when the media affixed that label to him. He became one very briefly, and then returned more or less back to where he started."
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3369

[PonderInc]

The Department of Justice is supposed to serve the American people.  Not just those of a certain party, religion, or ideology.  It's not called the Department of Religious Persecution, or the Department of Partisan Punishment.  "Justice" is supposed to rise above all this.

The question will be, how does the DOJ recover from all this inbreeding in the years to come?