Injustice Department


Wednesday, July 30, 2008

The mission of the U.S. Department of Justice is “to ensure fair and 
impartial administration of justice for all Americans.”

According to two recent independent investigations, the Justice 
Department failed miserably in its mission.

The reports indicate that under former Attorney General Alberto 
Gonzales the department became politicized in areas that are supposed 
to be free of politics.

People who illegally inserted politics into the hiring and firing of 
career Justice Department employees must be held accountable.

No one knows for sure how pervasive the illegal politicization of the 
Justice Department became.

An earlier report by the Justice Department inspector general and 
ethics chief found a pattern of politicized hiring at the Justice 
Department in the review of applications from young lawyers for the 
honors and intern programs.

The report found that hundreds of candidates for summer law 
internships and elite entry-level honors program jobs were 
systematically removed from hiring pools due to Democratic 
affiliations or associations with environmental groups or social 
justice organizations.

This week the second of four inspector general reports found that two 
top Gonzales aids illegally politicized screening and hiring of 
department lawyers and immigration judges.

Monica Goodling, then the White House liaison for the Justice 
Department and legal counsel for Gonzales, subjected candidates for 
career positions to the sort of politically based evaluations often 
used legally for candidates for political positions.

Goodling, who testified before Congress under a grant of immunity, 
formerly worked at the Republican National Committee.

Candidates for career jobs were asked about their party affiliations 
and political donations and judged on whether they had conservative 
views on God, guns and gays.

The investigation also found that Kyle Sampson, Gonzales’s chief of 
staff, overhauled the way in which immigration judges were selected. 
He worked to ensure that Republicans or conservatives got the jobs 
that formerly were recommended by the Executive Office of Immigration 
Review based on experience and qualifications, not politics.

Two more reports will be released as a result of the investigation 
launched after reports of the apparent political firings of eight 
U.S. attorneys in 2006.

No one knows yet how widespread the effort was to politicize.

The department is supposed to be a check on the partisan impulses of 
politicians in power, not their tool.