http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/05/31/justice_dept_probes_its_hirings/By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff | May 31, 2007
WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department has launched an internal investigation into whether Bush administration officials violated civil service rules by favoring conservative Republicans when hiring lawyers in the Civil Rights Division, the department disclosed yesterday in a letter to Congress.
The probe will also examine whether the administration illegally used a political litmus test when vetting candidates for non-partisan positions elsewhere in the Justice Department, according to the heads of the department's offices of inspector general and professional responsibility.
The disclosure that the two watchdogs are focusing on the Civil Rights Division marks an expansion to a new arena of the Justice Department of an ongoing investigation into whether politics played a role in the firing of nine US attorneys in 2006. The probe has widened to encompass allegations that the administration has used its control of the Justice Department to gain a partisan edge.
"This is to notify you that we have expanded the scope of our investigation to include allegations regarding improper political and other considerations in hiring decisions within the Department of Justice," wrote Inspector General Glenn Fine and Office of Professional Responsibility chief Marshall Jarrett , who are conducting a joint inquiry.
Under federal law, officials may not take political affiliation into account when hiring career professionals, permanent, non-partisan employees who stay on when an administration changes. But last week, a former aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales , Monica Goodling , told Congress that she had "crossed the line" by attempting to block liberal applicants from being hired as career assistant prosecutors and immigration judges.
Goodling, a key figure in the US attorney firings who resigned in April, was granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for her testimony. While it was known that Goodling's hiring practices were under investigation, the letter made clear for the first time that the internal probe has now been extended to hiring by other administration appointees as well.
"Among the issues that we intend to investigate are allegations regarding Monica Goodling's and others' actions in DOJ hiring and personnel decisions; allegations concerning hiring for the DOJ Honors Program and Summer Law Intern Program; and allegations concerning hiring practices in the DOJ Civil Rights Division," they wrote.
The offices did not disclose whom else they are investigating. Dean Boyd , a Justice spokesman, declined to comment on the probe's expansion.
The Honors Program is the main way the department hires professionals who have recently graduated from law school or completed judicial clerkships. For decades, hiring decisions were made by veteran career officials. But in the fall of 2002, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft changed the rules to give political appointees greater control over career hiring. The result was a change in the profile of newly hired professionals, career Justice attorneys say, as non partisan positions were effectively turned into political appointments.
In April, a group of Justice officials sent an anonymous letter to Congress alleging that political appointees were systematically screening out applicants who had worked for liberal groups or Democrats, thereby "politicizing the non-political ranks of Justice Department employees, offices which are consistently and methodically being eroded by partisan politics."
Current and former career attorneys say that the changes had a particularly dramatic impact on the Civil Rights Division, which is charged with enforcing voting-rights and anti discrimination laws on behalf of minorities. Critics alleged that the administration was seeking to blunt the division's aggressiveness by hiring conservative activists to decide how and when to enforce the laws.
Such allegations dovetailed with the resumes of successful applicants to several sections of the Civil Rights Division from 2001 to 2006. The Globe obtained the resumes last year using the Freedom of Information Act. Starting in 2003, after political appointees took greater control of the process, the number of new hires with prior experience in traditional civil rights enforcement plunged. Meanwhile, new hires with strong conservative credentials -- such as membership in the Federalist Society or the Republican National Lawyers Association -- rose significantly, the resumes showed.
The political reshaping of the division may have been greater than the resumes show. According to McClatchy Newspapers, Bradley Schlozman , a politically appointed supervisor in the Civil Rights Division from 2003 to 2006, told two applicants in 2005 to delete reference to membership in conservative groups from their resumes and resubmit them. Both were then hired. Schlozman also later became the first replacement US attorney after the firings began in 2006. He served a year without Senate confirmation as the top prosecutor in western Missouri. Schlozman is set to testify before Congress next month.
In late April, the Justice Department went back to a system in which career officials will handle most of the hiring for vacancies in the professional ranks and selecting interns, both at the Civil Rights Division and throughout the department. Boyd said the changes were made "to avoid even the perception of any political influence in the process."
But former Civil Rights Division lawyers have voiced skepticism about whether the change will make much difference, since many of the career officials who will be making hiring decisions are the same conservative-leaning attorneys who were hired in recent years.
Justice officials said that the recent change to hiring rules was prompted by Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty following a December 2006 meeting during which career professionals clashed with McNulty's chief of staff, Michael Elston , over the removal of the names of Democratic-linked candidates from a list of potential interviewees. McNulty announced his resignation earlier this month. The chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan and Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, said yesterday that news of the expanded internal probe reinforced their determination to push forward with their own investigation of the Justice Department.
"I look forward to the results of the inspector general's investigation," Leahy said. "As Congress continues its oversight into the politicization of the Justice Department, it is abundantly clear that we must do all we can to get to the truth behind this matter and the role the White House played in it."
