‘Everything Schlozman did was political. And he said so’

June 21, 2007

When it comes to the politicization of the Justice Department, Bradley Schlozman is at the heart of two unrelated scandals. The first was Schlozman’s decision as the former U.S. Attorney for Kansas City, to bring highly dubious indictments against a left-leaning voter-registration group shortly before the midterm elections. Schlozman already appears to be busted on this one.

The other deals with Schlozman’s responsibilities as the deputy head of the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department. He assured the Senate Judiciary Committee, under oath, a couple of weeks ago that his employment decisions were entirely above-board, and not at all based on political considerations.

Mr. Schlozman, once again, it appears your pants are on fire.

Karen Stevens, Tovah Calderon and Teresa Kwong had a lot in common. They had good performance ratings as career lawyers in the Justice Department’s civil rights division. And they were minority women transferred out of their jobs two years ago — over the objections of their immediate supervisors — by Bradley Schlozman, then the acting assistant attorney general for civil rights.

Schlozman ordered supervisors to tell the women that they had performance problems or that the office was overstaffed. But one lawyer, Conor Dugan, told colleagues that the recent Bush appointee had confided that his real motive was to “make room for some good Americans” in that high-impact office, according to four lawyers who said they heard the account from Dugan.

In another politically tinged conversation recounted by former colleagues, Schlozman asked a supervisor if a career lawyer who had voted for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a onetime political rival of President Bush, could still be trusted.

That last one is a particular favorite. In the fall of 2004, Schlozman asked DoJ supervisors about the “loyalty” of division lawyer Angela Miller. She was a Republican who clerked for a conservative federal appeals judge, but Schlozman learned (it’s not clear how) that Miller backed McCain in a 2000 primary. Schlozman asked Miller’s bosses, “Can we still trust her?”

When the Bush gang insisted on “good Americans,” they applied a fairly narrow set of standards.

Indeed, not all of the standards were ideological. Schlozman targeted minority women, whose on-the-job performance was unquestioned, apparently because Schlozman wasn’t convinced that they would be team players. In other words, to qualify as a “good American,” you not only had to be conservative, but you also had to be a white guy.

And these were the standards used by the man Bush asked to help lead the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department.

Now, keep in mind, Schlozman acknowledged that he bragged about hiring Republicans and conservatives for the Civil Rights Division, but insisted it was all talk. To apply partisan/ideological standards to career employees at a government agency would be illegal, so Schlozman insisted that nothing improper took place.

But literally everyone around him believes he was lying. Blatantly.

“When he said he didn’t engage in political hiring, most of us thought that was just laughable,” said one lawyer in the section, referring to Schlozman’s June 5 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. “Everything Schlozman did was political. And he said so.” […]

Schlozman and several deputies also took an unusual interest in the assignment of office responsibility for appellate cases and, according to the lawyers and one of the supervisors, repeatedly ordered Flynn to take cases away from career lawyers with expertise and hand them to recent hires whose resumes listed membership in conservative groups, including the Federalist Society.

Read the whole thing. It’s breathtaking.

Well, if the way it works in the Bush administration is to head and staff agencies and departments with people whose philosophy and work history are completely at odds with the mission and purpose of the agency or department in question, Bradley Schlozman was a perfect fit. It makes perfect sense for someone with no compunctions about discriminating against women and minorities to be placed in the Civil Rights Division, where he could turn his attention to practicing his craft. Why is anyone surprised about this?

The people I would like to see under oath and before the committees are the career lawyers who were subject to the Schlozman treatment, or witnessed it on a regular basis; their information is being wasted on the media. I see where Conyers is seeking information in this regard, encouraging DOJ employees to contact the committee, so perhaps this process is already underway.

  • “Karen Stevens, Tovah Calderon and Teresa Kwong … had good performance ratings… were minority women transferred out of their jobs…by Bradley Schlozman, then the acting assistant attorney general for civil rights.”

    Can we say “deeply ironic”? Though “criminal” my be more applicable in this man’s case. Hey, the bush admin don’t need to obey no stinkin’ laws.

    Breathtaking indeed, CB.

  • And of course since congress can’t bring themselves to do anything serious about our criminal Attorney General, we’re stuck with this crook and all the other criminals that the AG would be prosecuting, if we had a real AG.

    Come on, Dems. Are you bought off, or just stupid, or what? Demand Gonzales’ head, or take Bush down.

    NOW.

  • Republicans running the Civil Rights division is just laughable on the face of it. They hate government, civil rights, and blacks.

  • Calling this squeaky voiced little bastard a chickenshit does a disservice to chickens. What do you call these gutless f**ks who try to run the world while hiding behind every stick of furniture and lower level employee in sight? What a sickening excuse for a human being.

    From the article:

    In March, Calderon’s cases were reassigned and she was given only deportation cases, as were some of her colleagues, several lawyers said. That spring, Schlozman told a resistant Flynn, (section chief), to transfer Stevens to the disability rights section. According to sources in the office, Schlozman instructed Flynn to tell Stevens that the transfer was related to performance and was her idea.

    In June, Flynn told Stevens, who was then seven months pregnant, that she had to leave. According to sources familiar with both women’s accounts, Flynn alerted Stevens that “the front office didn’t want the transfer attributed to them” but that it was not Flynn’s idea. Flynn declined to comment for this article.

  • Conyers is basically my hero.

    We need some serious prosecutions for violations of the Hatch Act and other civil service rules. That is the only way anything will every change. But it sounds like Schlozman was such an idiot he could be facing Title VII and other gender/racial discrimination claims. If there’s any justice in the world, Schlozman’s career will be over and he’ll do some hard time alongside Mister Scooter.

  • I’m sure the ReThugs in Congress will leap up and defend these women against this blatant display of bigotry the same way they rushed to defend Rice and Doan…

    [Crickets chirp]

    Any minute now…

  • What is it with the folks at BushCo and their penchant for bragging about breaking the law in the name of loyalty. Do you remember this?

    Yesterday, we learned that Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson recently spoke at a public forum and explained that he denied funding to a qualified minority contractor because the contractor said he didn’t like Bush. In fact, Jackson went into considerable detail about the incident, explaining that the contractor worked in the advertising industry, and was selected because he was on the General Services Administration list and gave HUD officials “a heck of a proposal.”

    Asked for more details, HUD spokesperson Dustee Tucker, who attended Jackson’s speech, said the agency didn’t have a record of the contract because “it was not awarded per what the secretary said.” Tucker added, “It was probably all verbal at that point.”

    By the end of the day, however, Tucker had come up with a different story: Jackson made the whole thing up.

    One would only brag about the this sort of demand for loyalty if they thought that that was what was expected of them. So this “bragging” defense is, in and of itself, an admission the corruption at the heart of BushCo.

  • Racerx expresses my frustration . . .

    There is now clear evidence of literal Criminal Acts in the Justice Department and in the Administration and the Democrats who we elected for change are NOT doing their duty to us or to the Constitution that they swore to uphold.

    Someone has got to get to “Enough is Enough”. If not them, who? When?

    See Zeitgeist #6.

  • I agree that there appears to have been both violations of law in the actions of DOJ officials, as well as the commission of perjury and obstruction of justice in testimony given to the committees. But I think that what the committees are doing is continuing to pull on the various threads to (1) make sure they identify all of those who were involved, and (2) keep up the pressure and uncertainty among those individuals. The pressure is making them begin to turn on each other, as they see the possibility of serious legal consequences, and each is trying to keep him- or herself out of legal jeopardy – or at least mitigate it.

    Don’t forget we are still working on the e-mails – and I think there is some belief that they may blow this whole thing wide open. I’m not a particularly patient person, but I am trying hard to remember that this investigation has not been underway for that long, and it has been slowed at every turn by the administration.

  • All the Dems will ever do is recommend these violators resign.

    Ok, so Schlotzman violated the law, politicized the dept., lied under oath, violated hiring and firing protocals, and everybody sees it. He “should” resign. Everybody see?
    Now let him get back to politicizing the DoJ since he’s done testifying.
    Nothing is ever done about it.
    I agree with comment #4 above except I would add that Republicans are only in government to make sure they prove that it doesn’t work.

  • thanks, nancy – sometimes it helps me think to write it down – glad to know it makes sense to others!

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