From the Justice Department to the Just Us Department

June 24, 2008

I don’t want to alarm anyone, but it appears the Justice Department, throughout Bush’s two terms, flagrantly and repeatedly broke the law by politicizing the hiring process. Yes, I know we knew that before, but the DoJ’s Inspector General has made it official.

Justice Department officials over the last six years illegally used “political or ideological” factors to hire new lawyers into an elite recruitment program, tapping law school graduates with conservative credentials over those with liberal-sounding resumes, a new report found Tuesday.

The blistering report, prepared by the Justice Department’s inspector general, is the first in what will be a series of investigations growing out of last year’s scandal over the firings of nine United States attorneys. It appeared to confirm for the first time in an official examination many of the allegations from critics who charged that the Justice Department had become overly politicized during the Bush administration.

“Many qualified candidates” were rejected for the department’s honors program because of what was perceived as a liberal bias, the report found. Those practices, the report concluded, “constituted misconduct and also violated the department’s policies and civil service law that prohibit discrimination in hiring based on political or ideological affiliations.”

According to the investigation, the Justice Department began ignoring merit and making employment decisions based on politics in 2002, when then-Attorney General John Ashcroft restructured the honors program, taking decisions away from career officials in each section of the department, giving power to Bush appointees. When Alberto Gonzales took the reins, the illegalities expanded and were intensified.

If you were affiliated with the Federalist Society, you were practically a shoe-in. If Bush appointees saw certain buzz words in your c.v. — works like “environmental” and “social justice” — your application was rejected.

Leave it to Bush and his cohorts to transform the Justice Department into the Just Us Department.

Kevin highlighted this fascinating portion of the I.G.’s report, on the perspective of one DoJ employee who could barely believe what he saw.

Daniel Fridman began his career with the Department in December 2004….[In] September 2006 [Michael] Elston assigned him to work on the Screening Committee along with Elston and Esther Slater McDonald.

….Fridman learned that McDonald was obtaining additional information about candidates on the Internet when he saw notations by McDonald providing information that was not contained in the candidate’s application. When Fridman asked McDonald how she obtained the additional information, she told him she conducted searches on Google and MySpace.

….Fridman said McDonald also circled or otherwise identified items on candidates’ applications about which she apparently had concern, such as membership in certain organizations like the American Constitution Society, having a clerkship with a judge who was perceived as a liberal, having worked for a liberal Member of Congress, or having worked for a liberal law school professor.

….We asked Fridman to review a sample of approximately 50 applications of deselected candidates who had outstanding academic records. Fridman said that he would have voted yes on each of the candidates….At the end of the interview, Fridman stated: “I’m still kind of reeling from the resumes that you . . .showed me . . . people from Harvard, Yale, Stanford who were deselected. There were a lot of them. And I am shocked and very disappointed about that. . . . I didn’t know that this was going on. I thought that this was being conducted in good faith. I was conducting my reviews in good faith and making my recommendations based on merits and what I thought were the people [who] were going to be the most qualified candidates for the Department. And I’m sickened by this. And I’m not happy that I’m associated with this.”

I can’t say I blame him.

I do, however, have a question. What happens if Obama wins the presidency, and has to deal with a Justice Department staffed with a bunch of unqualified conservative activists who were rewarded in an illegal employment scheme?

I do, however, have a question. What happens if Obama wins the presidency, and has to deal with a Justice Department staffed with a bunch of unqualified conservative activists who were rewarded in an illegal employment scheme?

Sadly, Steve, I think you know the answer: if Obama terminates them all and starts over, the Right will scream to the heavens about Obama’s “ideological purge,” saying he is “worse than the Bush administration ever was!” The MSM will totally buy it – every major daily will editorialize against Obama, and he’ll be on his heels from day one.

(yes, I’m pessimistic today. i’ll go get some coffee before I post again.)

  • I can see the conservative argument now, I think. Quickly browsing the report, it appears that there are many more liberal applicants than conservative applicants.

  • This proves that many members of the Bush Administration violated federal law, correct? I mean, these weren’t political appointees — they were regular ‘ol hired workers.

    So when will we see some indictments and an effort to punish those who did these illegal acts?

    **crickets**

    Oh … alrighty then.

  • CB said: “What happens if Obama wins the presidency, and has to deal with a Justice Department staffed with a bunch of unqualified conservative activists who were rewarded in an illegal employment scheme?”

    I suspect this question is rhetorical, but for fun, I’ll take a shot at the obvious: Obama will attempt to replace idealogues with qualified individuals only to be accused by the right of conducting an illegal hiring scheme. Something to look forward to.

  • What happens if Obama wins the presidency, and has to deal with a Justice Department staffed with a bunch of unqualified conservative activists

    Precisely, and please do not think this is just a Justice Department phenomenom. It isn’t. It is every department, and these people are put on the fast track. And you may be absolutely certain that there will be leaks and rumors galore coming out of every nook and cranny when Obama becomes president. It is as much a part of Rove’s “permanent majority” as any other scheme.

  • If I buy a stolen car from a car thief who has created an authentic-looking phony title to that car, do I get to keep the car on the basis that the seller committed the crime?

    In a word—No.

    Likewise, if an employee obtains employment by means of an illegal action on the part of the employer, then the employee’s termination is merely “peripheral damage” caused by bringing the actual criminal to justice. The responsibility lies with the employee to establish a reasonable proof that (s)he was the best-qualified candidate for the job. At best, the individual-in-question has to go back through the application/interview process—and their tenure in the “position-in-doubt” can bear no value in the applicant-review process.

  • What happens if Obama wins the presidency, and has to deal with a Justice Department staffed with a bunch of unqualified conservative activists who were rewarded in an illegal employment scheme?

    You know how some conservatives shed crocodile tears for beneficiaries of affirmative action, arguing that it holds them back because “everyone” doubts they got there by merit? Welcome to the club, if you were hired in the last eight years.

  • Hey, someone has to hire all those Home-Schooled in Independent Design and Law Schooled in Strict Constructionist Theory morons.

    You can’t expect them to be hired by actual law firms after all.

  • It is an interesting question. How much organic turnaround might there be? Meaning, how many of these conservative activists will look for a new petri dish if the culture changes?

  • Yeah, gotta be careful of anyone who wants to advance Social Justice. Probably they mean “Socialist.” Somebody should get locked up for this — how about Ashcroft and Gonzo for openers?.

  • What happens if Obama wins the presidency, and has to deal with a Justice Department staffed with a bunch of unqualified conservative activists who were rewarded in an illegal employment scheme?-CB


    My answer from 2007.

  • Gee, Just Us, eh?

    Steve, you better watch it…I feel the Senate might wind up holding a vote whether to censure you (ala Betray Us, dontchano) or something.

    And Limbaugh gets kudos from them.

    Who cares that the president and his criminal cohorts broke the law. Who cares that they lied us into war. Who cares whether they committed treason in outing a covert CIA opertive. There’s MoveOn to condemn, Limbaugh to praise and Schaivo to rescue!

    WTF is wrong with this country? WTF is wrong with us accepting it?

    There’s a Beatles tune floating around in my head these days. Maybe Tracy Chapman. WhatEV. At what point do we take back our country? Or move?

    Unreal.

  • Obama won’t be able to legally rid the department of the ideological bias that Bush has built into it over the years. He will have to bide his time and appoint very sharp people who can ride herd on these bozos long enough to have them quit in disgust. When they do, they will beat it over to the offices of The National Review, Weekly Standard, and WSJ hawking their stories of political bias in the new DOJ and the right wing echo chamber will amplify all that and there will a constant series of “scandals”. But don’t kid yourself that it will just be the DOJ. Hard core, right wing idealogues have been joining the civil service in droves for years now and they will be sabotaging the next administration — if it is Democratic — as thoroughly as they know how. And very few, if any, will have the scruples of a Dan Fridman since, to their mind, what they have done is merely what the Democrats did all along anyway. To them the civil service was disgustingly “liberal” before they came along and that liberal bent was the result of biased hiring practices. They don’t have any proof of that, but they are, after all, part of the faith based community and what need have they for “proof”.

    I keep dreaming that most federal agencies will experience scenes like that one at the end of “From Here To Eternity”, when the corrupt captain is removed and his replacement comes in cleaning house declaring that non-coms will have to earn their stripes from now on and not just box for them. But it won’t happen. Civil servants have too many protections from their unions. How’s that for irony? Right wing idiots who are virulently opposed to unions and will do anything that they can to destroy unions, will be relying on a union to protect their jobs.

  • And here I thought conservatives were against affirmative action and for meritocracy. Oh well, maybe all of those who didn’t get selected but had better “grades” can go to the Washington Legal Foundation and bring a lawsuit against what will then be the Obama DOJ. Meanwhile, all of the Religious hires will hang their heads in shaming, knowing everyone knows they didn’t get their on their merits. And another generation of right wing loons will feel the loss and resentment. Repeat as necessary

  • In earl 1985 I was a newly-minted law school graduate looking for a job. I landed an interview with the firm then known as Haight, Dickson, Brown and Bonesteel. I enjoyed favorable interviews with two young partners and was told I could expect an offer of employment. I only needed to secure the senior partner’s stamp of approval – a purely routine matter. I returned to the office a day or two later to meet with Mr. Haight. He met with me in a large conference room. After he scanned my resume, his face began to flush. He questioned my motivation in working for the Hastings Legal Assistance Clinic, and soon turned nearly apoplectic as he said words to the effect of ‘Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund – they fight against everything we stand for.’ He then asked me a question whether I’d have any problem working for any of three unsavory clients – a toxic polluter, etc. I mouthed what I thought was reasonably thoughtful line about every party having a right to quality legal representation. Mr. Haight then startled me with a demand that I tell him a joke. When I stumbled for a moment, he got up, turned his back on me, and walked out without saying a word. The partners I’d interviewed with were apologetic but told me that no offer would be forthcoming. I walked out into the sunlight wondering what had just happened.

  • I am shocked, shocked I tell you, to learn that DoJ has been compromised. That bastion of legal rectitude has been sullied by common gutter politics. Will be the gallows be erected soon? Just who will be held to account? Gonzo? Someone must pay.

  • Note from the American/English Idiom Police Department:

    “If you were affiliated with the Federalist Society, you were practically a shoe-in”.

    Should read: “If you were affiliated with the Federalist Society, you were practically a shoo-in”.

    This is just an informational citation.

  • Government related employers. I think most felt the need to impress they
    were in lock step with the policies of Washington being to many financially
    critical .

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