We’ve known a while that Monica Goodling was chiefly responsible for vetting Justice Department attorneys based on partisanship and ideology, but this piece in the NYT is nevertheless stunning in its detail.
Two years ago, Robin C. Ashton, a seasoned criminal prosecutor at the Department of Justice, learned from her boss that a promised promotion was no longer hers.
“You have a Monica problem,” Ms. Ashton was told, according to several Justice Department officials. Referring to Monica M. Goodling, a 31-year-old, relatively inexperienced lawyer who had only recently arrived in the office, the boss added, “She believes you’re a Democrat and doesn’t feel you can be trusted.”
Ms. Ashton’s ouster — she left the Executive Office for United States Attorneys for another Justice Department post two weeks later — was a critical early step in a plan that would later culminate in the ouster of nine United States attorneys last year.
Ms. Goodling would soon be quizzing applicants for civil service jobs at Justice Department headquarters with questions that several United States attorneys said were inappropriate, like who was their favorite president and Supreme Court justice. One department official said an applicant was even asked, “Have you ever cheated on your wife?”
She led a partisan witch-hunt with a one-woman mob. Regardless of the position, Goodling would review resumes and reject anyone who she suspected might be a Democrat, even for nonpartisan jobs. And when it came to U.S. Attorneys’ lists, it was Goodling who graded the prosecutors based on their Bush loyalty.
The people who spoke about Ms. Goodling’s role at the department, including eight current Justice Department lawyers and staff, did so only on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. Several added that they found her activities objectionable and damaging to the integrity of the department.
Ya think?
Ms. Goodling, now 33, arrived at the department at the start of the Bush administration after working as an opposition researcher for the Republican National Committee during the 2000 presidential campaign.
Her legal experience was limited; she had graduated in 1999 from Regent University School of Law, which was founded by Pat Robertson. Deeply religious and politically conservative, Ms. Goodling seemed to believe that part of her job was to bring people with similar values into the Justice Department, several former colleagues said.
She joined the department in the press office…. Ms. Goodling’s shift to the executive office, which oversees budgets, management and performance evaluations of United States attorneys, occurred as officials in the White House and Justice Department were considering replacing a number of the top prosecutors. […]
Her mandate over hiring expanded significantly in March 2006, when Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales signed a confidential memorandum delegating to her and D. Kyle Sampson, his former chief of staff, the power to appoint or fire all department political appointees other than the United States attorneys. That included interim United States attorneys and heads of the divisions that handle civil rights, public corruption, environmental crimes and other matters.
At the same time, Ms. Goodling, Mr. Sampson and Mr. Nowacki, according to e-mail released to Congressional investigators, were helping prepare the final list of United States attorneys to be dismissed. Ms. Goodling was also calling around the country trying to identify up-and-coming lawyers — and good Republicans — who could replace them, said one Justice Department official who received such a call.
James Comey, who served as deputy attorney general from 2003 to 2005, said this politicizing damaged the Justice Department.
“I don’t know how you would put that genie back in the bottle, if people started to believe we were hiring our A.U.S.A.s (Assistant United States Attorneys) for political reasons,” Comey said. “I don’t know that there’s any window you can go to to get the department’s reputation back if that kind of stuff is going on.”
At this point, it’s really no longer a matter of “if.”