Constitutional Law

Government Report Reveals More On Justice Department Hiring Violations

A new Department of Justice report concludes that former high-ranking Justice Department officials improperly and repeatedly used political criteria in hiring career prosecutors and immigration judges.

The 140-page report by the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) and U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General (OIG) concluded, in part, that Monica Goodling, former Justice Department White House liaison, “improperly subjected candidates for certain career positions to the same politically based evaluation she used on candidates for political positions, in violation of federal law and Department policy."

Additionally the report concludes that Goodling’s “use of political considerations” in hiring for the Department was “particularly damaging to the Department because it resulted in high-quality candidates for important details being rejected in favor of less-qualified candidates.”

The Department’s former chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson, was also named in the report as employing political considerations in hiring immigration judges. “The evidence showed that the most systematic use of political or ideological affiliations in screening candidates for career positions occurred in the selection of IJs [immigration judges], who work in the Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR).” Sampson told investigators for OPR and OIG that he thought IJs were “political appointees and therefore not subject to civil service rules.”

Today’s report follows one issued last month that revealed politics infused the hiring of career attorneys and interns in the Justice Department’s Honors Program and Summer Law Intern Program. In that OPR/OIG report, it was revealed that candidates affiliated with progressive organizations, including the American Constitution Society, were improperly rejected. ACS's comment on the report is available here.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey, in a statement issued about the report, said he has acted and “will continue to act, to ensure that my words are translated into reality so that the conduct described in this report does not occur again at the department.”

The OPR/OIG will issue separate reports on their investigation into the firings of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006.

Full post as published by ACS Blog on July 28, 2008 (boomark / email).