Politics

Chairman Conyers: ?IG Confirms My Worst Fears?

By Karina

This morning, the Justice Department Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility released a report entitled, “An Investigation of Allegations of Politicized Hiring and Other Improper Personnel Actions in the Civil Rights Division.”

The report finds:

The evidence in our investigation showed that Schlozman, first as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General and subsequently as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General and Acting Assistant Attorney General, considered political and ideological affiliations in hiring career attorneys and in other personnel actions affecting career attorneys in the Civil Rights Division. In doing so, he violated federal law ? the Civil Service Reform Act ? and Department policy that prohibit discrimination in federal employment based on political and ideological affiliations, and committed misconduct. The evidence also showed that Division managers failed to exercise sufficient oversight to ensure that Schlozman did not engage in inappropriate hiring and personnel practices. Moreover, Schlozman made false statements about whether he considered political and ideological affiliations when he gave sworn testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee and in his written responses to supplemental questions from the Committee.

Chairman Conyers:

This report confirms the Committee?s work showing that the Bush Justice Department abandoned its mission to promote fairness and equal justice under the law. Indeed, the Civil Rights Division that is charged with preventing employment discrimination instead appears to have been guilty of it. Partisan politics infected the Honors program and other hiring decisions, personnel transfers, and even which cases went to which attorneys, and Division leadership failed to stop it. For example, the niece of a former Bush agency head was hired even though the career section chief concluded she was not qualified. The new Administration must take active steps to restore the Department?s mission to promote civil rights.

Read the full report>>

Read more about oversight of the Department of Justice in The Gavel archives>>

Full post as published by The Gavel on January 13, 2009 (boomark / email).