Constitutional Law

Top Republican Claims DOJ Has Been Politicized ... By the Democratic Party

House minority leader Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) believes that he Department of Justice has become politicized, by the Democratic Party, Zachary Roth reports for TPMMuckraker. Roth reports on a letter that Boehner sent to Attorney General Michael Mukasey today complaining that the department’s decision against deploying federal prosecutors to help monitor the elections is because of Democratic influence. “Frankly, the real motive behind the Department’s decision is undeniably suspect given that Obama partisans in key positions at the Department of Justice may well have played a pivotal role in making it,” Boehner’s letter argues.

Boehner’s claim flies in the a face of extensive reports from the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) and Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) that conclude that under the Bush administration, the DOJ has become politicized.

A June 24 report from the offices revealed that candidates for nonpolitical jobs in the Justice Department were rejected because of their affiliations with progressive organizations, including the American Constitution Society (ACS). A July 28 report from OIG/OPR concluded that former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales aides, Monica Goodling and Kyle Sampson used political criteria to fill nonpolitical jobs within the Department.

A third report issued in late September prompted Mukasey to name a federal prosecutor to investigate the 2006 firings of nine U.S. Attorneys. The report amounted to a “blistering critique of the political motivations that lead to the firings” of the attorneys, The New York Times reported.  

Full post as published by ACS Blog on October 31, 2008 (boomark / email).