Shocking news from DOJ Tom Smith

It helped to be conservative to be hired by the Bush DOJ.  Say it ain't so!  This sort of preference for people of your own political ilk is, of course, something practiced only by conservatives.

Comments

[Read]

If you really think that career-service positions at DOJ were politically influenced before this administration, Tom, you need to go back to DC for a while. Political jobs, and jobs in other departments -- maybe. But not at DOJ. It was a point of pride, and rightly so. Something that, as the Report mentions (and I'd encourage you to read it), also remained the case in some departments (for example, antitrust) even under Bush II. But not in a wide number of others, where career-service jobs were influenced in a clear violation of the CSRA.

This is a major disgrace. This isn't business as usual, Tom. Not here.

[Thomas]

Are we sure it isn't business as usual? I mean, has anyone gone back through the initial applications, before they were winnowed by the career staff, to see what they looked like?

[Rich]

New York Times, March 24, 1993:

Attorney General Janet Reno today demanded the prompt resignation of all United States Attorneys, leading the Federal prosecutor in the District of Columbia to suggest that the order could be tied to his long-running investigation of Representative Dan Rostenkowski, a crucial ally of President Clinton.

Not to mention the US Attorney investigating the Clinton's criominal behavior n Arkansas. NO POLITICAL MOTIVATION THERE, heh?

[Jonathan]

Eric Holder, call your office.

[Eric Rasmusen]

The report at

http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/special/s0806/final.pdf

looks pretty well done. My take is that in 2006, to a disgraceful degree, and 2002, to a lesser degree, politics was improperly used as a criterion by political appointees in hiring civil service employees, contrary to written DOJ policy. Unfortunately, the 2 main culprits quit, and apparently can't be punished.

The report entirely ignores the possibility of political discrimination by career lawyers in the initial stages. The report's methodology could be applied to that data too, though, and ought to be.

It seems that the political screening committee only deselected from the list it was sent, and never looked at who had been screened out earlier.