Bush Made Ideology of Candidates for Justice Department Posts Key to Hiring Practices

A painstaking analysis of hiring practices carried out by the Bush Administration is reported on by Carrie Johnson, staff writer for the Washington Post. Ms. Johnson reports that: "Ideological considerations permeated the hiring process at the Justice Department's civil rights division, where a politically appointed official sought to hire "real Americans" and Republicans for career posts and prominent case assignments, according to a long awaited report released this morning by the department's inspector general. The extensive study of hiring practices between 2001 and 2007 concluded that a former department official improperly weeded out candidates based on their perceived ties to liberal organizations. Two other senior managers failed to oversee the process, authorities said." Ms. Johnson points out that: "The key official, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Bradley Schlozman, favored employees who shared his political views and derided others as "libs" and "pinkos," the report said." The authors of the report, "Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine and Office of Professional Responsibility chief H. Marshall Jarrett said they would refer their findings to legal disciplinary authorities." In a statement issued concerning the investigation, Mr. Fine remarked: "The Department must be vigilant to ensure that such egregious misconduct does not occur in the future." Democratic Chairman Patrick J Leahy of Vermont was quick to add that the investigative report: "confirmed some of our worst fears about the Bush Administration's corruption of the Justice Department... Lying to Congress undermines the very core of our constitutional principles and blunts the American people's right to open and transparent government," Leahy concluded. The report found "that Schlozman had made "false statements" to lawmakers about his role in the affair." Ms. Johnson, elaborated that: "In June 2007, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee asked Schlozman about his use of political factors in hiring decisions and the basis for bringing a voter registration case against a liberal group days before a local election. For example, Schlozman denied using political or ideological ties as a hiring criteria in response to questions from Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.)," Ms. Johnson added from statements made in the report. Ms. Johnson confirmed that: "Schlozman resigned from the department in 2007 and he is no longer subject to discipline there." Ms. Johnson continued by describing Schlozman's legal strategy: "William Jordan, a lawyer for Schlozman, said his client "testified fairly and accurately before the Senate" and provided investigators with a list of people he had hired who expressed liberal political views. Schlozman met with agents and took a polygraph exam, which he passed," Jordan added. Ms. Johnson adds that a prepared statement prepared by Schlozman's attorney's the lawyers complained that: "The report released today is inaccurate, incomplete, biased and unsupported by the facts." Ms. Johnson described the extensive nature of the report by explaining that: "Investigators interviewed more than 120 employees and reviewed 200,000 e-mails, according to the report. They also performed a statistical analysis of hiring practices during Schlozman's tenure, finding that "political and ideological affiliations did not appear to have been a factor when attorneys were hired without Schlozman's involvement." Ms. Johnson added that: "Key actors including Schlozman and four others declined to be questioned by the inspector general and the office of professional responsibility." Ms. Johnson adds that: "Uproar over changing priorities at the civil rights unit emerged more than four years ago, as longtime career officials departed or were reassigned into other spots. But during the past several months, current Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey moved to calm the waters. He engineered the return of several career lawyers into management roles and reached out to junior lawyers who had improperly been denied jobs on the basis of their political affiliation. Ms. Johnson reports that: "Peter Carr, a Justice Department spokesman, said that Schlozman had "deviated from that strict standard" to apply the Constitution. Carr said the unit has updated its hiring policies and strengthened the role of career lawyers in hiring." Ms. Johnson concludes her reporting by quoting Peter Carr's closing remarks: "As a result of these reforms, and the procedures already in place for evaluating the work and conduct of lawyers throughout the Department, we are confident that the institutional problems identified in today's report no longer exist and will not recur." The Fine and Jarrett report casts considerable light on a suspected practice that was employed by the Bush Justice Department to ensure that only certain individuals who expressed ideological beliefs that satisfied the Bush Administration were hired. It seems reasonable to conclude from the report that Bush fully intended to oversee the corruption of hiring practices that undermined the authority of the United States Constitution. This revelation must lead reasonable, law abiding minds to question whether similarly corrupt hiring practices were followed by other appendages of the executive branch of government; and even more importantly; reasonable, law abiding minds have now gained the right, in fact, the duty to question and investigate whether the authority of the United States Constitution was undermined or intentionally ignored to allow for the ideological agenda of the Bush Administration to be carried out. These two questions place a great deal of responsibility on the incoming Congress and Obama Administration. To fail to fully investigate the questions raised in this post, would, in my opinion, inescapably draw the incoming legislative and executive branches, now controlled by Democrats, into a position of culpability for aiding in the possible crimes of the outgoing Bush Administration and would truly render the authority of the U.S. Constitution to be null and void and would effectively end the rule of law in the United States. In point of fact, a significantly large number of Americans have gone to the incoming Obama Administration web site; CHANGE.GOV at http://change.gov/ to take advantage of proposing questions that will be voted on at the web site as a means to determine what Americans believe is the most important question facing the United States today. To date, the overwhelming response of Americans has been to make the number one question that Americans want answered was submitted by Bob Fertik of New York City which asked: “Will you appoint a Special Prosecutor (ideally Patrick Fitzgerald) to independently investigate the gravest crimes of the Bush Administration, including torture and warrantless wiretapping?” This is the number one issue that Americans are demanding to have answered. It's obvious that Americans value the authority of the Constitution and the power it grants making the United States a nation ruled by laws and not men or political ideologies. Unfortunately, when President-elect Obama was asked to respond to the popularity of Mr. Fertik's question by George Stephanopoulos during the January 11th edition of ABC's news program "This Week," Mr. Obama was unprepared to give a definitive answer: "We’re still evaluating how we’re going to approach the whole issue of interrogations, detentions, and so forth. And obviously we’re going to be looking at past practices and I don’t believe that anybody is above the law. On the other hand I also have a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards. And part of my job is to make sure that for example at the CIA, you’ve got extraordinarily talented people who are working very hard to keep Americans safe. I don’t want them to suddenly feel like they’ve got to spend all their time looking over their shoulders and lawyering [up]." It's obvious that the American citizenry must keep making their requests known to the Obama Administration and to the Congress for a full and complete investigation of "the gravest crimes of the Bush Administration." Our Constitution and our nation hang in the balance between the chaos of lawlessly left unpunished and the orderliness guaranteed by the supreme authority provided by the rule of law. We must choose the constitutional standard that guarantees the rule of law because nothing less can protect and defend the future health and stability of our United States of America.