Bush’s Justice Department bowed to partisan politics

It is unlikely anyone will be prosecuted for the violations of civil service laws in the hiring of career lawyers in the U.S, Justice Department, but that does not diminish the seriousness of what occurred.

An internal investigation of the hiring practices, triggered by last year’s political firing of eight federal prosecutors, lays out in shocking detail how the Justice Department under President Bush went beyond past practice in establishing a litmus test for securing employment. The test was based on a simple proposition: Liberals need not apply.

Neither the inspector general nor members of the ethics office who are conducting the internal probes contends that all hirings must be apolitical.

Indeed, U.S. attorneys are political appointees and work at the will of the president. They thus can be terminated at any time, without cause. It is not unusual for each administration to put its stamp on the Justice Department by bringing in new people.

But what the Bush administration has done, not only with the firings of the eight last year, but in the screening of applicants for civil service positions is set a new standard for politicizing hirings at Justice.

In so doing, decision-makers deprived the nation of some of the best and the brightest young legal minds in the country.

Top of his class

As reported in the New York Times, a student who was at the top of his class at Harvard who was fluent in Arabic was relegated to “questionable” pile because he was a member of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a group that advocates civil liberties.

In 2002, all seven honors applicants with membership in the American Constitution Society, a liberal group, were rejected, while 27 of 29 applicants with ties to the Federalist Society, a conservative group, were accepted, the Times reported.

In the case of last year’s firing of the eight federal prosecutors, the public uproar was the result of the Bush administration not being straight with the American people. Justice Department officials contended that the terminations were the result of poor performance, this after they initially contended that the terminations were not triggered by the job performances.

This created a stench that reached Capitol Hill. The records of the eight showed they had received high marks for the way they carried out their responsibilities.

As members of Congress dug further, they found evidence of political machinations on the part of Justice Department higher ups and White House insiders.

The stain of politics in the firings prompted members of Congress to hold hearings. It was revealed that President Bush personally talked to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales about concerns that were voiced to him by Republicans about the way some of the federal prosecutors sere doing their jobs.

Several of the fired U.S. attorneys told the Senate Judiciary Committee that there was improper pressure on them by Republicans with regard to pending cases.

Internal investigations by the inspector general and the ethics office are continuing, and other egregious acts by high-level Justice officials are certain to be revealed.

At some point in the not too distant future, President Bush will have to explain in detail why he and his attorney general believed that the partisan hiring practices passed the smell test.