Partisan politics found in filling career posts at Justice, internal report says
An internal report of the Justice Department has concluded that senior aides to former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales made hiring decisions about career department positions based on a person's political beliefs, affiliations, and connections.
In particular, the report criticizes Monica Goodling, a lawyer from the Republican National Committee who became a top aide to Gonzales. The report finds that she illegally used politics in the hiring process.
It was during the tenure of Alberto Gonzalez as Attorney General that eight U.S. attorney's were fired, in late 2006. One of those was David Iglesias, the U.S. attorney in New Mexico. The fired attorneys allege that they were dismissed for political reasons. Goodling resigned in the spring of 2007 in the midst of controversy over the firings.
According to the New York Times, the report finds "pervasive evidence of political hiring for some of the department’s most senior career, apolitical positions, including immigration judges and assistant United States attorneys," and that Goodling and other senior aides developed a system to screen out liberal job candidates.
Goodling was responsible for hiring both political appointments and non-political, career positions, and used the same questions for both types of interview. The interviews included questions about political philosophies, and internet searches were also conducted to ferret out the political leanings of candidates.
The Times detailed some examples from the report. In one case, Goodling slowed the hiring of a prosecutor because she thought he was a liberal Democrat. In another case she blocked the best qualified candidate for a senior counter-terrorism position because his wife was active in the Democratic party.
She also promoted candidates with conservative politics. In one instance, she emailed a recommendation for a particular candidate who she noted was conservative. She also wrote in her notes about the candidate, who was eventually hired as a career prosecutor, phrases such as “pro-God in public life,” and “pro-marriage, anti-civil union.” Internet searches she used to find out the political leanings of candidates included search terms such as “abortion,” “homosexual,” “guns,” or “Florida re-count."
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