Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Editorial: Politics taint the Justice Department
Wanted: Prosecutors and immigration judges who love the president and hate gays and abortion. Democrats need not apply.
From the RoundTable blog
Read the latest entries
The Bush administration illegally turned the Justice Department into a farm system for conservative Christian attorneys. For the last eight years, political hacks ruined the reputation of the one executive department that absolutely must stand above partisanship.
The department's offices of the Inspector General and Professional Responsibility this week released a detailed report on the politicization of Justice. They concluded a trio of highly placed department employees -- most notably, White House liaison and Regent University graduate Monica Goodling -- ignored federal law and decades of department precedent by hiring prosecutors and immigration judges based on whether they shared a conservative Christian worldview.
They dismissed applicants who were not sufficiently anti-gay, anti-abortion and pro-gun. Taint by association -- one rejected applicant's wife worked for the local Democratic committee -- or scurrilous rumor -- Goodling thought another a lesbian -- were enough to be blackballed.
Patronage factors into every administration's political appointments, but these were career positions meant by tradition and statute to be filled by the best-qualified attorneys. Federal prosecutors and immigration judges wield immense power. The public must trust that they do so in service of the law, not a political party.
Goodling and her cohorts did not care about justice. They sought systematically to stack the department for current cases and, more insidiously, for future political and judicial activism. "She wanted to 'credential' Republicans so that they could move on to higher political positions," investigators reported.
Responding to the findings, Attorney General Michael Mukasey said he wants to ensure, "The conduct described in this report does not occur again at the department."
If he means that, he had best settle in for some hard work during the remaining months of the Bush administration. He must undo Goodling's farm system, removing the attorneys she chose and holding a fair, competitive, nonpolitical hiring process. The department should encourage Goodling's favorites to reapply if they wish, but it especially should encourage rejected applicants to do so.
Unfortunately, it will be more difficult to remove the judges, who have additional job protections because of their necessary judicial independence.
Mukasey also should demand continued scrutiny into the links between those at Justice who abused their power and other administration officials. The idea that Goodling and the others acted on their own strains the imagination.
Finally, Mukasey should take a deep breath and prepare for more damning revelations about the administration he joined late in its reign. The inspector general is still investigating misdeeds at the department's civil rights division, the improper firing of U.S. attorneys, and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
