Leahy rips Bush administration over DoJ politicization

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) on Monday said a new report shows that the politicization of the Justice Department was more deeply rooted than the Bush administration wants to admit.

The Department of Justice’s (DoJ) Inspector General report shows that several department officials either violated federal law or DoJ policies by considering political views in the hiring of career staff.

{mosads}The report focused on the actions of Monica Goodling, who worked as DoJ’s White House liaison before leaving the department.

“Goodling’s use of political considerations … was particularly damaging to the Department because it resulted in high-quality candidates for important details being rejected in favor of less-qualified candidates,” according to the report.

“For example, an experienced career terrorism prosecutor was rejected by Goodling for a detail to [the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys (EOUSA)] to work on counterterrorism issues because of his wife’s political affiliations,” the Inspector General report revealed. “Instead, EOUSA had to select a much more junior attorney who lacked any experience in counterterrorism issues and who EOUSA officials believed was not qualified for the position.”

Leahy, a longtime critic of the Bush administration over what he says is the increasing politicization of DoJ, seized on the findings.

“The policies and attitudes of this administration encouraged politicization of the department and permitted these excesses,” Leahy stated. “It is now clear that these politically rooted actions were widespread, and could not have been done without at least the tacit approval of senior Department officials.”

The senator added that, “rather than strengthening our national security, the Department of Justice appears to have bent to the political will of the administration.”