Another Day...Another Report that Confirms Our Worst Fears

"When it comes to the hiring of nonpartisan career attorneys, our system of justice should not be corrupted by partisan politics. It appears the politicization at Justice was so pervasive that even interns had to pass a partisan litmus test. ''
Representative John Conyers (D - MI)

So, surprise, surprise, the Department of Justice has been playing politics when hiring (and promoting) attorneys and interns. It took yet another report to confirm our worst fears about this deceitful Bush/Cheney administration. Surprise, surprise, Alberto Gonzalez (and John Ashcroft before him) politicized his department from the top down through the ranks of attorneys across the country. Those who were charged with hiring new attorneys were told to look out for "liberal" words such as "social justice" and "liberal associations" like the mention of an environmental organization on an applicant's resume. The problems is that this kind of action - so proven - is illegal.

Here is the law as it is spelled out it the Code of Federal Regulations:
"It is the policy of the Department of Justice to seek to eliminate discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, marital status, political affiliation, age, or physical or mental handicap in employment within the Department and to assure equal employment opportunity for all employees and applicants for employment."
28 CFR, Section 42.1(a)

So will this administration be held accountable for another dereliction of duty, another blatant refusal to obey the law, another situation in which they smugly lied and expect to get away with their fraud? The answer, from what we've seen so far, is unfortunately, "no, no, they won't." Imagine working in an environment that was so politically charged that if you couldn't reminisce about your law school days at Regent University College of Law where you were president of the Federalist Law Society, or if you even mentioned that summer you worked for Greenpeace, you could lose your supposedly nonpartisan job.

"[Y]ou should know that there's a lot of people who believe that these deselections are either irrational or so irrational that they are motivated by politics, and that's a problem, you know. Whatever the truth of it is, when this many people in a Department are this unhappy about something, it's going to be an issue."
Peter Keisler, the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division, as quoted in An Investigation of Allegations of Politicized Hiring in the Department of Justice Honors Program and Summer Law Intern Program