Jan
14
Times Confirms Justice Department Partisanship
Filed Under Bush Administration, Department of Justice, The Patterns
A story in the New York Times, based on an internal investigation conducted by the Justice Department, reported that a former Justice Department official carried out a partisan campaign to ensure that only conservative Republicans worked at the Justice Department. Bradley Schlozman was in charge of hiring for the Civil Rights Division of the Bush Administration Justice Department. In his own emails, voice mails and other internal documents, he talked about ”reshaping the political makeup of the Civil Rights Division and doing away with ‘pinko’ and ‘crazy lib’ lawyers and others he did not consider ‘real Americans.’”
Mr. Schlozman’s bias was clear. “When a colleague reported that he had been given an office next to a member of the Federalist Society, a conservative legal affairs group, Mr. Schlozman responded in an e-mail message: ‘Just between you and me, we hired another member of ‘the team’ yesterday. And still another ideological comrade will be starting in one month. So we are making progress.’”
According to the Times: “The report found that Mr. Schlozman had selected conservative lawyers for prime assignments and transferred three lawyers out of the Civil Rights Division because they were seen as liberals who were opposed to his political agenda. All three later brought federal discrimination claims and returned to the division after Mr. Schlozman left. The transfers, the report found, violated federal civil service law and ‘constituted misconduct.’”
When Justice Department officials are chosen for ideological reasons, it should not be surprising if partisan prosecutions result.
Read the entire story here.
Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
