By Margaret Talev and Greg Gordon
McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON - The Justice Department is expanding its internal inquiry to look into new allegations that senior department officials improperly filled career jobs based on applicants’ Republican or conservative credentials.
In a joint announcement Wednesday, officials at the department’s Office of Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility said their inquiry now included scrutiny of hiring in the Civil Rights Division, which oversees voting rights.
Politicization of civil service positions could violate department policy or federal law.
Congress is in the midst of its own investigation into whether the ousters of nine U.S. attorneys last year were connected to Republican desires to bring more vote-fraud cases against Democrats in battleground states and whether there was a larger pattern of politicization at the Justice Department.
The Justice Department had acknowledged that its watchdogs are evaluating the propriety of the department’s firings of the prosecutors and personnel decisions by Monica Goodling, a former counselor and White House liaison, who told a House of Representatives committee last week that she “crossed the lines” by applying political litmus tests when hiring career professionals.
It couldn’t be determined whether the Goodling inquiry will be expanded to include what direction she received from higher-ups within the department or the White House.
The announcement Wednesday, however, indicated that the internal inquiry is looking more broadly at charges of politicization across the department.
In brief letters notifying the House and Senate of their plans, Inspector General Glenn A. Fine and H. Marshall Jarrett, counsel for the Office of Professional Responsibility, say they’re looking into hiring and personnel decisions by Goodling and others along with hiring within the Civil Rights Division, the department’s honors program and its summer law-intern program. Neither Fine nor Jarrett returned calls requesting comment.
Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, the chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary committees, said in statements that the expanded inquiry showed the need for ongoing congressional oversight.
In recent weeks, McClatchy Newspapers has detailed controversial actions by Bradley Schlozman, a former interim U.S. attorney in Kansas City and top official in the Civil Rights Division, including a decision to charge four people with voter fraud just days before the 2006 elections. A Justice Department policy advises against such timing.
Schlozman, who continues to work at the Justice Department, is to appear next Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee to answer questions about his hiring practices as well as his possible role in an alleged administration effort to suppress minority votes. MORE
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