WAPO: Here is Your Justice Department

Bench Conference
By Andrew Cohen | May 7, 2007; 6:51 AM ET

Special Report
Rough Justice - The Case Against Alberto Gonzales
Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV

Ah, the first weekend in May. Mint Juleps. An exciting Kentucky Derby. Playoff hockey. And news of another high-ranking Justice Department official reportedly hiring federal lawyers based upon their political affiliation-- a violation of federal law. This isn't a repeat of last week's news that Monica Goodling may have hired lawyers for the Justice Department because they were Republicans. This is "new" news that a fellow named Bradley Schlozman, a former "senior civil rights attorney" at Justice, may have told Republican lawyers to delete resume references to their party affiliation and then re-submit their resumes so that they could get their jobs.

That was when Schlozman was in Washington, D.C. In today's Boston Globe, Charlie Savage has another brilliant piece on what Schlozman did after he was promoted to the position of U.S. Attorney for western Missouri following his loyal (and some say heavy-handed) service to the party. "Bradley Schlozman moved aggressively where Graves had not, announcing felony indictments of four workers for a liberal activist group on voter registration fraud charges less than a week before the 2006 election. Republicans, who had been pushing for restrictive new voting laws, applauded. But critics said Schlozman violated a department policy to wait until after an election to bring voter fraud indictments if the case could affect the outcome, either by becoming a campaign issue or by scaring legitimate voters into staying home."

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/benchconference/2007/05/rotten_to_the_core.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

"One thing seems clear, however. With each development like this, with each new accusation of inappropriate conduct, It is becoming increasingly obvious that there are patterns of conduct at play at the Justice Department and among current U.S. Attorneys that beggar not just a fuller explanation from the Attorney General and others but also more investigative work by journalists and legislators. This is rotten business and it was sanctioned, condoned, or even perhaps encouraged by rotten leaders."