Breaking-Obstruction Of Justice/Docs Destroyed - OIG & OPR Confirms Politicization Of Hiring At DOJ

[kpete]

“Obstruction of Justice”

Breaking: OIG And OPR Confirms Politicization Of Hiring At DOJ
By: Christy Hardin Smith Tuesday June 24, 2008 8:27 am 1


The Office Of Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility at the Department of Justice have issued a joint inspection report regarding two of the most prestigious fast track programs to DOJ career hire status -- and the politicized hiring selection process that has been in place for the last few years. Readers will recall testimony from Monica Goodling, Alberto Gonzales, Bradley Schlozman, Kyle Sampson and many others on these issues.

The full report is available as a PDF here. From the report summary, beginning on page 92:
http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/special/e0806/final.pdf

...We concluded that McDonald committed misconduct and violated Department policies and civil service law by considering political or ideological affiliations in assessing Honors Program and SLIP candidates. (93)

We concluded that Elston violated federal law and Department policy by deselecting candidates based on their liberal affiliations. (94)

We also concluded that Elston committed misconduct, and violated federal law and Department policy, when he deselected candidates and denied appeals based on his perception of the political or ideological affiliations of the candidates. (96)

We also concluded that OARM Director DeFalaise did not adequately or timely address the concerns that were brought to his attention concerning the Screening Committee's deselections. (96)

Finally, we concluded that Acting Associate Attorney General Mercer did not adequately address the concerns that were brought to his attention by several senior Department officials that the Screening Committee's deselections appeared to have been politicized. (97)...

An OARM employee ... recalled that one of the (deselected) candidates she raised to DeFalaise's attention was first in his law school class at Georgetown University, had clerked for a federal district court judge, and was currently clerking for a Second Circuit judge. (footnote 41: This candidate also had worked as a law clerk for Senator Russell Feingold, a Democrat, and for Human Rights Watch, but the OARM employee does not recall pointing out the candidate's political or ideological affiliations to DeFalaise at this time.) (59-60)...

(Records of applicants destroyed)

The Committee used paper copies of the applications on which Fridman and McDonald made handwritten notations about the applicants, but those documents were destroyed prior to the initiation of our investigation. (68,69) (emphasis mine)

Allow this to soak in for a moment: documentary evidence in personnel files at the US Department of Justice was destroyed, including notes on hiring decisions and other pertinent documents which are generally kept in all cases for review by employers nationwide should there be discrimination or other claims which require later review. They were destroyed. As in missing, taken out of the files, not there...before the OIG and the OPR could look at them.

There will be a lot more on this to come, but that stood out like a big flashing sign to me -- people at the department of justice destroyed evidence in a matter being investigated within the department by the OIG. Jeebus, we are going to have a lot of work to do cleaning up after these asshats.

http://firedoglake.com/2008/06/24/breaking-oig-and-opr-confirms-politicization-of-hiring-at-doj/


update

From pp. 98-99 of the report:

…

However, we found that in 2006 the Screening Committee inappropriately used political and ideological considerations to deselect many candidates. We determined that a disproportionate number of the deselected Honors Program and SLIP candidates had liberal affiliations as compared to the candidates with conservative affiliations. This pattern was also apparent when we examined the data for membership in the liberal American Constitution Society compared to the conservative Federalist Society for SLIP candidates and when we compared applicants with Democratic Party affiliations versus Republican Party affiliations for both Honors Program and SLIP candidates. The disproportionate pattern was also apparent when we examined candidates who were highly qualified academically.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

1. kick

[formercia]

2. The perpeTRAITORS will file an appeal

and make sure they remain in charge until after Junior leaves office.

Running out the clock.

[spanone]

3. i suspect the crimes list is PAGES long. single spaced.

[kpete]

4. link to doc

http://www.usdoj.gov/opr/oig-opr-investigation-hire-slip.pdf

[peacetalksforall]

5. Every department of our tax paid government of, for, by the people was and

still is totally political and there is death, torture, our kids treated like crap, bllions of missing dollars and equipment, plus nuclear and defense secrets scattered and being traded and handed over and our lives are all in a database.

And only some of the people care.

There is no difference between the person who is always in the mall or on the couch watching that bat, stick, club, arm in a sports rerun, of yaddaing at a pricey restaurant or a $90.00 coffee machine - not wanting to know what is going on - and - our leaders who do know what is going on. Neither group wants to make a big deal out of our status as a nation turning into a prison by the dollar and the disregard for law.

[Supersedeas]

6. time to see what kind of moral fiber Mukasey really has!!! Congress needs real oversight!!!

[bluesmail]

7. The pawns are sacrificed, again.

[malaise]

8. Dan Abrams about to discuss this

after the break

[sofa king]

9. Which brings us right back to a touchy subject.

As I understand it, the penalties for document destruction and obstruction of justice used to be set up in such a way that the penalties for doing such things were supposed to be equivalent to or greater than the crimes concealed.

In other words, guilt of obstruction was supposed to carry a tacit assumption of guilt for the crimes concealed.

Had we the people treated the Bush Administration with the same wariness that is contained in this simple logical construct, they would have been out on their asses by 2004.

There would be far less argument over whether or not they were actively responsible for 9/11, because we'd have to assume that their evasiveness on that subject concealed complicity. The Iraq war would be assumed to have been illegally contrived. The outing of Valerie Wilson and the CIA's WMD team would be assumed to have been as malicious and self-serving as it obviously is.

And yes, assuming may make asses of you and me, but then again, we're already asses for letting it happen, aren't we?

[Junkdrawer]

10. So? Impeachment is off the table. What did you expect?

It's like announcing that the police will no longer enforce laws and being surprised by the crime wave.

[no limit]

11. who cares anymore?

Congress certainly doesn't, the media won't mention this, what the hell is the point any more? The more I pay attention to this shit the more depressed I become with the whole thing.