Obama Team Faces Major Task in Justice Dept. Overhaul

[MountainLaurel]

As a transition team for the Obama administration begins work on a Justice Department overhaul, the key question is where to begin.

Political considerations affected every crevice of the department during the Bush years, from the summer intern hiring program to the dispensing of legal advice about detainee interrogations, according to reports by the inspector general and testimony from bipartisan former DOJ officials at congressional hearings.

Although retired federal judge Michael B. Mukasey, who took charge of the department in the winter, has drawn praise for limiting contacts between White House officials and prosecutors, and for firmly rejecting the role of politics in law enforcement, restoring public confidence in the department's law enforcement actions will be central, lawmakers and former government officials say.
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"The infusion of politics into the Justice Department and an abdication of responsibility by its leaders have dealt a severe blow," Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), the panel's ranking Republican, wrote in an opinion piece last month. "Great damage has been done to the credibility and effectiveness of the Justice Department."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/12/AR2008111202679.html?hpid=topnews

It's good to see that this is in the works, and that the transition team realizes what a huge priority this is and how much effort it will take to fix a shattered system.

[wroberts189]

1. Rehire the fired US attorneys !!!!!!!! n/t

[Jackpine Radical]

2. SELECTIVELY. All the fired ones were first hired by Bushco

because they passed the initial political screenings. Just because they didn't go along with the most egregious and illegal demands put on them doesn't mean they were necessarily lily-white.

[MountainLaurel]

3. Hell, all of the fired DOJ attorneys

One of Bush's first acts in 2001 was to fire all of the attorneys in the Environmental Crimes group and replace them with lawyers who 2 months before had been working for the defendants. Not surprisingly, a lot of those new attornets did not see probable cause against polluters and dismissed cases right and left.

Add in there all of the other career employees who resigned because they actually had a conscience about the fact they were told to revise reports or bury data.

And unfortunately, this goes well beyond Justice. Politics has been guiding everything happening in Washington for the past 8 years (from purging the ED Web site of the department's own research that stood in opposition to NCLB to hiding data that showed the positive economic impact of immigrants to FDA rule-making opposed by the agency's own scientists).

[gblady]

4. it's so wonderful....

to me....
that they are the one's that have this task...

in good hands, IMHO!

[MountainLaurel]

5. Online discussion on the article

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2008/11/12/DI2008111202144.html