Former Justice Department officials will not face prosecution for letting improper political considerations drive hirings of prosecutors, immigration judges and other career government lawyers, Attorney General Michael Mukasey said Tuesday, speaking to delegates to the American Bar Association’s annual meeting in New York, according to the Associated Press.
According to New York attorney and writer Scott Horton, who was in attendance, Mukasey’s speech anticipates the outcome of the current U.S. Attorney’s inquiry.
“Perhaps it will show that the Justice Department was being unlawfully and politically manipulated, he appears to grant. And then he went on to say that he would oppose any effort to hold those who attempted to politicize the Justice Department to account,” Horton said. “The crowd was visibly angered at Mukasey’s speech and his reception was ice cold throughout.”
Essentially Mukasey was saying, according to Horton, “OK, so maybe we got caught politicizing the Justice Department. But we’ll use our political control of the Justice Department to block any accountability for the perpetrators.”
“It was astonishing,” Horton said.
According to AP, Mukasey used his sharpest words yet to criticize the senior leaders who took part in or failed to stop illegal hiring practices during the tenure of his predecessor, Alberto Gonzales.
But, Mukasey said, “not every wrong, or even every violation of the law, is a crime. In this instance, the two joint reports found only violations of the civil service laws.”
Other intrusions of Bush administration politics into department hirings and firings remain under investigation. Mukasey said he is awaiting reports on the firing of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006 and the hiring practices in the department’s civil rights division. The political controversies prompted Gonzales’ resignation last year (and the departure of political aide Karl Rove from the White House).
An internal investigation concluded last month that for nearly two years, top advisers to Gonzales discriminated against applicants for career jobs who weren’t Republican or conservative loyalists. The federal government makes a distinction between “career” and “political” appointees, and it’s a violation of civil service laws and Justice Department policy to hire career employees on the basis of political affiliation or allegiance.
Yet Monica Goodling, who served as Gonzales’ counselor and White House liaison, routinely asked career job applicants about politics, the report concluded.
Mukasey, who once served as a federal judge in New York, said the Justice Department has taken steps under his leadership to prevent a recurrence of the hiring scandal.
“I have made repeatedly clear…that it is neither permissible nor acceptable to consider political affiliations in the hiring of career department employees,” Mukasey said.
If the problems were to recur, Mukasey said he is confident department employees would speak up. That did not happen during Gonzales’ tenure, he said. Gonzales appeared unaware of the political hiring process outlined by Goodling and his then-chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, the report said.
“There was a failure of supervision by senior officials in the department. And there was a failure on the part of some employees to cry foul when they were aware, or should have been aware, of problems,” Mukasey said.
The ABA has been at odds with the Bush administration on a range of issues, including treatment of prisoners suspected of terrorist ties and the need for a federal law to shield reporters from subpoenas.
Mukasey said that on the issue of politics in his department, there was no disagreement with the lawyers’ group.
“Professionalism is alive and well at the Justice Department,” he said.
Some candidates for career Justice Department jobs who were excluded because of politics could be invited to apply for new positions, Mukasey said.
He also ruled out firing or reassigning those who were hired under the now-discarded evaluation process.
“Two wrongs do not make a right,” he said. “People who were hired in an improper way didn’t themselves do anything wrong.”
According to ThinkProgress.org, when Attorney General Michael Mukasey testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in June, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) pressed him on how he would hold accountable the people who politicizing the Justice Department’s internship and Honors programs: LA Times story.
Mukasey stumbled over his words and attempted to dodge the question, eventually admitting that nothing would happen to them since many of them had already left the department. Watch it here.
In the speech today before the American Bar Association (ABA), Mukasey was more explicit in his rejection of any sort of review or prosecution, saying that the “negative publicity” they faced was enough.
That does not mean, as some people have suggested, that those officials who were found by the joint reports to have committed misconduct have suffered no consequences. Far from it.
The officials most directly implicated in the misconduct left the Department to the accompaniment of substantial negative publicity.
“To put it in concrete terms, I doubt that anyone in this room would want to trade places with any of those people,” he said.
Mukasey also reiterated that these former employees were not found to be in violation of any criminal laws. They did, however, violate civil service laws.
A joint report by the Inspector General and the Office of Professional Responsibility found that in particular, Michael Elston, formerly the chief of staff to the Deputy Attorney General, “violated federal law and Department policy” by selecting candidates based on their political affiliations: PDF.
Clearly, the Bush administration seems to be betting that it will be able to escape any accountability for its misdeeds once it leaves office. In the meantime, officials are just running out the clock.
After hearing about the speech and reading the stories about it, North Alabama attorney Jill Simpson said in a statement that Mukasey is a “disgrace to our country” and those who really pursue justice.
She called on President George W. Bush to restore the rule of law and fire Mukasey.
“He is showing a complete lack of respect for the rule of law by not charging individuals who were part of the United States Justice Department that broke the law,” she said. “He is creating a class of individuals that are above the law in this country and that is wrong. They should be tried for the crimes they committed, but Mr. Mukasey told the ABA they are going to get off Scott free.”
“These Doj employees broke the law it doesn’t matter where they work, ignorance to the law is no excuse, plus the evidence suggests these folks knew what they were doing and broke the law anyway. They should be tried and, if convicted, punished for their crimes,” she said.
“Yet, Mr Mukasey wants to sweep it under his rug and forget it. By refusing to do his job he is part and parcel of the crime,” she said. “Mr. Mukasey made a very big mistake saying he will not charge these individuals. He will lose the respect of people around this world as this story is carried all over the world. The message around the world will be if you work for the Department of Justice in the United States of America and break the law you won’t be charged what kind of message is that?”
“Have we no respect any longer in the Department of Justice for the rule of law?” she asked. “It sounds like Mr. Mukasey has no respect. What is our president doing allowing this guy to run the DOJ? He took an oath to uphold the law he should do so.”
“If he cannot then the President should fire Mr. Mukasey. His job after all is to uphold the rule of law and treat all citizens the same. Surely we are not now going to make a new class of citizens that are above the law,” she said. “I am calling on the President of the United States of America to restore the rule of Law in this country. After all, our attorney general seems to have forgotten what his job is.”
