Justice Department widens hiring inquiry
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 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.
In other developments, the Justice Department said Wednesday that Tim Griffin, the interim U.S. attorney in Little Rock, Ark., since last December, would resign his post effective June 1.
Griffin, a former Republican Party opposition researcher, has been a controversial figure in the firing controversy because of his close ties to White House political adviser Karl Rove and allegations that he was part of a GOP effort in 2004 to get minorities knocked off voting rolls. Republican Party officials have denied any impropriety.
To make way for Griffin, the White House and Justice Department last year sought U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins’ resignation. Griffin at one point might have stayed on through the remainder of Bush’s term. But when it was revealed that he was installed using a change to the USA Patriot Act that took away the Senate’s power to reject him, Griffin said he would stay on only until a permanent replacement was nominated.