Justice Department Investigators Probe Hiring PracticesDo you believe in God? Are you gay? Have you cheated on your spouse? What’s your position on abortion? Should gays be allowed to marry? Have you contributed to Republican candidates? What kind of conservative are you?
Welcome to Bush’s Department of Justice. Those are just some of the questions that investigators think may have been asked during interviews for both career and political positions at the Department over the past three years.
They come from a questionnaire (pdf) sent out from the Department’s inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility, the two offices conducting the joint investigation of politicization at the DoJ. The questionnaire (as reported yesterday by Bloomberg and The Washington Post) recently went out to an untold number of people who’d applied for spots at the DoJ. Investigators are trying to get a hold on how widely politicized the hiring process was at the Department.
Former Department White House liaison Monica Goodling admitted to “crossing the line” with regard to career employee hiring decisions when she testified before Congress. But she was pretty hazy about the details. (Did she ask about political contributions? She couldn’t “rule that out.”)
According to the questionnaire, investigators are interested in whether applicants were interviewed by Goodling. But she’s not the only one. They also seem particularly interested in U.S. attorney purgemeister Kyle Sampson. Also named are Jan Williams, Goodling’s predecessor and Angela Williamson, who worked with Goodling. As both the Post and Bloomberg note, investigators are looking back as far as January 1, 2004 — long before Alberto Gonzales’ tenure at the Department started.
The investigators announced back in May that they would be digging into the politicization of hiring practices not only by Goodling, but all over the Department — including the DoJ Honors Program (which hires lawyers out of law school), the summer intern program, and the Civil Rights Division, where loyal Bushie Bradley Schlozman was on the lookout for “good Americans.” They have their hands full and clearly have a ways to go before wrapping up.