So what's next for Alberto Gonzales' former chief of staff Kyle Sampson? Where does a senior Justice Department official with an expertise in politicization, who has experience orchestrating a purge of prosecutors, engaging in a clumsy cover-up, and getting drubbed when testifying before Congress, go next?

The answer: working for drug companies. The Salt Lake Tribune reports that Sampson has landed a gig with the mega-firm Hunton & Williams, in their food and drug practice. There, Sampson will help companies navigate the wilds of Food and Drug Administration regulation, among other duties. The Tribune also reports that the firm has landed a much bigger fish in Sheldon Bradshaw, who, in true revolving door fashion, recently resigned as general counsel of the FDA. Bradshaw also has DoJ experience -- he was one of the political appointees overseeing the notoriously politicized Civil Rights Division. So he and Sampson will likely get along fine.

But wait! Let's not forget Bradley Schlozman who had his own version of what a "loyal Bushie" is -- his phrase for it was "good Americans." Earlier this month, The Kansas City Star reported that Schlozman has opted for a quiet retirement from his rigorous politicization duties at the Department. He'll be practicing tax law at a Kansas City law firm.

The troubles of both, however, are not over, as they are both currently under investigation by the Department's inspector general, whose report on the mess at the DoJ is still forthcoming.

In written answers to questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee, Bradley Schlozman, the former Justice Department official and U.S. attorney who's been at the center of the firings controversy, admitted that he'd once urged hiring certain prosecutors for his office based on their political affiliation. It's against civil service laws to do so.

But he had a reason, he explains (how good a reason, you can decide for yourself). When serving as the interim U.S. attorney for Kansas City, Schlozman had been unable to hire assistant U.S. attorneys on his own, as Senate-confirmed U.S. attorneys are able to do. For that, he had to go through the central office, or in this case, Monica Goodling, the Department's White House liaison. He'd "heard rumors," he writes,"that Ms. Goodling considered political affiliation in approving hiring decisions for career positions." Goodling, of course, admitted in testimony to Congress that she'd made sure that only Republicans were hired for certain non-political positions.

And so, Schlozman explains, in order to "maximize the chances" of being able to hire his desired candidate, he "once noted the likely political leanings of several applicants" in a conversation with Department officials.

But there was no damage done! Schlozman adds that none of his desired candidates were hired.

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Bradley Schlozman, a former Justice Department official who was at the center of the U.S. attorneys scandal and is under investigation by the Departments inspector general for his alleged efforts to politicize the Civil Rights Division, has finally left his post at the Department.

After he left his position as the U.S. attorney in Kansas City this April, Schlozman moved to the Justice Department office that oversees all U.S. attorneys. Reached on his cell phone today, Schlozman confirmed that he'd left the Department last week, but refused to say anything more and then hung up.

That makes Schlozman the latest in a long line of Department officials to leave in the wake of the firings scandal, including former White House liaison Monica Goodling, chief of staff Kyle Sampson, Acting Associate Attorney General William Mercer, Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, and his chief of staff Michael Elston.

Before being tapped as the U.S. attorney for Kansas City in March of 2006 (after his predecessor Todd Graves was abruptly fired), Schlozman oversaw the voting rights section of the Civil Rights Division with an iron hand. Former employees say that, in tandem with Hans von Spakovsky, Schlozman gutted the voting rights division's efforts to protect African-American voters and made sure that the group did not oppose voter ID laws. The two also punished lawyers and other employees who did not toe the line, former employees say, sometimes changing performance evaluations to add negative comments.

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If Monica Goodling "crossed the line," as she famously admitted during congressional testimony last month, Bradley Schlozman appears to have flown over it.

The Washington Post focuses on Schlozman's handling of the appellate section when he was a senior political appointee at the Civil Rights Division, and finds that even being a Republican wasn't enough to assure Schlozman of a lawyer's abilities -- you had to be his kind of Republican:

Schlozman raised the question of partisan politics bluntly in the fall of 2004, they said, when asking appellate supervisors about the "loyalty" of division lawyer Angela Miller, who had once clerked for David. B. Sentelle, a conservative federal appeals judge. He told Miller's bosses that he learned that she voted for McCain in the 2004 Republican primary and asked, "Can we still trust her?"

He also warned section chief Diana Flynn that he would be keeping an eye on the legal work of another career lawyer who "didn't even vote for Bush," according to colleagues who said they heard Flynn describe the exchange. Miller told several of the colleagues that she considered Schlozman's remarks a form of intimidation, and started looking for another job, the lawyers said.

Schlozman and several deputies also took an unusual interest in the assignment of office responsibility for appellate cases and, according to the lawyers and one of the supervisors, repeatedly ordered Flynn to take cases away from career lawyers with expertise and hand them to recent hires whose résumés listed membership in conservative groups, including the Federalist Society.

The Post also confirms something first reported by TPMmuckraker last week, that Schlozman had told a new hire in the appellate section that he was clearing out career lawyers in order to replace them with "good Americans."

During a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, Bradley Schlozman, the controversial former senior political appointee in the Civil Rights Division, was battered with questions about his efforts to politicize the division.

A number of those questions from senators centered on Schlozman's efforts to purge the appellate section of the Civil Rights Division -- the small, but important section that handles civil rights cases in the court of appeals. What were they getting at? An anonymous complaint against Schlozman sent to the Justice Department's inspector general in December of 2005 spelled out the allegations. The complaint, obtained by TPMmuckraker, was filed by a former Department lawyer. You can read it here.

"Bradley J. Schlozman is systematically attempting to purge all Civil Rights appellate attorneys hired under Democratic administrations," the lawyer wrote, saying that he appeared to be "targeting minority women lawyers" in the section and was replacing them with "white, invariably Christian men." The lawyer also alleged that "Schlozman told one recently hired attorney that it was his intention to drive these attorneys out of the Appellate Section so that he could replace them with 'good Americans.'"

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In a letter to Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) last night, Bradley Schlozman wrote to "clarify" his testimony before the committee last night.

Grilled by a number of senators over his decision as U.S. attorney for Kansas City to bring four voter fraud indictments just days before last year's election, Schlozman repeatedly testifed that he'd brought the indictments "at the direction" (he used the phrase ten times) of the director of the Election Crimes Branch in the Public Integrity Section. That raised more than a few eyebrows on the panel since that director, Craig Donsanto, is the man who wrote the DoJ manual discouraging such investigations close to an election.

Schlozman's story had the effect of distancing himself from the controversial decision and pinning it on a Department veteran.

Now Schlozman is changing his story:

As required by Section 9-85.210 of the U.S. Attorney's Manual, at my direction, the Assistant United States Attorney assigned to the case consulted with the Election Crimes Branch prior to the filing of the indictments. I want to be clear that, while I relied on the consultation with, and suggestions of, the Election Crimes Branch in bringing the indictments when I did, I take full responsibility for the decision to move forward with the prosecutions related to ACORN while I was the interim U.S. Attorney.

In other words, somehow, some way, Schlozman was able to get a green light for the indictments.

Sen. Leahy, reacting to Schlozman's letter, thinks it's more than a "clarification" -- and points out that it's far from the first time a Justice Department official has misled Congress over the past few months:

“It is deeply troubling that after weeks of preparation Mr. Schlozman appears to have misled the Committee and the public about his decision to file an election eve lawsuit in direct conflict with longstanding Justice Department policy.

I asked him repeatedly about this case at the hearing because of concerns that it was done to use law enforcement power improperly to affect the outcome of the election, which is the reason the Department instituted the policy as a safeguard against such manipulation.

“This Justice Department and this Administration already suffer from a severe credibility crisis, and learning that yet another senior official was less than forthcoming during his testimony before Congress does little to restore any of the lost trust or eroding confidence in their leadership. It is difficult to get to the facts when Administration officials fail to come clean, but the Committee will continue to pursue the truth behind this matter.”

Bloomberg is reporting that Bradley Schlozman may revise some of the testimony he gave to a Senate Judiciary Committee panel this week.

Schlozman testified that he brought voter-fraud charges in Missouri on the eve of the 2006 midterm election under the direction of the Justice Department's Office of Public Integrity:

The explanation, which Schlozman repeated at least nine times during the June 5 hearing, infuriated public integrity lawyers, who say it implied the section ordered him to prosecute, said two Justice Department officials. Public integrity attorneys handle sensitive cases involving politicians and judges and pride themselves on staying out of political disputes.

A clarification of Schlozman's testimony would stress that he consulted with the section and was given guidance, not direction, said the officials, who asked to remain anonymous because the matter is being deliberated internally. The clarification wouldn't say that Schlozman's Senate testimony was inaccurate, the officials added.

Schlozman's testimony angered Democratic senators during questioning. He eventually said named Craig Donsanto, the head of the election crimes branch at the agency as the official who gave him permission, despite Justice Department policy not to bring voter fraud cases right before an election. Donsanto literally wrote the manual outlining the policy, which has some people questioning Schlozman's account.

Former U.S. Attorney for New Mexico David Iglesias said he finds Bradley Schlozman's testimony about Craig Donsanto unbelievable.

Schlozman told a Senate Judiciary panel yesterday that while he was the interim U.S. Attorney in Missouri he brought four criminal voter fraud prosecutions on the eve of the 2006 midterm election after getting the go-ahead from Donsanto, the director of the election crimes branch at the department.

Donsanto is a career attorney at the Justice Department who literally wrote the book on Justice Department policy. One of the policies he outlines bars US attorneys from bringing election fraud cases before an election to prevent a chilling effect on voters.

Iglesias oversaw a voter fraud task force from 2004 until the summer of 2006 in New Mexico. He said during that time he consulted Donsanto on numerous occasions, including just before the 2004 election because the elections crime director was known as a "wise old owl when it came to voter fraud cases."

I asked Iglesias about an email we flagged yesterday that he had sent to a Justice Department aide saying there would be no indictments before the 2004 election because Donsanto would never approve it.

"I actually saw the email that I sent on TPMmuckraker and I know exactly what you’re talking about,” he said. “I had numerous conversations with [Donsanto] over the course of two years, I can’t believe that he’d have gone 180 degrees on that policy," Iglesias said. "I just don’t believe it."

Iglesias was in touch with Donsanto up until the summer of 2006, just before Schlozman would have received approval to bring the indictments. Iglesias said he can’t imagine a scenario where Donsanto would have changed his mind on the department’s voter fraud policy.

“Giving Brad Schlozman the benefit of the doubt, he must have completely misunderstood what Donsanto told him,” Iglesias said.

The Justice Department did not respond to calls requesting comment. Donsanto did not reply to an email message, though Iglesias guesses he is not allowed to speak to the press.

Bradley Schlozman pointed to Craig Donsanto in his testimony today when he was asked who gave him the go ahead to press criminal voter fraud charges days before the 2006 midterm election, in an apparent violation of agency policy.

Donsanto, though, is the director of the Election Crimes branch of the Justice Department and author of the manual outlining that policy. It seems a bit surprising that he'd be the one to approve skirting that election policy, when he'd literally written the manual.

Schlozman's account also conflicts with an email former U.S. Attorney from New Mexico, David Iglesias sent to a Department of Justice legislative aide in 2004, just before an election. The email, contained in a DOJ document dump in April, shows Donsanto's stance was on bringing charges just before an election:

There will be another meeting of the EFTF (Election Fraud Task Force) on Wed, Oct. 6. Craig Donsanto has not authorized the FBI to open any case.

...

The federal members of the EFTF should be aware of the DoJ policy of not attempting to influence the outcome of an election through investigation or prosecution. I am not aware of any prosecution which will commence before November 2, 2004. I know Donsanto would not authorize such action because he has stated the same.

Note that last line again: " I am not aware of any prosecution which will commence before November 2, 2004. I know Donsanto would not authorize such action because he has stated the same."

Perhaps Donsanto changed his mind on these matters between 2004 and 2006. But on its face Iglesias' account of Donsanto's view of this question seems starkly different from the account Schlozman provided today in his testimony.

Here's video of Schlozman testifying:

As it turns out, Bradley Schlozman, who brought criminal charges against four ACORN workers on the eve of an election in Missouri does not know if the group has a political bent, or, apparently, what the acronym means.

ACORN, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, is a grass roots group that runs voter registration drives for poor and minority voters. Not surprisingly, the group has a history of left-leaning work.

Schlozman claims in the video below he is not aware of where ACORN falls on the political spectrum. (Listen closely to hear the press table chuckle.)

When asked who signed off on the ACORN indictments despite Justice Department guidelines that suggest U.S. attorneys should hold off on bringing such cases before an election, Schlozman named Craig Donsanto, the head of the Elections Crimes Division. Donsanto actually authored the manual that outlines the guideline, which Schlozman does not mention. Here is video of Schlozman naming him. The red book Whitehouse holds is the maual:

I wonder when we'll get to meet Donsanto.

Former head of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice Bradley Schlozman doesn't remember an alert from the U.S. attorney in Minnesota that Native American voters might be the target of voter discrimination.
Los Angeles Times profiled the U.S. attorney from Minnesota, Thomas Heffelfinger, last week who was named on one of the firings lists. Schlozman tried to discredit the story today in his testimony, but also said he never spoke about the case with anyone and does not remember any details. (This was just after Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) pointed out that he remembers less than U.S. Attorney Alberto Gonzales did during his testimony.)

The Los Angeles Times pointed out similarities between Heffelfinger and other U.S. Attorneys that were fired or on a list for possible firing. Heffelfinger appeared on a list after raising a concern that Native Americans might be disenfranchised:

Citing requirements in a new state election law, Republican Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer directed that tribal ID cards could not be used for voter identification by Native Americans living off reservations. Heffelfinger and his staff feared that the ruling could result in discrimination against Indian voters. Many do not have driver's licenses or forms of identification other than the tribes' photo IDs.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) confronted Schlozman today over what she painted as a contradiction between rushing four voter-fraud indictments just before an election in Missouri and the Justice Department's decision to ignore Heffelfinger's complaint:

Bradley Schlozman has been criticized for bringing voter fraud charges against several ACORN registration organizers just days before a close election in 2006. The decision appears to be in conflict with Department of Justice policy. Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) pointed out the apparent conflict to Schlozman today during his testimony at the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing on the politicization of the agency.

Leahy became openly angered during his questioning of Schlozman when the witness tried to skirt the topic. Schlozman claimed he had clearance from his superiors at the Department of Justice to bring the charges. He also said that he did not think the charges would have an affect on the pending election. Leahy raised his voice and sharpened his tone, not his typical persona.

Here is video of the Leahy-Schlozman tussle:

Feinstein also pressed Schlozman on his decision to bring the criminal indictments right before the election. She was not thrilled with his answer either. Her video is on the way.

Late Update: Here's Feinstein.

We're reporting live from the Senate Judiciary's latest hearing on the politicization of the Department of Justice. The first witness will be Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' first appointed U.S. Attorney, Bradley Schlozman, of the Western District of Missouri. The second witness we'll hear from is Todd Graves, the U.S. Attorney that was ousted to make room for Schlozman.

Schlozman is being sworn in. More coverage is on the way. You can also follow along with video here.

The case for Republican voter fraud complaints being at the root of yet another U.S. attorney firing just got a lot stronger.

The U.S. attorney here is Todd Graves, the U.S. attorney for Kansas City who was fired in January of last year. And Murray Waas, reporting for National Journal, reports that Mark "Thor" Hearne, the GOP operative behind the American Center for Voting Rights -- the conservative organization that served to spread allegations of widespread voter fraud and push voter ID laws as the cure -- had complained to the White House and senior officials in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division about Graves' lack of commitment to the cause:

In the case involving ACORN, Hearne had urged the Justice Department long before the election to investigate the activist organization and similar groups that registered Democrats. When Hearne came to believe that the U.S. attorney for western Missouri, Todd Graves, was not taking seriously allegations that ACORN workers were registering people who did not qualify to vote, he took his complaints to senior officials in Justice’s Civil Rights Division and to the White House, according to a former Justice official and a private attorney who worked with Hearne. The private attorney said in an interview that Hearne boasted to him about having discussions with administration officials who wanted Graves replaced. The White House declined to comment on any of its discussions with Hearne.

Waas notes that there's no direct evidence that Hearne's complaints led to Graves' dismissal. But Graves' case is starting to look a lot like two others that have drawn plenty of suspicion: David Iglesias of New Mexico and John McKay of Washington. In both those cases, state Republicans' brought their complaints to the White House and the leadership at the Justice Department. In Iglesias' case, both the president and Karl Rove himself echoed those complaints to the Justice Department.

And a complaint from Hearne would have gotten special attention. Hearne is reportedly close to Rove, and served as national election counsel for the 2004 Bush-Cheney presidential campaign.

There's an additional fact which makes this case even more suspicious. Graves was replaced by Bradley Schlozman, a former senior political appointee at the Civil Rights Division who oversaw the voting rights section. According to Waas, Hearne brought his complaints about Graves to "senior officials in Justice’s Civil Rights Division." These were complaints about voting cases, which means the complaints most likely went to Schlozman himself -- or his right hand Hans Von Spakovsky. After Schlozman was installed in Graves' place, he brought an indictment against four ACORN workers days before the election in 2006. So it looks a lot like Hearne got his wish.

Schlozman, remember, will appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee this coming Tuesday. That hearing promises to be very interesting.

Update: Rick Hasen has more over at the Election Law blog.

The gang's all here.

The Los Angeles Times looks into why Thomas Heffelfinger, the former U.S. attorney for Minnesota, was targeted for removal and finds circumstantial evidence that Heffelfinger might have made himself a marked man by raising objection to the implementation of a voter ID law in the state. Some familiar characters crop up -- namely Bradley Schlozman and Hans Von Spakovsky, the two Republican lawyers who reigned over the Civil Rights Division's voting rights section.

Here's the tale, according to The Times: in the fall of 2004, Minnesota's Republican Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer issued a directive that tribal ID cards could not be used for voter identification by Native Americans living off reservations. On October 19, 2004, an assistant U.S. attorney in Heffelinger's office wrote Joe Rich, the then-chief of the voting rights section in the Civil Rights Division, to raise the alarm about Kiffmeyer's move. The directive might disproportionately affect Native Americans' ability to vote, the AUSA wrote, and was a matter of "deep concern" to Heffelfinger.

Rich, a near 40-year veteran of the Civil Rights Division, who retired in 2005 and has been fiercely critical of the division's political leadership, recommended opening an investigation. The division, after all, is charged with protecting minorities against possible discrimination. But things went downhill from there:

In response, he said, Bradley Schlozman, a political appointee in the department, told Rich "not to do anything without his approval" because of the "special sensitivity of this matter."

Rich responded by suggesting that more information be gathered from voting officials in the Twin Cities area, which includes Minnesota's two most populous counties.

A message came back from another Republican official in the department, Hans von Spakovsky, saying Rich should not contact the county officials but should instead deal only with the secretary of state's office.

Von Spakovsky indicated, Rich said, that working with Kiffmeyer's office reduced the likelihood of a leak to the news media.

The orders from Schlozman and Von Spakovsky, who wielded unusual power in the civil rights division, effectively ended any department inquiry, Rich said.

So Schlozman and Von Spakovsky, in their own typically creative way, spiked the investigation. (A suit by the ACLU eventually blocked Kiffmeyer's directive from being implemented.)

Now, this was in October of 2004. And Heffelfinger, along with twelve other U.S. attorneys, appeared on Kyle Sampson's first list of U.S. attorneys in February of 2005 -- that's the one where "strong" U.S.A.s were ones who had "exhibited loyalty" to the president. Heffelfinger appeared again on a January, 2006 list and stepped down the next month. He's said he was not asked to step down.

Heffelfinger's lack of enthusiasm for Kiffmeyer's voter ID measure has long been floated as the real reason for his being placed on the list -- Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) even asked Monica Goodling about it during her hearing last week. Goodling denied knowing anything about that, instead saying she remembered hearing something about how Heffelfinger spent too much time on Native American issues -- Heffelfinger was the chairman of the subcommittee of U.S. attorneys that deals with American Indian issues. Her response didn't seem to convince Rep. Ellison.

The question here is whether, or how, Heffelfinger's disloyalty was communicated to the leadership in the Justice Department or the White House. Voter fraud, we know, is an issue close to Karl Rove's heart. Did Schlozman or Van Spakovsky complain to Rove's shop or someone else? Fortunately, both Schlozman and Von Spakovsky will be put under oath in the near future -- Schlozman this coming Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee (as part of the U.S. attorney firings investigation) and Von Spakovsky before the Senate Rules Committee (a confirmation hearing for his spot as a commissioner at the FEC) on June 13th. Let's hope they get some questions about this.

In a letter today, the Justice Department's Inspector General and head counsel for the Office of Professional Responsibility notified the Senate Judiciary Committee that their joint probe into the U.S. attorney firings had expanded to include a broad array of allegations "regarding improper political or other considerations in hiring decisions within the Department of Justice."

The expansion was first reported last week in the wake of Monica Goodling's testimony, but it was unclear just how wide a net investigators had cast. The letter reads:

"Among the issues that we intend to investigate are allegations regarding Monica Goodling's and others' actions in the DoJ hiring and personnel decisions; allegations concerning hiring for the DoJ Honors Program and Summer Law Intern Program; and allegations concerning hiring practices in the DoJ Civil Rights Division."

Goodling admitted last week to improperly taking political considerations into account in the hiring of assistant U.S. attorneys, immigration judges and appointments to the Board of Immigration Appeals. But the IG and OPR's investigation appears to go far beyond Goodling.

Allegations concerning political hiring for the Honors Program -- the Department's historically rigorous program for hiring entry-level lawyers -- have centered on Michael Elston, the chief of staff to the deputy attorney general. A group of anonymous Justice Department employees raised alarms with Congress last month, complaining that Elston rejected hundreds of potential applicants to the program last year seemingly based on their political backgrounds.

And Goodling also hasn't been implicated in allegedly political hiring practices in the Department's Civil Rights Division. Those allegations have centered on Bradley Schlozman, the former #2 at the division, who has been accused of recruiting Republicans for career spots and then asking them to scrub mentions of their GOP bona fides from their resumes. Schlozman subsequently was appointed as an interim U.S. attorney in Kansas City -- and returned to main Justice to work in the Executive Office of United States Attorneys after he was replaced by a Senate-confirmed U.S. attorney. He's scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee this coming Tuesday.

So it appears that the DoJ's internal investigation has a lot of ground to cover. The report will be made public upon its completion.

Monica Goodling had some new information on the firing of Todd Graves of Kansas City (the so-called "9th prosecutor"). Remember that Graves was forced to step aside, making room for Brad Schlozman, who had pushed the voter fraud cause at the Civil Rights Division.

Goodling revealed that Graves had been under investigation by the department's inspector general when he was asked to step down. She did not say what the investigation was about. She also said that she did not remember anything about voter fraud being a reason for his firing.

House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI), along with subcommittee chair Linda Sanchez (D-CA) and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) wrote Alberto Gonzales today to press for details about the firing of U.S. Attorney for Kansas City Todd Graves and the subsequent hiring of Bradley Schlozman. They also took some time to point out that Gonzales' answers about Graves and Schlozman last week didn't hold up to scrutiny.

Gonzales testified, for example, that Gonzales had not mentioned Graves' firing before because his firing had been outside of the "process" -- that's despite the fact, the lawmakers, point out, that Graves was fired in exactly the same manner as the other eight U.S. attorneys (with a phone call from Justice Department official Michael Battle who assured the U.S. attorney that there was no particular reason he/she was being asked to step aside) only weeks after Graves' name appeared on Kyle Sampson's list of prosecutors to be fired.

And Gonzales was simply wrong, they write, when he argued that the Justice Department's lawsuit to purge Missouri's voter rolls, pushed by voter-fraud hawk Bradley Schlozman, was defeated mainly on jurisdictional grounds. On the contrary, they write, quoting portions of the judge's opinion against the Justice Deparment, the judge found that the suit was fundamentally flawed -- pointing out, for instance, that the Department had failed to show that any actual voter fraud had occurred as a result of ineligible voters being on the rolls.

Full text of the letter is below the fold.

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Today Richard A. Hertling informed the Senate Judicary Committee that Bradley Schlozman would not be able to testify before the Committee on May 15th because Schlozman will be on a previously scheduled vacation.

Text beneath the fold.

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The Senate Judiciary Committee has invited Bradley Schlozman to testify before the committee in a hearing next Tuesday, May 15.

As laid out in a letter by Chairman Pat Leahy (D-VT) and ranking member Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) yesterday, the committee wants to question Schlozman about his efforts to push allegations of voter fraud while a political appointee overseeing the Civil Rights Division and later as a U.S. attorney in Kansas City.

Click the tag below to read all our reporting on Schlozman, or check out today's episode of TPMtv.

For those of you who'd like to put faces with many of the names that have come up in our reporting on Bradley Schlozman and the Civil Rights Division over the past few weeks, here's CNN's story from late this afternoon:

Today Senate Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy (D-VT) and ranking member Arlen Specter (R-PA) wrote Bradley Schlozman, asking that he cooperate with the committee's investigation into U.S. attorney firings. You can read the letter here.

There are a number of reasons why congressional investigators would want to talk to Schlozman: his politicization of the hiring process when he was the deputy head of the Civil Rights Division, his efforts to squash career attorneys in the division who disagreed with him, and his rush to bring a group of voter fraud indictments just before the election when he was the U.S. Attorney for Kansas City. The committee, at least for now, appears mainly interested in Schlozman's efforts to push voter fraud allegations. From the letter:

Recent news accounts have suggested that Todd Graves, the former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri and the person you succeeded as an interim United States Attorney, may have been on a list for replacement because of his refusal to endorse a lawsuit against the State of Missouri alleging voter fraud before the 2006 election. This is a lawsuit you approved while Acting Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division and then filed soon after you were interim appointed as Mr. Graves’ successor by Attorney General Gonzales. Several weeks ago, a federal judge ruled in favor of Missouri in that case, finding “no evidence” of major voter fraud in the state.

We believe the Committee would benefit from hearing directly from you in order to gain a better understanding of the role voter fraud may have played in the Administration’s decisions to retain or remove certain U.S. Attorneys.

Now that Bradley Schlozman is in the sights of congressional investigators for his allegedly partisan approach to hiring at the Civil Rights Division, it's worth taking another look at how he ran the place.

As I reported last month, Schlozman made sure that attorneys underneath him knew that if they crossed him, they'd pay for it. But how? Partially by simply making life miserable for them, but also by providing negative performance evaluations for attorneys who disagreed with him. Performance evaluations are of vital important to civil service employees who may want to eventually work elsewhere in government or seek promotions.

Joe Rich, the former chief of the voting section, says that under Schlozman and Hans von Spakovsky, the two supervisors of the section, he was ordered to make changes to at least seven performance appraisals: "In several instances," Rich told me, he was ordered to include negative remarks about the work of at least five attorneys who had apparently done nothing more than make recommendations with which Schlozman and von Spakovsky disagreed.

Rich also said that it also went the other way: "I was also ordered to remove any remarks which noted areas where there could be improvement from the performance appraisals of attorneys who were favored by and had become allies of Mr. Schlozman."

Rich said that it was too strong of a characterization to say that he'd been ordered to "falsify" the evaluations, which would have been a crime. But he was clear that the orders, like so much of what the political appointees in the Justice Department has done, were a major departure from past practice. In his experience (he worked in the division for nearly forty years), Rich said, past political appointees had not inserted themselves into the evaluation process.