After the news that a class action suit had been filed against former Justice Department officials Esther Slater McDonald and Michael Elston, we've been waiting for the other shoe shoe to drop: bar complaints.

Sure enough, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed complaints in the wake of the Inspector Generals report that found both McDonald and Elston in violation of federal law for taking "political and ideological" affiliations into account when hiring for the U.S. Attorney's Honors Program:

The Rules of Professional Conduct prohibit attorneys from engaging in conduct involving dishonesty and conduct that "seriously interferes with the administration of justice." By illegally taking political and ideological affiliations into account in screening applicants for career DOJ position, Mr. Elston and Ms. McDonald may have violated bar rules could be subject to discipline.

CREW's executive director Melanie Sloane told TPMmuckraker that due to the findings of the independent OIG report, the complaint should be taken fairly seriously. "The only question left for the bar is whether their violations of the law rise to level of professional responsibility," Sloane said. "And I bet that they do."

The complaint was filed, with the OIG report attached, against McDonald in the District of Columbia and Elston in Virginia. Copies of the complaint were sent to all other jurisdictions where they were bar members.

It was bound to happen when you had a big mess of lawyers disqualified from hiring for illegal reasons. One of the de-selected masses filed a lawsuit claiming $100,000 in damages on Monday.

As the The Blog of Legal Times wrote yesterday:

The class action by Sean Gerlich -- filed yesterday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia -- is the first suit resulting from an internal Justice report issued last week that says two former Justice officials illegally screened applicants to the honors and summer intern programs.

The two officials were Esther Slater McDonald, then counsel to the associate attorney general and now an associate at Seyfarth Shaw, and Michael Elston, then chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty and now a partner at McGuireWoods.

Gerlich's suit says the department politicized the selection process, mishandled the applications and failed to maintain the records, all in violation of the Privacy Act, the Civil Service Reform Act and the Federal Records Act. In addition, the suit claims violations of the First and 14th Amendments.

Gerlich says he was rejected because of his liberal affiliations, which officials dug up through Internet searches.

As predicted, there's been lots of fall out from the first report by the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General on the hiring practices used by the DOJ.

As the New York Times reports today:

The Office of Special Counsel, an agency that investigates political interference in the federal workplace, let the Justice Department know this week that it would be examining the issues raised in the report "to discuss what our next step should be," said James P. Mitchell, a spokesman for the office.

The special counsel has offered to work with the department "to determine whether disciplinary action is warranted," Mr. Mitchell said. The inspector general's report noted that two department officials who it said were largely responsible for the abuses in 2006, Michael Elston and Esther Slater McDonald, could not face disciplinary action because both had left the department.

But Mr. Mitchell said: "That doesn't rule out others -- those who considered political affiliation in making decisions as well as those who let them do that. This is a prohibited practice, and this is an area that we enforce."

The OSC is no stranger to trouble. It's had its own issues lately, namely that the head of the department, Scott Bloch, is under investigation by the FBI.