Justice Dept. Wrongly Considered Politics in Hiring

clipped from www.mcclatchydc.com A former high-ranking Justice Department official broke the law and another official violated department policies by weighing the political leanings of law students and young attorneys who were applying for coveted internships and jobs, according to a Justice Department watchdog's report made public Tuesday. The report by the Justice Department's inspector general, Glenn Fine, found that officials disproportionately weeded out those with liberal credentials over those with conservative credentials who were applying for the department's honors program and summer internships in 2002 and 2006. The report singled out Michael Elston, the former chief of staff to former Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, for allegedly violating laws by weeding out applicants who were left-leaning and Esther McDonald, a former Justice Department lawyer, for alleged misconduct for weighing their political leanings during the process.

The article goes on:

Under the changes instituted under Ashcroft and continued under his successor, Alberto Gonzales, the political appointees were encouraged to become more involved in the hiring process, Fine said.

Tuesday's report is the first to come out of a series of inspector general investigations that arose out of the firings of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006. Fine's investigators also are looking into whether the firings were prompted by partisan political reasons, whether Gonzales and his aides misled Congress about the firings and whether civil-rights and voting-rights cases were politicized.

This is how we wound up with so many underqualified attorneys from Regent University.