Attorney Gate Update: Hiring Laws Were Broken, Far and Wide
The first report states: "Kyle Sampson, Jan Williams, and Monica Goodling each violated Department of Justice policy and federal law." And although the report found that neither Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) Director Rooney nor Deputy Director Ohlson violated federal law or department policy, "we believe that Rooney and Ohlson had sufficient evidence for them to have realized that political or ideological affiliations played a role in the selection process, and we believe that they should have brought this issue to the attention of senior leaders at the Department."
In addition, investigators found that Executive Office for United States Attorneys (EOUSA) Deputy Director John Nowacki knew that Goodling improperly "[took] political considerations into account in detailee hiring" and then "concealed this knowledge" from other Department officials. Moreover, EOUSA Director Battle "should have raised concerns about Goodling’s actions" after learning that she took sexual orientation into account when denying an extension to an Assistant US Attorney.
However, Goodlng, who graduated from a small Christian college in 1995 and Pat Robertson's Regent University School of Law in 1999, is being presented as the mastermind (scapegoat?) in press reports. For example, the Washington Post report describes her as "maneuvering around senior officials who outranked her, including the department's second-in-command." However, as the report made clear (above), she operated with the full knowledge of a superior.
Goodlng's title: Counsel to the Attorney General and White House Liaison, Department of Justice. The second in command, Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, resigned in May 2007.
Sampson, chief of staff for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, also "engaged in misconduct by systematically involving politics in the hiring of immigration judges."
A year ago, the NYTimes called on Congress to impeach Gonzales due to the controversy over US Attorney firings. Gonzales subsequently resigned in August 2007.
Background
The Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) and the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) began their joint investigation in March 2007.
The Office of the Attorney General is a relatively small one; the DOJ report states than in fiscal 2006 there were only 25 employees. Most of the attorneys working for DOJ do so in a non-political capacity (Schedule A positions). Schedule C appointments are "commonly referred to as political appointments." The report clearly differentiates between the two:
It is not improper to consider political affiliations when hiring for political positions. However, both Department policy and federal law prohibit discrimination in hiring for Department career positions on the basis of political affiliations...
The use of political affiliation as a criterion for considering applicants for career attorney appointments or details may violate several prohibited personnel practices...
Our investigation demonstrated that Goodling sometimes used for career applicants the same political screening techniques she employed in considering applicants for political positions. In addition, she used for candidates who were interested in any position, whether career or political, the same political screening she used for applicants who applied solely for political positions, and some of these candidates were placed in career positions.
Report Summary: The Women
On May 23, 2007, Goodling testified before the U.S. House of
Representatives Committee on the Judiciary under to a grant of immunity. She worked for the Republican National Committee (RNC) from 1999 to February 2002. From February 2002 to August 2004
she worked in the DOJ Office of Public Affairs as Senior Counsel, Deputy Director, and finally Principal Deputy Director. Six months as a Special Assistant United States Attorney followed, then nine months at the Equal Opportunity office. In October 2005, she moved to the Office of the Attorney General.
Susan Richmond, one of Goodling's predecessors, "used political affiliations to make decisions on detailee candidates to the ODAG." Moreover, Jan Williams, also a predecessor, "participated in those decisions when she worked in the White House Presidential Personnel Office." From May 2003 to March 2005, Richmond was the Department’s White House Liaison. From November 2001 to March 2005, Williams was the Deputy Associate Director in the Presidential Personnel Office; her direct supervisor was Sampson.
Report Summary: The Men
The report found that EOUSA Deputy Director Nowacki improperly "used political or ideological affiliations when assessing waiver requests from interim U.S. Attorneys in at least three cases, which violated Department policy and federal law, and also constituted misconduct."
Sampson graduated from Brigham Young University in 1993 and from the University of Chicago Law School in 1996. He practiced law for a short while before taking a position as counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. In 2001, he became the Special Assistant to the President and Associate Director for Presidential Personnel, focusing on DOJ. In August 2003, Sampson moved from the White House to the DOJ, serving as counsel to AG Ashcroft and then chief-of-staff to AG Gonzales.
In addition, Sampson implemented "significant changes" to the process of hiring Immigration Judges after he became Counselor to the AG in 2003; he "implemented a hiring process for IJs that treated the positions as political appointments." In testimony before Congress and the investigators, Sampson insisted that he believed these appointments were "not subject to civil service laws." He said he had received direction from the Office of Legal Counsel, but the investigators "did not find evidence to support Sampson’s claim that he received such advice from OLC."
Sampson approved judges favored by Karl Rove and the White House, but the political nature of his selection process meant delays in filling vacancies, "which increased the burden on the immigration courts that were already experiencing an increased workload."
Honors Program and Interns, Too
In a separate report released Friday, investigators note that "in 2006 the Screening Committee
inappropriately used political and ideological considerations to deselect many [Honors Program and Summer Intern] candidates." Specifically, "two members of the 2006 Screening Committee, Esther Slater McDonald and Michael Elston, took political or ideological affiliations into account in deselecting candidates in violation of Department policy and federal law."
Both have resigned and are thus safe from any disciplinary action.
The moral of this story: Break federal hiring laws? Escape punishment, just quit.
- Players In The US Attorneys Firing Controversy
- The Firing Of US Attorneys - Nefarious Or Business As Usual?
- AttorneyGate: Number 2 DOJ Official Resigns
- Reaction to "Inevitable" Resignation of Alberto Gonzales
- An Investigation of Allegations of Politicized Hiring by Monica Goodling and Other Staff in the Office of the Attorney General (pdf, July 28, 2008)
- An Investigation of Allegations of Politicized Hiring in the Department of Justice Honors Program and Summer Law Intern Program (pdf, June 24, 2008)