From firings to hirings: The probe expands

WASHINGTON — Justice Department investigators have widened an internal probe of the firings of U.S. attorneys to include a broader examination of hiring practices at the department, including the troubled Civil Rights Division and programs for beginning lawyers, officials said Wednesday.

"We have expanded the scope of our investigation to include allegations regarding improper political or other considerations in hiring decisions within the Department of Justice," Inspector General Glenn Fine and H. Marshall Jarrett, head of the Office of Professional Responsibility, wrote in letters to the House and Senate Judiciary committees.

The widening inquiry is likely to pose an additional challenge for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who is already facing lawmakers' calls for his resignation and a potential no-confidence vote by the Senate. While the U.S. attorney dismissals have prompted wide political criticism, improper hiring practices could be deemed a violation of the law.

Justice officials had previously disclosed that the internal investigation would include hiring decisions made by Monica Goodling, a former Gonzales aide who confirmed last week in Senate testimony that she "crossed the line" in considering political affiliation when hiring career prosecutors and immigration judges.

Federal law and department rules bar taking such affiliations into account in hiring career personnel, the Justice Department has said. Wednesday's letter revealed that the internal inquiry will examine the hiring practices of Justice officials besides Goodling and outside the attorney general's office.

The expansion comes in the wake of claims by former Justice officials that selections by the Attorney General's Honors Program and the department's Summer Law Intern Program were rigged in favor of candidates with connections to conservative or Republican groups. In response, the department this spring agreed to place them back under the control of career officials.

The programs were overseen last year by Michael Elston, chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, and both Elston and McNulty approved the recent reforms.

The inquiry will also look at hiring practices within the Civil Rights Division, which has seen the departure of dozens of career lawyers. The career personnel repeatedly clashed with Bush administration political appointees, who overruled them on pivotal voting-rights cases in Georgia and Texas.

One former senior official in the Civil Rights Division, Bradley Schlozman, replaced one of the fired U.S. attorneys — Todd Graves of Kansas City, Mo. — and attracted controversy by indicting four workers involved in a voter-registration drive sponsored by a liberal group days before the November elections.

A Gonzales spokesman declined to comment on the broadening of the probe.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate panel, said in a statement that it reinforces "the need for meaningful congressional oversight of this Justice Department and the Bush administration."