Justice played politics in hiring

WASHINGTON — Justice Department officials illegally used "political or ideological" factors in elite recruiting programs in recent years, tapping law-school graduates with conservative credentials over more qualified candidates with liberal-sounding résumés, an internal report found Tuesday.

The report, prepared by the Justice Department's own inspector general and its ethics office, tells how senior department screeners weeded out candidates for career positions whom they considered "leftists," using Internet search engines to look for incriminating information or evidence of possible liberal bias.

One rejected candidate from Harvard Law School worked for Planned Parenthood. Another wrote opinion pieces critical of the USA Patriot Act and the nomination of Samuel Alito Jr. to the Supreme Court. A third applicant worked for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and posted an unflattering cartoon of President Bush on his MySpace page.

The report is the first to come after the department's controversial 2006 firings of nine U.S. attorneys, including Seattle's John McKay.

Investigators are also looking into whether those firings were prompted by partisan political reasons, whether former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and his aides misled Congress, and whether civil-rights and voting-rights cases were politicized. Those studies could be issued soon, according to lawyers following the issues.

Tuesday's report singled out Michael Elston, the former chief of staff to former Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, and Esther McDonald, a former department lawyer, as violating anti-discrimination and hiring laws.

While Inspector General Glenn Fine said he wasn't able to prove officials intentionally singled out applicants, he said his investigators had found enough of a pattern to indicate that political or ideological affiliations were being weighed in 2002 and 2006. As a result of actions by Elston and McDonald in 2006, "many qualified candidates" were weeded out, he said. Fine concluded that the pair had committed misconduct, but he didn't find any violation of criminal law. Attorneys for Elston and McDonald didn't immediately return calls requesting comment. Both resigned last year.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who replaced Gonzales last year, said Tuesday that using politics in hiring career lawyers was "impermissible and unacceptable" and that the department had taken steps to fix the problems. The report recommended further tightening of internal policies, which Mukasey said he would welcome.

Ideological and political factors can be used in hiring political appointees, but it is illegal to do so under federal service law and Justice Department guidelines in hiring career lawyers. The report, based on interviews with dozens of officials and a review of e-mail correspondence, found that "many qualified candidates" were rejected from two key recruiting programs — the attorney general's honors program and the department's summer intern program — because of what was perceived as their liberal bent.

For many years, the department used its honors program to attract top entry-level lawyers, luring them away from better-paying jobs in the private sector with the promise of influential careers in public service.

For most of that time, career lawyers in Justice Department divisions, like civil rights or antitrust, chose their own lawyers for the honors program. But in 2002, Attorney General John Ashcroft gave his political aides final say over hundreds of applications in response to what some officials believed was a liberal tilt favoring Ivy League schools.

The effect was clear, the report found, with applicants with a Democratic affiliation rejected "at a significantly higher rate" than those with Republican, conservative or neutral credentials.

For instance, in 2002, all seven of the honors applicants with membership in the American Constitution Society, a liberal group, were rejected, while 27 of 29 applicants with ties to the Federalist Society, a bedrock conservative group, were accepted.

Similarly, 43 of 61 applicants with ties to the Democratic Party were rejected, while 41 of 46 applicants listed as Republicans were accepted. Many of those rejected were regarded as "highly qualified" based on the quality of their schools and other criteria.

Former Justice Department officials from both Democratic and Republican administrations said the study underscores the challenge for the next president.

"The Honors Program at DOJ [Department of Justice] has always been the 'A-list,' " said Nicholas Gess, a Justice official under President Clinton. "The next attorney general will be stuck with many from the B List."

Compiled from The New York Times, The Washington Post and McClatchy Newspapers reports.