Conyers: Mukasey Should Immediately Implement IG Recommendations

Following this morning’s release of the DOJ inspector general’s report on political bias in hiring and firing practices, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI), called on Attorney General Michael Mukasey to implement the IG’s recommendations:

Yet again, the Department has been putting politics where it doesn’t belong. The report concludes that under former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ tenure in 2006, several Department officials including Michael Elston violated federal law and Justice Department policy. We already know from the Committee testimony of Monica Goodling that she ‘crossed a line’ in hiring career attorneys as well.

When it comes to the hiring of nonpartisan career attorneys, our system of justice should not be corrupted by partisan politics. It appears the politicization at Justice was so pervasive that even interns had to pass a partisan litmus test.

The committee’s recommendations included making sure guidelines “explicitly state that political affiliations may not be used as criteria in evaluating candidates and that ideological affiliations cannot be used as a proxy to discriminate on the basis of political affiliation;” changing the DOJ Human Resource Order to emphasize that hiring attorneys must be “merit based,” and having Department leaders be “vigilant to ensure that political or ideological affiliations are not used to select candidates.”

[Late Update]: Attorney General Michael Mukasey has issued a statement saying that the Justice Department will immediately implement the suggestions of the Inspector General’s report.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said today that the “troubling” report “confirms our findings and our fears that the same senior Department officials involved with the firing of United States Attorneys were injecting improper political motives into the process of hiring young attorneys.”

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) echoed those sentiments, stating that the report “confirms that the Bush Administration was engaged in a deliberate effort to inject partisan politics into the administration of justice.”