The next DOJ scandal
Well, whadda ya know … political affiliations played a BIG role in judicial nominations/appointments – the CLINTON administration, that is:
For all of the posturing by Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee during the testimony of former Department of Justice political appointee Monica Goodling, they and their Democrat colleagues in the Clinton administration went to far greater lengths to identify and track the political activities of career and politically appointed lawyers in the Department of Justice and elsewhere.
“We knew the political affiliation of every lawyer and political appointee we hired at the Department of Justice from January 1993 to the end of the Administration,” says a former Clinton Department of Justice political appointee. “We kept charts and used them when it came time for new U.S. Attorney nominations, detailee assignments, and other hiring decisions. If you didn’t vote Democrat, you weren’t going anywhere with us. It was that simple.”
In fact, according to this source, at least 25 career DOJ lawyers who were identified as Republicans were shifted away from jobs in offices they held prior to January 1993 and were given new “assignments” which were deemed “noncritical” or “nonpolitically influential.” When these jobs shifts came to light in 1993, neither the House nor Senate Judiciary committees chose to pursue an investigation.
“The difference between then and now, is that they [Department of Justice] didn’t coordinate so openly with the White House,” says a former Clinton White House staffer. “Remember, we had our own separate database that we could cross check if we had names. Everybody today forgets about the databases we created inside the White House. It’s funny no one talks about that anymore. We were doing stuff far more aggressively than this White House or the Department of Justice did.”
Captain Ed, as usual, nails it:
This reminds us that the real scandal at Justice isn’t that anyone broke the law in firing the prosecutors, although Goodling thinks she broke the law in her personnel practices. The scandal is the incompetent manner in which all of this was handled, and the absentee-manager performance of Alberto Gonzales. By pushing a non-existent legal case against the Bush White House, the Democrats overplayed their hand and made themselves look foolish by raising expectations of a Monichristmas for the netroots.
Meanwhile, the mediots yawn … it’s about Clinton, so who cares, right?
Hat tip: Rick Moran
Flashback: Clinton Fresh: In ’93, CNN Described Mass Attorney Firings as ‘Clean Sweep’