You don’t agree? You must be a godless, atheistic liberal Democrat, then who doesn’t deserve to kiss the ground George Bush walks upon. You wouldn’t have gotten a job as a federal prosecutor either, at least, not when Super-Christian Monica Goodling was on the case:
Two years ago, Robin C. Ashton, a seasoned criminal prosecutor at the Department of Justice, learned from her boss that a promised promotion was no longer hers.
“You have a Monica problem,” Ms. Ashton was told, according to several Justice Department officials. … “She believes you’re a Democrat and doesn’t feel you can be trusted.” […]
Ms. Goodling would soon be quizzing applicants for civil service jobs at Justice Department headquarters with questions that several United States attorneys said were inappropriate, like who was their favorite president and Supreme Court justice. One department official said an applicant was even asked, “Have you ever cheated on your wife?”
Ms. Goodling also moved to block the hiring of prosecutors with résumés that suggested they might be Democrats, even though they were seeking posts that were supposed to be nonpartisan, two department officials said.
And she helped maintain lists of all the United States attorneys that graded their loyalty to the Bush administration, including work on past political campaigns, and noted if they were members of the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group. […]
Ms. Goodling helped recruit new office managers who included John Nowacki, another Regent University graduate, who had little experience as a prosecutor, but had previously served as the director of legal policy at a conservative research group, the Free Congress Foundation.[…]
Her mandate over hiring expanded significantly in March 2006, when Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales signed a confidential memorandum delegating to her and D. Kyle Sampson, his former chief of staff, the power to appoint or fire all department political appointees other than the United States attorneys.
Let me be clear. This is like the head of the largest law firm in the country allowing one of their first year, newly minted attorneys fresh out of law school, to make the decisions on who to hire and fire. In fact, it’s worse than that, because in a very real sense the Department of Justice would not be just the largest law firm in the country (if it were considered a private entity) but perhaps the largest organization in the world dedicated to enforcing the law.
Its lawyers determine whom to investigate, which cases to try and which individuals and corporations to indict for crimes or sue for civil violations of federal law. Drug cases, illegal firearms cases, securities fraud cases, illegal immigration cases, terrorism cases, bribery cases, antitrust cases, civil rights cases, environmental law cases, etc., etc., etc. The DOJ has forty separate component organizations, including the FBI, the DEA, the ATF and the US Marshals.
Justice attorneys wield enormous power. If they misuse or abuse it they can literally ruin the lives of innocent people. They can also abuse that power to corrupt our elections, ignore official and corporate criminality, fail to indict businesses for polluting our food, air and water, tell the victims of civil rights violations to “shove it” and help maintain the dominance of one political party or faction over another. Excuse me. Did I say “can abuse?” Mea culpa. I meant to say have abused.
Monica Goodling may have been one of the more important cogs in the administration’s efforts to turn the Department of Justice into another arm of the Republican Party and the Conservative Movement, but she was not the brains behind that effort. She was merely a mid level enforcer for the real culprits, Karl Rove and George W. Bush. It will be very interesting to see what she has to say now that she’s been given immunity to testify before the House Judiciary Committee. If she continues to refuse to testify we are likely headed for a confrontation between the House and the Department of Justice on whether the DOJ will agree to enforce a Congressional contempt citation.
Isn’t it past time to impeach these bozos?
