Gonzales Aides Violated Federal Law

Yesterday, the Justice Department's internal investigation unit submitted their report on the department's hiring practices under Attorney General Gonzales, and it was not good. The report accuses high-ranking members of the Justice Department as not only violating department policies, but also violating federal law.

The report accused several department members as lawbreakers (Kyle Sampson, Jan Williams and Susan Richmond), but singled out Monica Goodling (pictured above) as perhaps the most egregious violator of policy and law.

Goodling (and the others) used political affiliation as a litmus test for employment. She used questioned like "What do you admire most about George Bush?" and "How long have you been a Republican?" to include or exclude applicants during the hiring interview.

A good example is when she refused to hire an attorney with terrorism experience because his wife was active in the Democratic Party. Instead, she hired an attorney with much less experience because he was a Republican.

As for Attorney General Gonzales, the report determined that he probably was not aware of what was going on. Gonzales seems to think the report exonerates him. I don't. The report didn't prove him innocent, it just didn't find enough evidence to prove him guilty.

But even assuming he didn't know Goodling was violating the law, I have to wonder why he didn't know. Did he turn his head because he didn't want to know? Or was he just incredibly incompetent? Personally, I think he turned his head and gave tacit approval of the law-breaking.

Current Attorney General Mukasey assures us that the Justice Department no longer is doing this sort of thing. But then, this is the AG who can't figure out whether water-boarding is torture. Can we really believe him?