Excellent overview from The Washington Independent, as well as further context from Legal Times:http://washingtonindependent.com/23564/obama-faces-legacy-of-lawlessness-at-justiceObama Faces Legacy of Lawlessness at JusticeCareer Lawyers Hired for Ideology Entrenched in AgencyBy DAPHNE EVIATAR 1/2/09 6:00 AM
After 29 years enforcing the civil rights laws at the Department of Justice, in 2002 Richard Ugelow was abruptly transferred from his position as deputy chief of employment litigation to an administrative job in the civil division, which defends the government against, among other things, claims of civil rights violations. Ugelow was just one of many highly experienced justice department lawyers who, beginning in the early years of the Bush administration, were transferred, demoted or otherwise pushed out of their positions at Justice because their aggressive enforcement of federal laws didn’t match the new administration’s conservative ideology.
That’s just one of the many serious problems at the Department of Justice that the incoming Obama administration will have to rectify, say former Justice Department employees, law professors and civil rights advocates. As internal government reports and congressional hearings have documented, the Bush Justice Department over the last eight years expelled or ignored attorneys that it didn’t agree with and replaced them with inexperienced lawyers hired more for their ideology than their qualifications. Many of those promoted and implemented conservative agendas that in some cases turned out to be illegal. Those lawyers who were given career positions can’t simply be pushed out by a new administration, however – and they could make it difficult for Obama to implement a new agenda.
Under President Bush, “there was a total disregard for the career attorneys,” said Ugelow, who now teaches at American University’s Washington College of Law. “When they initially came in they stopped all enforcement activities. The administration came in with the attitude that we’re not going to use the courts to enforce the law.”
The result, says Jon Greenbaum, a former senior attorney in the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department, was “you had people in charge who didn’t know what the heck they were doing. At the civil rights division, you had some of the people who were most hostile to civil rights running things.”
In fact, as an inspector general’s report revealed, potential new hires during the Bush administration were disqualified for jobs if in the past they’d worked for Democrats or organizations with “liberal affiliations” – such as civil rights groups. The inspector general concluded that “political or ideological affiliations were used to deselect candidates” applying for entry-level attorney positions and internships.
The Inspector General is still investigating a separate set of allegations that DOJ lawyers hired attorneys for the civil rights division based on ideology in violation of the civil service laws.
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In 2003, for example, voting division lawyers and analysts unanimously warned that a Texas redistricting plan spearheaded by Republican Rep. Tom Delay would violate the voting rights act by by diluting black and latino voting power. They were overruled by political appointees. In 2006, the US Supreme Court held that the redistricting plan was unconstitutional.
Similarly, when Georgia sought to pass a voter ID law, career staff objected that the law would effectively discriminate against minority voters, many of whom would not have the kinds of identification cards required. “Again, the front office just didn’t care. They pretty much ignored it,” says Greenbaum, now director of the Voting Rights Project at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. Although Justice Department senior officials signed off on the Georgia law, it was eventually ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge, who likened the ID requirement to a poll tax from the Jim Crow era.
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And it’s not just the civil rights division that’s been damaged, lawyers warn. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’s dismissal of seven US Attorneys in 2006 allegedly based on ideology is now under investigation by a special prosecutor. And at the Office of Legal counsel, Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee and his deputy John Yoo advised the president in 2002 that he had unprecedented executive authority to ignore federal and international law. Those opinions – later sharply criticized and partly withdrawn by Jack Goldsmith, Bybee’s successor — led President Bush and his senior officials to authorize the torture, abuse and humiliation of detainees in violation of the Geneva Conventions and US anti-torture law, and to permit warrantless wiretapping of US citizens. Civil rights advocates are now calling for criminal investigations into those who authorized those acts – including the lawyers.
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http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2009/01/transition-staff-briefly-addresses-the-us-attorney-question.html
The U.S. Attorney Question Partially Answered
In a meeting last month with the Barack Obama's transition staff, representatives of the nation's top prosecutors caught a glimpse of the president-elect's thinking on the politically fraught issue of what to do with the the current 93 U.S. attorneys.
"(The president-elect) is going to be smart and be cautious. My gut feeling is it won't be like it was in 1993," said U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton of Texas' Western District, a member of the Attorney General's Advisory Committee of U.S. Attorneys. On Dec. 11, Sutton and 15 other members of the committee met with Obama's DOJ transition chief, David Ogden, and his staff at the Justice Department to advise them on law enforcement issues and to point out areas the committee believes require special attention.
At the meeting, Ogden briefly discussed the U.S. attorney issue, though he said he had had no role in deciding who stays and who goes, according to one committee member. Ogden, a partner at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, is reportedly the leading candidate for the Justice Department's No. 2 spot.
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Hat-Tip: Mark Crispin Miller
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