Still Time For A Fall Guy
This post was written by CBS News Legal Analyst Andrew Cohen.
It’s hard to know what’s more disheartening. The fact that the Bush Administration allowed a mean-spirited political hack named Bradley Schlozman to linger for as long as he did as acting head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division despite his foul views and practices. Or the fact that the Bush Administration last week declared that it would not prosecute the man for allegedly making false statements to Congress when he testified there in 2007.
Either way you look at it, the scathing report released today by the Office of Inspector General represents a fitting close to an era at the Justice Department marked not just by bad actors in government but by a cynical management philosophy that torched and then tainted all those touched by it. There was simply too large a gulf between the intelligence and integrity of people like Schlozman, Kyle Sampson, and Monica Goodling and the power they were given by their political bosses and operatives in the White House. These inapt and inept officials were destined to ruin things and they did.
And now it is left to the Obama Administration to determine what ought to be done with these wretched ministers. Just because the current administration, now down to its final hours in office, inexplicably chose last week not to prosecute Schlozman for alleged perjury doesn’t mean that the new administration can’t or shouldn’t pursue such a case. Indeed, I believe that Eric Holder, the incoming Attorney General, could send a very clear message to his subordinates (and the rest of us) by forcing Schlozman to defend in a criminal court his words and his deeds.
(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Either way you look at it, the scathing report released today by the Office of Inspector General represents a fitting close to an era at the Justice Department marked not just by bad actors in government but by a cynical management philosophy that torched and then tainted all those touched by it. There was simply too large a gulf between the intelligence and integrity of people like Schlozman, Kyle Sampson, and Monica Goodling and the power they were given by their political bosses and operatives in the White House. These inapt and inept officials were destined to ruin things and they did.
And now it is left to the Obama Administration to determine what ought to be done with these wretched ministers. Just because the current administration, now down to its final hours in office, inexplicably chose last week not to prosecute Schlozman for alleged perjury doesn’t mean that the new administration can’t or shouldn’t pursue such a case. Indeed, I believe that Eric Holder, the incoming Attorney General, could send a very clear message to his subordinates (and the rest of us) by forcing Schlozman to defend in a criminal court his words and his deeds.
Author Thomas Friedman on Obama's Afghanistan plan and the war on terror.
