DOJ Report: Goodling, Sampson, Williams Violated Law And Justice Policy On Hiring
A scathing new report by the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Professional Responsibility and DOJ's Office of the Inspector General found that three former high-ranking Bush appointees at the Justice Department violated federal law and department policy by considering political affiliations when filing career positions at Justice.
The two offices focused on the activities of Monica Goodling, the former White House liaison at DOJ under ex-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, as well as Kyle Sampson, former chief of staff to ex-Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, and Jan Williams, Goodling's predecessor as White House liaison.
Goodling admitted during testimony before the House Judiciary Committee that her hiring decisions for some career positions at DOJ may have been influenced in part based on political consideration," including Assistant U.S. Attorneys, immigration judges and other senior career posts at Justice, but the OPR-OIG laid out in much greater detail what actually occurred.
"Our investigation found that Goodling improperly subjected candidates for certain career positions to the same politically based evaluation she used on candidates for political positions, in violation of
federal law and Department policy," the 140-page report states. "The evidence also showed that Goodling considered political or ideological affiliations when recommending and selecting candidates for other permanent career positions, including a career SES [Senior Executive Service] position in the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys (EOUSA) and AUSA [Assistant U.S. Attorney] positions. These actions violated federal law and Department policy, and also constituted misconduct."
The report added: "In addition, we determined that Goodling often used political or ideological affiliations to select or reject career attorney candidates for temporary details to Department offices, including positions in EOUSA that had not been filled by political appointees. Goodling’s use of political considerations in connection with these details was particularly damaging to the Department because it resulted in high-quality candidates for important details being rejected in favor of less-qualified candidates."
As for Williams and Sampson, the DOJ investigators also failed to believe their claims that they either did not look at political affiliation for career posts, or were told by other Justice officials that they could do so in filling some career spots.
"In sum, the evidence showed that Sampson, Williams, and Goodling violated federal law and Department policy, and Sampson and Goodling committed misconduct, by considering political and ideological affiliations in soliciting and selecting IJs, which are career positions protected by the civil service laws," the report concludes.
Since Goodling and Sampson resigtned from Justice in the wake of the U.S. Attorney firing scandal, the DOJ investigators did not recommend taking any legal action against them.
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