Bush Justice Department sued for partisan hiring

The inspector general at the Justice Department has charged that rank partisan criteria tainted the hiring process for the attorney general's honors program and its summer internship program.

Brilliant applicants sponsored by careerists at the agency were turned down in John Ashcroft's Justice Department because they worked for Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign in 2004 or wrote an essay on the importance of legal diligence in the environmental movement or worked for a legal aid society.

Now, one of the applicants rejected for a position is suing for $100,000 in damages. Sean Gerlich has filed a class action suit. Gerlich says he was rejected because of his liberal affiliations, which officials dug up through Internet searches.

The DOJ report, issued June 24, found that hundreds of applicants were turned down in 2002 and 2006, after officials under Ashcroft put political appointees in charge of the process. Data analysis by the Office of Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility showed that those with liberal leanings were more than three times more likely to be rejected than their conservative counterparts in 2006.

Daniel Metcalfe, Gerlich's attorney and a Washington College of Law professor at American University, says his client was upset at being turned down in 2006 because he had received good marks during his previous stint as a Justice summer intern. In fact, Metcalfe says, his client was a law clerk to an unidentified chief in one of the department's 40 components.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo: Kamenko Pajic / Associated Press

Comments

[PNW Trojan]

If there was ever PROOF that Justice needs to be NON-politicized, the bush-cheney cabal of finger puppets, has confirmed our worst fears. Even the 9 Supreme Stooges represent freak factions that are a threat our Nation's well-being.