The firing of the US District attorneys has focused more attention on hiring practices across the justice department, and everything comes back to Monica Goodling, the 31 year old graduate of a law school founded by a televangelist that considers their main textbook to be the bible. She became the person in charge of hiring and firing in the justice deparment and she took it on to herself to make sure that only good republicans worked for the government. It didn’t matter if the position were political appointments or normal civil servant jobs. Intollerant of those who didn’t hold her views, she also took it upon herself to remove people she suspected were democrats. I’m delighted that she didn’t take the deal. I think she should serve jail time, along with Rove, Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush.
Colleagues Cite Partisan Focus by Justice Official (nytimes)
Ms. Goodling would soon be quizzing applicants for civil service jobs at Justice Department headquarters with questions that several United States attorneys said were inappropriate, like who was their favorite president and Supreme Court justice. One department official said an applicant was even asked, “Have you ever cheated on your wife?â€
Ms. Goodling also moved to block the hiring of prosecutors with résumés that suggested they might be Democrats, even though they were seeking posts that were supposed to be nonpartisan, two department officials said.
And she helped maintain lists of all the United States attorneys that graded their loyalty to the Bush administration, including work on past political campaigns, and noted if they were members of the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group.