US report critical of ex-Justice Dept. official
By DEVLIN BARRETT
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) – Investigators say a former top Justice Department official made false statements to Congress and violated U.S. law in overseeing the agency’s civil rights division.
The accusations are included in a new report by the department’s inspector general, Glenn Fine, on Bradley Schlozman, the former acting head of the civil rights division.
Tuesday’s report is the latest of several inquiries that found senior Justice Department officials violated civil service laws under the tenure of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
Gonzales has denied knowledge of the conduct by his deputies, but the series of reports paints a disturbing portrait of the top U.S. law enforcement agency being pulled in a sharply political direction during the Bush administration.
The Justice Department controversies – in particular the firing of nine U.S. attorneys – led to Gonzales’ resignation in 2007 amid charges that White House officials under President George W. Bush had influenced decisions at the normally independent Justice Department. Gonzales is a longtime Bush adviser and friend.
The report says Schlozman politicized and mistreated his staff and tried to punish agency employees he believed were too liberal. The report cited an e-mail in which he noted it had been a while since he’d had to “scream with a bloodcurdling cry at some commie.”
At other times, the report said, Schlozman urged the hiring of “real Americans,” by which he apparently meant conservatives, as opposed to liberals, whom he referred to as “libs” and “pinkos.”
Investigators referred the case to federal prosecutors lastspring, but they decided last week not to file charges against Schlozman.
The investigation, conducted with the agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility, found that Schlozberg did not tell the truth to Congress when he told Sen. Charles Schumer, a Democrat, in a June 2007 hearing that he did not consider political affiliations in hiring.
Citing the “troubling conduct” described in the report, Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr said the agency has since reformed its hiring practices. “We are confident that the institutional problems identified in today’s report no longer exist and will not recur,” Carr said.
Schlozman’s lawyer, William Jordan, denied the allegations, saying his client had passed a lie-detector test.
About This Post
