Must Read: Justice official is said to have favored GOP loyalists

Yet another Bush Administration political appointee testifies before Congress tomorrow about the Justice Department replacing the “most experienced lawyers” in favor of “Republican loyalists who had a much different view of the laws they were sworn to uphold.” As the U.S. attorney scandal continues to widen, new revelations cause further investigation into discriminatory hiring by the Bush Administration.

Justice official is said to have favored GOP loyalists
By Richard B. Schmitt
LA Times

Below are excerpts of the LA Times piece. To view the entire story, click here"

“…Schlozman, a Bush administration political appointee, was also in the process of dismantling the ranks of career attorneys in the division, former employees contend. Some of the division's most experienced lawyers resigned or were involuntarily transferred, often in favor of Republican loyalists who had a much different view of the laws they were sworn to uphold, the former employees allege. “He viewed me as the enemy. He viewed most career attorneys as the enemy," said Joseph D. Rich, a former chief of the department's voting-rights section. Rich estimates that more than half of the 38 attorneys in the section eventually left. Two months before Schlozman's speech, Rich resigned from the department, citing run-ins with Schlozman and other Bush appointees. Rich had served for 36 years. On Tuesday, Schlozman is scheduled to testify on Capitol Hill in connection with the congressional investigation into the firings of U.S. attorneys last year.

“Democrats are investigating whether the prosecutors were fired for improper reasons. One line of inquiry is whether the administration targeted those who were not aggressively pursuing voting-rights cases that could have benefited Republicans in so-called battleground states…His testimony comes as investigators at Justice have expanded an internal investigation into the U.S. attorney scandal to include allegations of discriminatory hiring, including at the civil rights division.

“Last month, Monica M. Goodling, a former top aide to Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales, admitted in sworn testimony before Congress that she may have violated federal civil-service laws by considering the partisan political activities of applicants for career Justice Department positions. Schlozman, a former antitrust lawyer at a Washington law firm, joined the Justice Department in 2001 as a counsel to the deputy attorney general…Critics say his tenure is emblematic of how the administration turned civil rights enforcement on its head. The controversy reflects fundamentally different visions of the role of the federal government when it comes to voting. The Bush administration has focused on weeding out perceived fraud. Critics say that little fraud exists and that the crackdown has had the effect of discouraging voter participation.”