Democrats Need Not Apply

By Scott Horton

The Politico gives us yet another study of the politicization of the Department of Justice. Sometime back, I had lunch with one of my old law professors, who recounted with some pride how his daughter had gotten a position at the Department of Justice through the honors program. She had gotten a degree from a top-ten law school with a relatively conservative reputation and had done her undergraduate degree at a highly prestigious New England college. But, it turned out in subsequent conversation, those who hired her had mistaken her undergraduate school for a similarly named institution with a religious-conservative twist. And the others hired in the program had backgrounds like Monica Goodling’s – bible colleges and universities affiliated with the Religious Right. Scholastic aptitude and experience was irrelevant – political fidelity was all-important. Indeed, where there was a hint of Democratic politics, the candidate could not even get to the interview stage. The Politico’s story suggests that this account indeed accurately described current hiring practices at the DOJ, and they might be summed up this way – “Democrats need not apply; proof of Republican party membership alone is not enough.” And it seems that the partisan gatekeeper for this operation is Paul J. McNulty:

a number of divisions' requests to interview certain applicants were turned down, and the career employees started to wonder why. They were told that the interview approval now must be made by the office of Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, and "when the list of potential interviewees was returned this year, it was cut dramatically."

These career employees got a meeting with Michael Elston, McNulty's chief of staff and a central figure in the prosecutor purge. This meeting took place on Dec. 5, and it didn't go well. According to the career employees' letter, obtained by The Crypt, Elston "was offensive to the point of (being) insulting."

Elston has since taken a personal leave from the Justice Department.

"Claiming that the entire group had not 'done their jobs' in reviewing applicants, (Elston) said that he had a 'screening panel' to go over the list and research these candidates on the Internet; he refused to give the names of those on his 'panel,'" the career employees wrote. "Mr. (Elston) said that people were struck from the list for three reasons: grades, spelling errors on applications and inappropriate information about them on the Internet."

So, in their own words, the career employees did some checking of their own. They reportedly detected a "common denominator" for "most of those" struck from the interview list: They had "interned for a Hill Democrat, clerked for a Democratic judge, worked for a 'liberal cause' or otherwise appeared to have 'liberal' leanings. Summa cum laude graduates at both Yale and Harvard were rejected for interviews."