DOJ-Will Anyone Be Left to Turn the Lights Out?
Posted in: Justice Department, Legal, Tim Walberg
I know that many of you have expressed concern about the "Goodlingization" of DOJ and the lasting effect that her politically motivated hires into career positions at DOJ might have on the fairness and integrity of that agency going forward. We have had reports of some political appointees taking voluntary demotions in career positions as part of process known as "burrowing in".
Some have suggested an old Soviet era style political purge. I disagree.
First, I disagree because it is unfair to those people Goodling hired. She didn’t tell them she was passing over more qualified candidates in order to hire the ideologically pure (or the Regent Law School alum). The people thought they were qualified, or they would not have wasted their time applying in the first place. And, who knows? Maybe some of them turned out to be good at their jobs.
Firing someone based on faults in the hiring process, as long as the person hired was not knowingly gaming the system, seems just as much a threat to integrity as the faulty hiring process itself. Also, think about the devastating effect on morale.
Secondly, those individuals who may have come to push an extreme right wing agenda are going to self select out of DOJ once it goes back to its pre-Bushco culture. Believe me, long hours at not a huge salary where virtue is its own reward and where you cannot abuse your position to benefit your friends or injure your enemies is NOT going to be fun for the mendacious among them. They will be bolting for the doors.
Lastly, the disrepute into which DOJ has fallen during the Bush Administration, and especially since the revelations about Monica Goodling and Brad Schlozman’s hiring practices, have worn away some of the luster that the DOJ experience once gave to a young lawyer’s resume. Consequently, and perhaps related to chronic underfunding issues during the Bush administration, DOJ has been largely hollowed out.
When you take the already depleted ranks and add on the mass exodus expected between now and Inauguration Day, followed by the people who will find a newly reinvigorated culture of integrity WAYYYY too stultifying (as opposed to me who would find it bliss) and leaving when they find out they can no longer get away with the kind of shenanigans they were used to, whatever few Goodlingites remain will likely be too diluted in number and location to cause much damage.
No, with all the vacancies already in existence at DOJ and likely to occur in the near future, my bigger concern is that there may not be anyone left to turn out the lights.
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