By Jim Popkin, NBC News Senior Investigative Producer
Imagine you are first in your class at Georgetown Law School, had clerked for two federal judges and been the articles editor on a law journal. You’d think you had a pretty good chance at getting an entry-level job as a lawyer at the Justice Department, right?
Not so fast, big shot. The Georgetown Law graduate was turned down, along with a Harvard Law student who had graduated in the top 5 percent of his Harvard undergraduate class, and a Yale Law School standout who had clerked for a federal judge and graduated summa cum laude from Yale College.
Their perceived deficiencies? They were all rejected by the Bush Administration Justice Department because of some affiliation with liberal groups or Democratic Party causes, according to a stinging new report by the Justice Department’s Inspector General (IG) and the Office of Professional Responsibility.
The 115-page report examines the selection of candidates for the Attorney General’s Honors Program and the Summer Law Intern Program from 2002 to 2006. Allegations regarding politicization of the prestigious programs received widespread public attention a year ago after an anonymous group of Justice Department officials wrote a letter to Congress complaining about alleged hiring-practice abuses.
“Political affiliations were used”
Indeed, the IG investigation released Tuesday concludes that “political or ideological affiliations were used to deselect candidates from the Honors Program” and the summer intern program in many of the years reviewed. Members of the screening committee were asked to weed out "wackos" and ideological "extremists," the report found. Even one candidate’s belief that wolves should be re-introduced onto federal lands was noted in his review.
Esther McDonald
The report is particularly critical of a low-ranking Justice Department lawyer named Esther Slater McDonald, who abruptly resigned from the DOJ last year on the same day that investigators from the Inspector General’s office were scheduled to interview her. She turned down all subsequent interview requests.
The investigators report that McDonald was hired as a political appointee at the Justice Department just three years out of law school. She was assigned to work on the screening committee for the Honors Program and the internship pool, and promptly began doing computer searches on the candidates “for organizations to which candidates belonged,” the report states. In a Nov. 29, 2007 email, McDonald blackballed three candidates “based on her objections to the candidates’ ideological affiliations,” the IG writes. She wrote despairingly in the email of Greenpeace and another group which “increased affirmative action,” and described one applicant’s essay as “filled with leftist commentary and buzz words like ‘environmental justice’ and ‘social justice.’ " She also wrote: “Leftists usually refer to achieving ‘social justice’ or ‘making policy’ or anything else that involves legislating rather than enforcing.”
Under Justice Department regulations and civil service law, it is improper to consider politics or political affiliation when hiring for DOJ career positions, such as the Honors Program and the intern program.
McDonald works now as an attorney in private practice, at the Seyfarth Shaw law firm in Washington, DC. She would not comment on the IG report, when contacted by NBC News.
Michael Elston
The IG report also faults Michael Elston, who ran the Screening Committee and was the former Chief of Staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty. The IG writes that Elston acknowledged that his subordinate, Esther McDonald, was blacklisting candidates based on “membership in liberal organizations.” The report states: “Elston said he thought he recalled McDonald indicating it was a negative factor if a candidate had worked for a Democrat.”
Elston never reprimanded McDonald, he told the IG, and now wishes he had been “more proactive and more protective of the Department’s reputation.” He denied approving or deselecting candidates based on politics, however.
The IG concluded that McDonald “committed misconduct and violated Department policies and civil service law…” It adds: “We believe the most significant misconduct was committed by Elston, the head of the Screening Committee. Elston failed to take appropriate action when he learned that McDonald was routinely deselecting candidates on the basis of what she perceived to be the candidates’ liberal affiliations.”
Elston resigned from DOJ last year and works now as a partner at the McGuireWoods law firm in Washington. He did not respond to a call and an email requesting comment.
The study said problems were notable in 2002, under Attorney General John Ashcroft, and in 2006, under Alberto Gonzales, a longtime ally of Bush who resigned last year under pressure over charges the department improperly ousted U.S. attorneys for political reasons.
"The screening committees in 2002 and 2006 improperly deselected candidates for interviews based on political and ideological affiliations," the report said. It added that it did not find improper conduct in the years 2003 to 2005.
The report said the department has since dismantled the screening process established in 2002 and set new guidance on hiring criteria. Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who succeeded Gonzales, said "the consideration of political affiliations in the hiring of career department employees is impermissible and unacceptable." He said he had accepted recommendations in the report to further guard against improper hiring factors.
--With background from wire services
