Shorter Schloz and the IG
I’d like to point out something about TPMM’s story on the two complaints (and do read the complaints–they’re infuriating) submitted to DOJ’s IG on Brad Schlozman.
It’s unclear if the Department’s inspector general ever pursued theallegations from the December, 2005 letter at the time. But the officecertainly is now. In a letter to the judiciary committee chairmen lastmonth, Glenn Fine and Office of Professional Responsibility counselMarshall Jarrett announcedthat their joint probe into the U.S. attorney firings had been expandedto include hiring practices in the Civil Rights Division. Schlozman has been accused of recruiting Republicans for career spots and then asking them to scrub mentions of their GOP bona fides from their resumes.
As I pointed out yesterday, it’s unclear how enthusiastically the IG is pursuing the multiple incidents of politicization in DOJ’s midst. They are now investigating Gonzales’ apparent witness tampering. They are now investigating Schlozman’s blatant discrimination. But were they? Did they?
To the credit of the IG, it intervened when Gonzales attempted to pawn the whole self-investigation off onto the OPR. But how aggressively would it have pursued these issues without the intervention of Chuck Rosenberg? And how aggressively is it pursuing them now that Rosenberg is no longer acting Chief of Staff?
It’ll be instructive to learn what IG did in 2005 when they first received these complaints. Because it’ll either reassure us that IG can carry out such an investigation diligently, or it’ll provide the final proof (as if we needed it) that DOJ can’t investigate itself.
It has been two years since those complaints were made. That is a long time to have been investigating those claims and still have no answers. How can we find out if any of those women mentioned have been interviewed. That should a pretty good indicator as to how serious the IG took the accusations.
My money is on the latter of your two potential outcomes.
have the judiciary committees been remiss re: those they have called to testify? they seem to be hauling in reticent big fish when the aggrieved minnows might have relevant info: these women who complained, Donsanto (well, not so little), Goodling and Gonzo’s secretaries, for Pete’s sake…
mighty mouse — good question…looks like the Senate and the House both want answers to similar questions, too:
House Oversight Committee:
Hearing on Inspectors General: Independence and Accountability
Subcommittee on Government Management, Organization, and Procurement
Wednesday, June 20, 2007, 2:00 PM, in 2247 Rayburn House Office Building
===
Senate Judiciary Committee:
Hearing on “Civil Rights Division Oversightâ€
Thursday, June 21, 2007 at 2:00 p.m., Room 226, Senate Dirksen Office Building.
Senator Kennedy will preside.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Dirksen Senate Office Building Room 226
2:00 p.m.
Witness List
Panel I
Wan Kim,n Assistant Attorney General
Civil Rights Division, U. S. Department of Justice
Washington, DC
Panel II
Wade Henderson, President and CEO
Leadership Conference on Civil Rights
Washington, DC
Brian Landsberg, Professor
McGeorge School of Law, University of the Pacific
Sacramento, CA
Helen Norton, Visiting Assistant Professor
School of Law, University of Maryland
Baltimore, MD
===
With regards to the House Oversight hearing, I wonder if it specifically includes USDOJ OIG? There’s no linked content to the meeting notice yet at the House Oversight page…?
Oh. My. God. I just read those anonymous complaints. I want to barf. Just had an argument last night with a Democrat who told me there’s no need to worry about discrimination against women and gays.
What a naive fool.
And who knew that evil sounded like Alvin the Chipmunk?
Rayne, I hope you told that one off (politely?). Anyone who claims there’s no need to worry about discrimination has his, her or (possibly) its head in a very dark, tight, place. (There’s also age discrimination: good luck finding a job if you’re over 50 … or in some fields, over 30.)
What makes this particularly egregious is that Gov’t service traditioanlly has been one of the better career choices for women and minorities because of the anti-discrimination protections. These porky little white guys are secretly afraid of having to compete, just as Rove is afraid of a level electoral playing field.
Elston resigned. Any ideas on how that will fit into the mix?
The Rules committee is worried after this week’s hearing, too. With mid decenium gerrymanders appealed to DoJ voting rights section and ID card carrying voter laws preapproval at FEC, there is little choice for the plebian folks save at the ballot box, given more institutional channels likely filled by people who never caged a vote in their life, and only had the endemic DoJ forgetfulness syndrome when asked why the voter fraud detective outfits like American Center for Voting Rights’ website evanesced.
P J Evans — she was an old white lady so I didn’t bother. /snark.
But seriously — this person by reason of their aggregated social capital wouldn’t see discrimination. It doesn’t exist in their world because it is one of the few areas in which women business owners are the norm rather than the exception. Lucky for her she will never need to leave it. I suspect that Schlozman and others like him would argue that discrimination has run the other way, against â€good Americans†— male, white, Christian — but they’ll never have to worry if they won’t get waited on at a restaurant, never worry whether someone will ask them to make the coffee when they enter a board meeting, and so on. Their social capital will keep them blind to the realities of discrimination.
Have these people ever ’gathered?’
They seem like a team:
But aren’t all these internal DOJ investigations just a holding action until Bush departs?
Aren’t they hoping that the newbee administration won’t bother with the old transgressions? Or that Bush will issue pardons as he departs? Can he pardon for investigations? Didn’t the governor of KY pardon a bunch of associates who were investigated?
I really don’t understand your optimism. It’s been six years, there are no honest Men (since all the women have been fired) in the DOJ.
Man, Helium Head Alvin Schlozman was pretty short to start with, now you make him shorter? Brutal.
Found this article about a Bush appointment to a civil rights oversight post yesterday in MI; the m.o. resembles work Schlozman and von Spakovsky did for Bush-Rove-TheRepublicanParty.