We gave yesterday’s internal report on how politics influenced hiring at the Justice Department our full attention, and darned if it didn’t give us a little love back.
On Page 125 (of 140), investigators recall a March 2007 e-mail sent by Legal Times to the Justice Department, requesting a response to allegations that politics had seeped into the selection of candidates for detail positions in the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys. (Click here for the resulting story.)
When John Nowacki, the deputy director of that office, got wind of the e-mail, he forwarded it to the acting director at the time, Steven Parent.
“Steve -- Let’s talk about this tomorrow. It’s crap,” wrote Nowacki, who graduated from Regent University Law School, same as Monica Goodling, and rose through the DOJ ranks with her help.
Er, really? Crap?
The report documents several instances in which Goodling, who had been the atorney general's White House liaison, let politics influence her detail decisions -- as when she snubbed a veteran anti-terrorism prosecutor whose wife was active in Democratic politics.
And though Nowacki was aware of Goodling’s habits -- as he would later admit -- he drafted this response to our question: “The process to select candidates has nothing to do with party affiliation.”
He never sent us the statement, but he still maintains it was accurate, the report says. His logic? Goodling had already resigned; the statement used the present tense. The report still concludes Nowacki’s actions were “improper and constituted misconduct.”
This is even more exciting than that time Legal Times had a cameo in Michael Clayton.
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