McClatchy's Greg Gordon and Margaret Talev are reporting this morning that
Congressional investigators are beginning to focus on accusations that a top civil rights official at the Justice Department illegally hired lawyers based on their political affiliations, especially for sensitive voting rights jobs. . . . .The story indicates that Claire McCaskill really wants to put Schlozman under oath.
A congressional aide, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that the House and Senate Judiciary Committees want to look beyond Goodling to see whether other department officials may have skewed recruiting and hiring to favor Republican applicants. Investigators have heard allegations that Schlozman showed a political bias in hiring and hope the department will permit him to be interviewed voluntarily, the aide said.
UPDATE: Paul Kiel at TPMMuckraker is reporting that since 2003 not a single black has been hired by the criminal section of Civil Rights Division. As a result there are only 2 black attorneys out of 50 in the criminal section.
As Richard Ugelow, the former deputy section chief of the employment section in the Civil Rights Division puts it, "We would sue employers for having numbers like that." Ugelow, you might have guessed, is one of the dozens of career lawyers who have left the division in the past six years.ABC's Washington D.C. affiliate WJLA-TV deserves credit for crunching the numbers. Kiel notes:
The Justice Department responded to WJLA-TV's story by saying that the Civil Rights Division as a whole is the most diverse office in the Department of Justice.I guess they just don't want black lawyers charging and trying white businessmen. That could be bad for Republican fundraising.
