Audit: DOJ Played Politics, Broke Law in Hiring

The investigation did not find major issues or concerns about the deselection process from 2003-2005, but focuses on the actions of the selection committee in 2006 when Gonzales was the attorney general. The 2006 screening committee was chaired by Elston and Esther Slater McDonald, a political appointee who served as counsel to the associate attorney general. McDonald was a graduate of Pensacola Christian College and attended Notre Dame Law School.

The report also mentions Daniel Fridman, a career Justice official and assistant U.S. attorney from the Southern District of Florida, on detail to the deputy attorney general's office.

The report notes that Fridman expressed reservations about the selection process. "Fridman told us that, after his conversation with Elston, he was concerned and uncertain about what he was supposed to do. He did not understand what Elston meant by 'wackos' or 'wack jobs,' or how he was supposed to identify a candidate who fell within Elston's definition of those terms.

"Fridman said he had 'serious questions' about whether such a review was even appropriate."

Seeking clarification according to the report, "Fridman said Elston told him that, when he asked Fridman to weed out 'wackos and wack jobs, he meant he wanted us to weed out extremists on either side of the ideological spectrum.'"

The report found that the number of honors program candidates and summer interns deselected was so significant that component heads in Justice Department divisions became concerned about the process, noting that "several component hiring officials said that the large number of apparently high quality SLIP [Summer Law Intern Program] candidates who were deselected, led them, in the absence of any explanation, from the screening committee, to suspect that political or ideological affiliations played a role."

"The department's screening committee inappropriately used political factors when considering the hiring of career attorneys, when merit should have been the sole criteria. These actions undermined confidence in the integrity of department's hiring processes," Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine said in a statement Tuesday.