Report Raps Bradley Schlozman, Former Justice Department Official, for Political Bias

Investigation of Gonzales-Era Justice Department

The report is the latest in a series of investigations critical of the department's hiring and firing processes under former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Gonzales left the department under a cloud in September 2007, after months of criticism from Capitol Hill.

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Lawmakers from both political parties charged that the department singled out and fired at least nine U.S. attorneys in 2006 based on political considerations.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said that he was not only "particularly disturbed" about the allegations that Schlozman lied to his panel, but that the report "confirms some of our worst fears about the Bush administration's political corruption of the Justice Department."

Leahy has been a vocal critic of the department's activities under Gonzales, and noted that the report "is just one of the final chapters in the regrettable legacy of the Bush administration at Main Justice."

Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr released a statement on the report, noting that the department's mission "is the evenhanded application of the Constitution and the laws enacted under it." In the statement, he criticized Schlozman, saying he "deviated from that strict standard."

Carr added that the department "agrees with the recommendations outlined in the report" and has already taken steps to remedy the issues. "As a result of these reforms ? we are confident that the institutional problems identified in today's report no longer exist and will not recur," he concluded.