Congress considers broadening Justice Department inquiry(Voting Rights Jobs)

[RamboLiberal]

Source: McClatchy Newspapers

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.

Two former department lawyers told McClatchy Newspapers that Bradley Schlozman, a senior civil rights official, told them in early 2005, after spotting mention of their Republican affiliations on their job applications, to delete those references and resubmit their resumes. Both attorneys were hired.

One of them, Ty Clevenger, said: "He wanted to make it look like it was apolitical."

Schlozman did not respond to phone calls to his home Sunday. But he denied the allegations in an earlier phone interview with McClatchy Newspapers and through a department spokesman. In the interview he said he "tried to de-politicize the hiring process" and filled jobs with applicants from "across the political spectrum."



Read more: http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/columnists/greg_gordon/17188481.htm

[salin]

1. Schlozman,

bull in china shop.

[Heidi]

2. Kick.

:kick:

[Omaha Steve]

3. Congress Seeks More Testimony As It Expands Justice Department Inquiry

Source: Associated Press

Congress Seeks More Testimony As It Expands Justice Department Inquiry
05-07-2007 5:56 PM
By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (Associated Press) -- Congress sought cooperation from one Justice Department official and prepared to put the agency's former White House liaison under oath in a widening investigation into the politics of Justice Department decision-making.

The Senate Judiciary Committee asked Bradley Schlozman, a former senior civil rights attorney and U.S. attorney, to speak with investigators. The Justice Department, meanwhile, said it wouldn't try to prevent Congress from granting immunity to White House liaison Monica Goodling if she testifies before a committee.

Lawmakers want to talk to Schlozman and Goodling as part of an inquiry into whether the department played politics with the hiring and firing of department officials. The inquiry began as a question about whether U.S. attorneys _ presidential appointees who serve as the top federal law enforcement officials in their state districts _ were fired for political reasons.

It has grown, however, into an investigation of whether the agency let politics affect criminal investigations and whether officials made employment decisions for political reasons.

Read more: http://omaha.cox.net/cci/newsnational/national?_mode=view&_state=maximized&view=article&id=D8OVQU100&_action=validatearticle

[maddezmom]

4. Ouster of K.C. federal prosecutor probed

Ouster of K.C. federal prosecutor probed
ASSOCIATED PRESS
05/08/2007

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Lawmakers say they checking whether a U.S. attorney in Kansas City was forced out of his job because he refused to endorse a lawsuit alleging voter fraud in Missouri a year before last year's election.

The Senate Judiciary Committee asked Bradley Schlozman, a former senior civil rights attorney at the Justice Department, to speak with investigators about his decision to file the Missouri suit in November 2005.

Less than four months after the suit was filed, U.S. Attorney Todd Graves in Kansas City announced his resignation. Two weeks after Graves quit, Schlozman was named his replacement as interim U.S. attorney.

"We believe the Committee would benefit from hearing directly from you in order to gain a better understanding of the role voter fraud may have played in the administration's decisions to retain or remove certain U.S. Attorneys," Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., wrote to Schlozman in a letter co-signed by the committee's top Republican, Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

more:http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/missouristatenews/story/A702E92E77476C53862572D5003A12C3?OpenDocument