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Mark · Site Admin Joined: 13 Nov 2007 Posts: 1052

Justice Officials Repeatedly Broke Law on Hiring, Report Says

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-...e/2008/07/28/AR2008072801007.html

Excerpt:

Goodling passed over hundreds of qualified applicants and squashed the promotions of others after deeming candidates insufficiently loyal to the Republican party, said investigators, who interviewed 85 people and received information from 300 other job seekers at Justice. Sampson developed a system to screen immigration judge candidates based on improper political considerations and routinely took recommendations from the White House Office of Political Affairs and Presidential Personnel, the report said.

Goodling regularly asked candidates for career jobs: "What is it about George W. Bush that makes you want to serve him?" the report said. One former Justice Department official told investigators she had complained that Goodling was asking interviewees for their views on abortion, according to the report.

(Actually this is nothing new. Civil Service hiring has been discriminatory for decades, but it wasn't as blatant until recently. Normally the tests were graded by people who would downgrade or eliminate those they didn't want and upgrade those they did. In order to get hired for a civil service position with most federal agencies in the U.S., an applicant usually had be be married or related to somebody already employed there or at least a member of the same fundamentalist Christian church. --Mark)