Bush’s Politics-First Justice Department Has a New Poster Boy

An internal investigation has found that Bradley Schlozman, a former high-ranking Justice Department official, hired and promoted conservative “right-thinking Americans” while making it clear that “adherents of Mao’s little red book need not apply” to work in his wing of the Justice Department. He also transferred an employee for allegedly using “ebonics.”

That’s just the sort of man you want running the civil rights division. Or not.

Schlozman apparently lied to Congress about his shenanigans, but the U.S. attorney isn’t going to prosecute. At this point, it would just be weird if a Bush administration official was held accountable for doing something wrong.

Washington Post:

The department’s inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility concluded that Bradley J. Schlozman violated civil service laws and made false statements about his activities to Congress in 2007, but federal prosecutors in the District declined to pursue a criminal perjury case against him.

Over three years in which he controlled employment decisions, Schlozman favored young conservatives for entry-level jobs, transferred those he called “right-thinking Americans” into top assignments and instructed colleagues that “adherents of Mao’s little red book need not apply,” according to e-mails cited in the report. Authorities analyzed 112 career hires during Schlozman’s tenure and determined that “virtually all” of the lawyers whose political affiliations were known at the time had ties to Republicans or conservative legal groups.

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