D.C. Dispatch | May 22, 2007
Legal Affairs | by Stuart Taylor Jr.
Every day that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is allowed to remain in office is corrosive to constitutional governance and an invitation to further politicization of the Justice Department. ~snip~
That was three years ago. Since then principled professionals have been streaming out of the Justice Department and political hacks have been streaming in. Goldsmith left in the summer of 2004 for Harvard Law School. Gonzales succeeded Ashcroft (almost a civil libertarian by comparison) as attorney general in February 2005. Comey—derisively dubbed "Cuomo" by Bush—left in August 2005. Philbin left after the White House blocked a promotion. Others have also left. And now, with McNulty's departure, the No. 2 and No. 3 offices—as well as the OLC—will lack Senate-confirmed appointees. ~snip~
Daniel Metcalfe, a respected career lawyer who recently retired as head of the Office of Information and Privacy after more than 35 years at the Justice Department, described Gonzales's tenure in an interview last month with Tony Mauro of Legal Times: ~snip~
"It became quite clear that under Gonzales, the department placed no more than secondary value on the standards that I and my office had valued so heavily for the preceding 25 years—accuracy, integrity, responsibility, and quality of decision-making being chief among them....
strong tradition of independence over the previous 30 years was shattered in 2005 with the arrival of the White House counsel as a second-term AG. All sworn assurances to the contrary notwithstanding, it was as if the White House and Justice Department now were artificially tied at the hip ... as if the current crop of political appointees ... weren't even aware of the important administration-of-justice principles that they were trampling." ~snip~
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200705u/gonzales-constitution