Justice Department Report on Hiring Finds Violations

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 11:35 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A new Justice Department report concludes that politics illegally influenced the hiring of career prosecutors and immigration judges, and largely lays the blame on top aides to former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Monday's report singles out the department's former White House liaison, Monica Goodling, for violating federal law and Justice Department policy by discriminating against job applicants who weren't Republican or conservative loyalists.

''Goodling improperly subjected candidates for certain career positions to the same politically based evaluation she used on candidates for political positions,'' the report concludes.

In one instance, Justice investigators found, Goodling objected to hiring an assistant prosecutor in Washington because ''judging from his resume, he appeared to be a liberal Democrat.''

In another, she rejected an experienced terror prosecutor to work on counterterror issues at a Justice Department headquarters office ''because of his wife's political affiliations,'' the report found.

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