How Monica Goodling and Kyle Sampson Worked the System

Attorney General

How Monica Goodling and Kyle Sampson Worked the System

Posted Aug 5, 2008, 01:04 pm CDT
By Debra Cassens Weiss

Monica Goodling and Kyle Sampson were able to inject politics in Justice Department hiring decisions partly because they rewrote the rules governing the process, a recent report reveals.

In January 2006, Goodling had been a staff counsel for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales for only three months when she set out to change the rules. She suggested an internal order that would strip hiring authority from the deputy attorney general and move it to the attorney general’s White House liaison and chief of staff.

Goodling became that liaison only weeks later. Legal Times examines how she worked the system in a story based on a close reading of a report by the by the Office of Professional Responsibility and the Office of Inspector General. The report largely blames Goodling and chief of staff Kyle Sampson for making political hiring decisions for some assistant U.S. attorneys, career officials and immigration judges.

Sampson also changed the hiring rules, moving hiring decisions for immigration judges away from the Executive Office of Immigration Review, the Legal Times story says. Instead, he did the hiring along with Goodling and another aide, often without interviewing the applicants.

The report shows that Sampson and Goodling were able to manipulate the system because of senior Justice Department officials who helped them or didn’t object to their changes, according to the publication's analysis.

Comments

Report Abuse

Posted by Robert Hart - 4 weeks, 2 days, 8 hours, 14 minutes ago

It’s hard to imagine an administration more disdainful of the rule of law than the Bush administration has been in almost every area of governmental policy and administration.
Posted by J.D. - 4 weeks, 2 days, 7 hours, 24 minutes ago

Eh, they’re all corrupt. The leftist media just does a better job at pointing out republican corruption.
Posted by Tom Zaremba - 4 weeks, 2 days, 7 hours, 10 minutes ago

The idea that “they’re all corrupt, so it doesn’t matter”, is historically incorrect and betrays a mindset that the politics justifies both the means and the ends. The rule of law is very fragile, and lots of people have sacrificed and even died for the right to create it and then to preserve it. While there have been regular incidents when Administrations have violated it, they have been relatively few and recognized as aberrations. This Administration seems to have set out to throw the rule of law into the trash and replace it with rule by the well-financed and politically connected.
Posted by Paul - 4 weeks, 1 day, 12 hours, 16 minutes ago

This adminstration is premised on the idea that the sovereign can do no wrong. Every policy has had as part of its motivation or execution an expansion of presidential powers without regard for the balance of powers or the US Constitution. From dirty tricks to corruption and manipulation at DOJ, this administration has sought to vindicate the legacy of Richard Nixon’s presidency.
Posted by Carl Ian Schwartz - 3 weeks, 6 days, 18 hours, 56 minutes ago

Sadly, all that people learn in this country about Hitler and Stalin are the Holocaust and the purges/gulags. I remember reading a fairly long book about the Nazi judiciary--and Monica Goodling and Kyle Sampson seemed to be copying its modus operandi, making the Justice Department an oxymoron.

I hope that THIS Monica’s bad reputation has longer legs than Levinsky’s--her deeds have far, far more negative impact on our society.

If our Justice Department doesn’t reform itself back to the status quo ante, our nation will go the way of Germany in 1945. We have become our past enemy, led by people with a lust for power and empowered by a voters who know more about celebrities than history--not to mention a Congress easily controlled by partisan politics and fear.
Posted by Dr Zoom - 3 weeks, 6 days, 17 hours, 30 minutes ago

All Goodling and Sampson’s fault, huh? I don’t suppose the perception that they had the support of Gonzo or “others” could have played a role - or that this report could be a subtle effort to establish a record that controls the damage to the reputations of Gonzo or any “others.” Nah - our righteous government would never do something like that ...
Posted by Chris - 3 weeks, 6 days, 13 hours, 59 minutes ago

I agree with the good Doctor’s point- no way can a couple of (originally) low-level employees with little experience or time at the DOJ reorganize the hiring process by themselves. They had support- even orders- to do this. Period.
Posted by Pete Wanger - 3 weeks, 6 days, 13 hours, 59 minutes ago

Goodling and Sampson could not have accomplished this without the attorney general and vice president and the president. It was all part of Bush’s attempt to politicize the Justice Department, an idea which I’m sure came his vice president.
Posted by Randy - 3 weeks, 6 days, 13 hours, 18 minutes ago

George Bush purportedly admires Harry Truman. However, Bush has not yet discovered that the “Buck” stops at the president’s desk, even for policies of his vice president.
Posted by john - 3 weeks, 6 days, 11 hours, 30 minutes ago

All of these mother effers need to be disbarred, tried, and heck, even tarred and feathered. Can we also revoke Bush’s MBA that his daddy bought? It obviously was not put to any use during his presidency, or any of his previous career ventures. Freaking idiot.
Posted by dan - 3 weeks, 6 days, 11 hours, 13 minutes ago

I don’t think a media corps that has played into the administration’s hand at every turn can be said to be “leftist.” Even Scott McClelland has publically recognized that the media has been asleep at the wheel. The DOJ scandal was unearthed and publicized by a blogger, and only after congress got involved was it a media story. The myth of the liberal media is perpetuated by Fox News, and the malfeasance in the DOJ is of unprecedented proportion. It’s time we knew more about how the wool’s been pulled over our eyes.
Posted by jessica - 3 weeks, 6 days, 9 hours, 3 minutes ago

I doubt that Goodling and Sampson would have seen themselves as commissars, but that’s exactly what they were in thought and deed. As zealots, it’s unlikely they ever thought of the good of the country - only and forever the good of the Party. The end of the Bush putsch can’t come too soon, and I only hope it doesn’t come too late.
Posted by Paul - 3 weeks, 6 days, 5 hours, 57 minutes ago

From her 1997 resume: “I’d have to say this: I want to leave the world a better place than I found it.”
Well, she is starting from a deep hole. The nazi politicos and communist commisars also convinced themselves they were building a better world. No doubt, the Bush disciples also think that their only misstep was getting caught. Not to worry, though, because they will land in clover. Some conservative thunk tank will give them an office and a phone. Or KBR will have them draft appeals of denied invoices for Iraq work.
Posted by Edmond J. O'Neill - 3 weeks, 6 days, 3 hours, 34 minutes ago

1/20/09 12 noon the end of an error
Posted by Where were the rest of us? - 3 weeks, 5 days, 15 hours, 23 minutes ago

DOJ was at the absolute center of Bush-style totalitarianism, spinning the ideas, the regs, the “signing statements” that gave a legal basis for the President to negate the Legislature. And give a legal basis to withdrawal of ordinary civil rights—legal basis for torture; legal basis for spying on citizens. Is there a memo out there that gives a legal basis for fabricating evidence of wmd’s? I bet there is. These wo/men are not Jack Bauer; they want a memo absolving them before they do what they know is wrong. I too read a book about Nazi co-optation of German civilians (The Seduction of HItler) and scared myself badly. Like a cancer, the sick cells take the place of the healthy cells and no one says anything as the mis-shapen thing tries to walk around and act like a wo/man.

DOJ needs to come clean, and the rest of us who did not protest at the time need to explain why, at least to ourselves. We got sucked a long way down the drain on this one.

And why is there still no Vietnam-style news coverage of our little adventures in Mesopotamia?

Commenting has expired on this post.

ABA Journal - Law News Now

Attorney General