How Monica Goodling and Kyle Sampson Worked the System
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.
