Wednesday, April 2, 2008

DoJ Investigators Probing Whether Goodling Fired Lawyer Due to Gay Rumors

By Paul Kiel - April 2, 2008, 1:36PM
The Department of Justice's inspector general continues to conduct its wide-ranging investigation of the U.S. attorney firings and the general politicization of
the Department under Alberto Gonzales. And as we
reported back in August of last year, one area of focus by investigators is allegedly political hiring practices by Monica Goodling. The inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility sent out a questionnaire to anyone who had interviewed for a job at the DoJ during Gonzo's tenure. One thing investigators wanted to know about was whether the interviewer had asked about the applicant's sexual orientation.

NPR today provides some more evidence that Goodling and her associates might have decided that being gay was a disqualifier. Leslie Hagen was the liaison between the Justice Department and the U.S. attorneys' committee on Native American issues until her contract was suddenly discontinued in October of 2006.
No one seems to dispute that Hagen was extremely capable. The Department's job evaluation reflected that her performance had been "outstanding." And yet she was fired. Sound familiar?

The difference now is that Gonzales, Goodling, and the others aren't still at DoJ to explain what the "performance related" reasons for Hagen's firing were.
Read more at Talking Points Memo:

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