Joseph Rich: DOJ Appointees Clearly "Intended To Influence Outcome Of Elections"

Joseph Rich: DOJ Appointees Clearly "Intended To Influence Outcome Of Elections"
by Hunter | Thu Mar 29, 2007 at 06:14:50 PM PDT

Did the Bush administration politicize the administration of justice in order to manipulate elections, depress minority turnout, and demand "voting fraud" prosecutions of Democrats?

Joseph Rich, the former head of the Voting Section of the DOJ's Civil Rights Division, says yep. Absolutely:

I spent more than 35 years in the department enforcing federal civil rights laws — particularly voting rights. Before leaving in 2005, I worked for attorneys general with dramatically different political philosophies — from John Mitchell to Ed Meese to Janet Reno. Regardless of the administration, the political appointees had respect for the experience and judgment of longtime civil servants.

Under the Bush administration, however, all that changed. Over the last six years, this Justice Department has ignored the advice of its staff and skewed aspects of law enforcement in ways that clearly were intended to influence the outcome of elections.

Go, read. I find it especially interesting that Rich reports what a wide array of individuals in other governmental agencies have also reported, which were (1) demands from administration appointees that he change his performance evaluations to "include critical comments about those whose recommendations ran counter to the political will of the administration and to improve evaluations of those who were politically favored", and (2) an exodus of solid, high-level career employees from the agency.

In other words, loyalty to party trumped actual competence... and many of the competent people then either left or were forced out. ...