Timing is everything: Conyers’, USDOJ’s reports may impact USAG nomination hearing

Kate Klonick, new team member covering the U.S. Department of Justice for our sister site, The Washington Independent, covered the release today of two key reports:

• • U.S. Department of Justice Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility report, entitled, “An Investigation of Allegations of Politicized Hiring and Other Improper Personnel Actions in the Civil Rights Division.”
• • House Committee on the Judiciary Majority Staff Report to Chairman John Conyers, Jr., “Reining in the Imperial Presidency: Lessons and Recommendations Relating to the Presidency of George W. Bush.”

Kate points out that the Inspector General’s report was released two days before the Senate convenes a hearing on President-elect Barack Obama’s nominee for U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder. The timing of the report places a premium on Holder’s ability to be apolitical, professional and competent as the nation’s top law enforcer.

The USDOJ-IG’s report, replete with colorful email content by former acting head of the USDOJ’s Civil Rights Division Brad Schlozman documenting an intent to illegally use politics as a hiring criteria, should be meaty enough on its own merits to encourage a thorough line of questioning about Holder’s positions on civil rights and law enforcement. But Michigan’s Rep. John Conyers provided massive emphasis with the House Judiciary report released today, an almost 500-page gut punch after the upper cut from the IG’s office.

In a press release Conyers said about the House Judiciary report:

“Even after scores of hearings, investigations, and reports, we still do not have answers to some of the most fundamental questions left in the wake of Bush’s Imperial Presidency,” Conyers said. Pointing to allegations of torture and inhumane treatment, extraordinary rendition, warrantless domestic surveillance, the Valerie Plame Wilson-leak, and the U.S. attorney scandal, Conyers continued, “Investigations are not a matter of payback or political revenge – it is our responsibility to examine what has occurred and to set an appropriate baseline of conduct for future administrations.”

Many of the allegations to which Conyers referred involved members of the USDOJ — a memo regarding the legality of torture, for example, was prepared by Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo at the request of then White House counsel Alberto Gonzales — yet failed to result in either the assignment of a special prosecutor by the USDOJ, or in criminal charges. Certainly a number of these allegations will be discussed during Holder’s nomination hearing, during which Holder will likely be asked if he will launch, continue or terminate any investigations into these allegations.

Keep watching Kate for more on the Holder hearing and the fallout from these two powerful reports.