• • 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.

Cerberus Capital Management LP, the current owner of Chrysler LLC, lent Rattner’s Quadrangle $125 million as part of the financing for the buyout of Maxim magazine and music publication Blender. As both titles limp through the drop in advertising revenue, Cerberus wants more capital invested to cover the debt levels, a request that Quadrangle has balked at. The two remain at loggerheads over the issue with Cerberus claiming the loans are technically in default.

Seems like Rattner should have recognized a possible conflict of interest and asked the Obama team not to publicize his potential candidacy for “car czar” until this mess was rectified.

Or was this a hint by some unnamed sources to get the situation resolved in a hurry?  One wonders, after all, if Rattner was such a solid pick why unnamed sources were cited.

But then one might well wonder why a Democratic donor with no experience in the auto industry would be identified as “car czar.”

In his opening comments to his colleagues, Conyers wrote,

I join in opposition with respected Noble (sic) Peace Prize award wining economist Paul Krugman, who has very serious concerns with having Dr. Gupta be the nation’s Surgeon General. (See January 6, 2009, New York Times Hosted Blog, ‘Conscience of a Liberal.’ Available at http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/06/the-trouble-with-sanjay-gupta.)

in addition to his concerns about Gupta’s experience. Krugman’s beef with Gupta stems from a “fact-checking” rebuttal that CNN ran contesting filmmaker Michael Moore’s critique of America’s health care system in his movie, SiCKO. Gupta used inaccurate information believed to be prepared by CNN to question the validity of Moore’s work; the errors in CNN’s work were not fully retracted and corrected, with Gupta apologizing only for a portion of the inaccuracies.

Conyers’ perspective of this particular situation may be shaped by his standing as a member of the legal profession; as highly educated professionals operating under ethics guidelines regulated as part of their licensure, lawyers and doctors are generally held to a higher standard of care when making accusations regarding other professionals’ work product.

In both his personal blog and at progressive community blog site DailyKos, Conyers asked readers this weekend for their opinion about Gupta’s nomination.  The representative also mentioned in his blog posts Gupta’s acceptance of speaking fees in contravention to journalistic practices as an additional concern about Gupta’s integrity.

Gupta’s nomination could be reviewed by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions as early as Wednesday this week if his nomination is cleared to proceed by President-elect Barack Obama and his transition team.

Michigan Messenger will have more reporting related to this nomination.