DOJ named "politically connected applicants" to immigration courts for years

Apparently political considerations went into Justice Department hires well before Monica Goodling did it.

The Justice Department considered political affiliation in screening applicants for immigration court judgeships for several years until hiring was frozen in December after objections from department lawyers, current and former officials said yesterday.

The disclosures mean that the Justice Department may have violated civil service laws, which prohibit political considerations in hiring, for as long as two years before the tenure of Monica M. Goodling, the former aide to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales who testified about the practice this week.

Goodling told the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that she "crossed the line" in considering political affiliation for several categories of career applicants at Justice, including immigration judges.

The attorney for D. Kyle Sampson, Gonzales's former chief of staff, said yesterday that Sampson and other officials also forwarded names of politically connected applicants for the immigration courts, based on legal advice that Sampson was given and on common historical practice in the department.

Here's how the LA Times puts it:

Over the last two years, U.S. Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales has appointed more than two dozen individuals as federal immigration judges.

The new jurists include a former treasurer of the Louisiana Republican Party, who was a legal advisor to the Bush Florida recount team after the 2000 presidential election. There is also a former GOP congressional aide who had tracked voter fraud issues for the Justice Department, and a Texan appointed by then-Gov. George W. Bush to a seat on the state library commission.

One thing missing on many of their resumes: a background in immigration law.

These lawyers are among a growing number of the nation's more than 200 immigration judges who have little or no experience in the law they were appointed to enforce

Know what boggles the mind?  The comprehensive planning that went into the corruption which Republicans governed. Congress and executive branch.  And let's not leave out the judiciary. Not any part of the judiciary. 

Anything that well planned is going to last for a long, long time.  Like those permanent bases in Iraq.