Goodling Admits Her Partisan Hirings Were ‘Illegal’

In her opening statement to the House Judiciary Committee today, Monica Goodling — the Justice Department’s former White House Liason — admitted that she had “taken inappropriate political considerations into account” while hiring career employees at the Department...

My comments:

1. Political appointees are generally picked because of party affiliation. USAs are political. They have 4 year terms, like Bush. It's okay for him to pick only Republicans for political jobs, though not very smart.

2. Once in office, all political appointees, especially ones in the DOJ, are supposed to enforce the law, do their jobs, in a non-partisan manner. The EPA can be directed by Bush. They can't be told to enforce laws against Democrat-leaning companies and not against Republican ones, for example.

3. Bush can fire USAs at will. However, it is usually done only at the change of administration. If he does fire mid-term, he'd better have a good reason. And one clearly illegal reason to fire is to influence (start or stop) on-going investigations.

4. Civil service employees should never even be hired based on political views, and most definitely should not feel political influence as to how to do their job, and should absolutely never be fired for political reasons, because that equals influence for everyone else.