The Monica Mess

For a woman who wreaked her share of havoc at the Justice Department, Monica Goodling has a sweet face, a small voice and the demeanor of an eager-to-please college student.

Despite her earnestness, Goodling admitted that she took into account the political views and background of lawyers applying for DOJ jobs -- which, she said with well-coached regularity, she certainly regretted.

This 33-year-old woman who had previously worked at the RNC was the senior counsel to Alberto Gonzales. She had a strong role in deciding who got hired, fired, promoted or passed over. When she deemed attorneys not suitable, they were said to have a "Monica problem." And she shared her views with the White House.

"Normally if I found out something negative about something, we wouldn't hire them," Goodling told the House Judiciary Committee.

What did negative mean? Just yesterday, The Post reported that she tried to block the U.S. attorney's office here from hiring an EPA lawyer and Howard University law graduate as "too liberal." She regretted that too, Goodling testified.

Sometimes, she said, she "crossed the line." Sometimes she checked on political contributions. She couldn't recall whether she did this with U.S. attorneys. Was it illegal? Goodling offered no opinion, but, of course, she had refused to testify without immunity.

As an old Justice Department reporter, I find this sort of thing more disturbing in a way that the uproar over the fired U.S. attorneys. They are political appointees who can be dismissed by the president for any reason; the administration's problem was in insisting they were ousted for performance reasons when in most instances that was not the case.

But to be making decisions about career prosecutors based on political affiliations strikes at the heart of a nonpartisan law-enforcement system. At that level, there should be no Republican or Democratic hires, and if someone like Goodling inquired about who an applicant voted for in the past, that amounts to putting a thumb on the scales of justice.

At the hearing, the Democrats pressed her for specifics, while many of the Republicans made speeches praising her and said it was no big deal if government appointments involved politics. Some of them seemed unaware of the existence of civil service rules.

N.Y. Times: "A former top Justice Department aide testified on Wednesday that she had 'crossed the line' in considering the political beliefs of applicants for nonpartisan legal jobs and suggested that earlier testimony by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and another top official about the dismissals of federal prosecutors may have been flawed.

"Monica M. Goodling, the former Justice official, told a House panel that she regretted favoring applicants with Republican credentials for lower level prosecutor jobs or prestigious postings at Justice headquarters, actions that could violate federal employment laws.

" 'I may have gone too far in asking political questions of applicants for career positions and I may have taken inappropriate political considerations into account,' Ms. Goodling said. 'And I regret those mistakes.' "