Justice Department

An estimated 5,000 lynchings took place during the Jim Crow and Civil Rights eras. Most went unsolved, but some of the people responsible for those and other horrific race murders are still alive. There is still time to hold them accountable. That's the idea behind the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, which recently passed the U.S. House of Representatives on a 422 to 2 vote but has since stalled in the Senate. The bill would create a "cold case" squad in the Justice Department to pursue unsolved civil rights murders.

"Even my worst days as attorney general have been better than my father's best days." One doesn't want to begrudge Alberto R. Gonzales a brief, self-indulgent moment of mawkishness as he ignominiously departs the public stage. But one of his main problems was that mawkish self-indulgence was often his defining contribution to the public debate. To the bitter end, Mr. Gonzales remained the most self-involved attorney general in modern memory. (Full disclosure: My wife worked for him and his predecessor.

WASHINGTON -- Presidential adviser Karl Rove and at least one other member of the White House political team were urged by the New Mexico Republican Party chairman to fire the state's U.S. attorney because of dissatisfaction in part with his failure to indict Democrats in a voter fraud investigation in the battleground election state. In an interview yesterday with McClatchy Newspapers, Allen Weh, the party chairman, said he complained in 2005 about then-U.S. Attorney David Iglesias to a White House liaison who worked for Rove and asked that he be removed.

WASHINGTON -- Former Justice Department official Monica Goodling acknowledged yesterday that she "crossed a line" and took political factors into consideration when screening applicants for entry-level civil service legal jobs, but she denied playing a role in singling out U.S. attorneys for dismissal. Testifying under a grant of immunity, Goodling told the House Judiciary Committee that she considered political leanings when interviewing would-be federal prosecutors, who are supposed to be hired without regard for political outlook.

Maryland and the U.S. Department of Justice have reached a settlement agreement to improve conditions at the troubled Baltimore City Juvenile Justice Center, the state's juvenile services secretary said yesterday. Secretary Donald W. DeVore said that the one-year pact, signed by Gov. Martin O'Malley last week, helps the state avoid a federal lawsuit. The U.S. Department of Justice sharply criticized the center's management and staffing in a recent review. "This avoids any litigation and is a good-faith commitment on the part of the state and on the part of DOJ that, with the right leadership, we can get these things done," DeVore said in a phone interview.

WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department has broadened an internal probe examining whether aides to Attorney General Albert R. Gonzales improperly took into account political considerations in hiring department employees, officials familiar with the investigation said yesterday. The expanded probe, by the department's Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility, follows testimony Wednesday by former Gonzales aide Monica Goodling. She told a House committee that she considered party affiliation in screening applicants to become immigration judges.

WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department's inspector general acknowledged yesterday that he was examining whether outgoing Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales made false or misleading statements to Congress about the National Security Agency's terrorist surveillance program, the fired U.S. attorneys affair and other subjects. Responding to a congressional query, Inspector General Glenn A. Fine said that his office was investigating Gonzales' conduct as part of several ongoing probes into the activities of department lawyers on Gonzales' watch.

WASHINGTON -- A top Democrat predicted yesterday that Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales would be forced from his job within a week for the Justice Department's mishandling of the firing of eight U.S. attorneys. Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York also proposed a shortlist of three Republican replacements that he said could win Senate confirmation. "The White House has a real chance to clear the air, to restore faith that the rule of law will come first and politics second in the Justice Department, not the other way around," Schumer, who is leading the Senate's inquiry into the firings, said on NBC's Meet the Press.

WASHINGTON -- In recent years, the Bush administration has recast the federal government's role in civil rights by aggressively pursuing religion-oriented cases while significantly diminishing its involvement in the traditional area of race. Paralleling concerns of many conservative groups, the Justice Department has argued successfully in a number of cases that government agencies, employers or private organizations have improperly suppressed religious expression in situations that the Constitution's drafters did not mean to restrict.

ATLANTA -- It's easy to smear a reputation, and hard to restore it. The U.S. Department of Justice has a long way to go before it can overcome the lapdog legacy of Alberto R. Gonzales. Even if President Bush overcomes his tendency to appoint yes-men (and women) and finds an attorney general with a sterling reputation, it will be years before the department restores morale and regains public confidence. While other government agencies may be blatantly politicized without corroding public trust, the Justice Department is different.

Just as the Baltimore Fire Department failed Racheal M. Wilson in life, now it has failed her in death. A dispute between the city and the U.S. Justice Department over little more than paperwork could cause her two children to be denied the nearly $300,000 death benefit they are due. For those who may already have forgotten about Ms. Wilson (as perhaps city officials have), she was the recruit who died in a training exercise performed in a burning rowhouse two years ago. Overcome by the heat and smoke, she couldn't climb out of a window to escape.

Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski asked Attorney General Eric Holder on Thursday to assist the family of a Baltimore fire cadet killed in a training exercise whose death benefit claim was rejected by the Department of Justice. Writing to Holder a day after The Baltimore Sun reported that a nearly $300,000 claim on behalf of the two children of Racheal M. Wilson was denied because of missing information, Mikulski said that city fire officials did not receive "substantive responses" when they asked the Justice Department for additional information needed for the benefits to be awarded.

Seeking to restore a vital source of funding, Baltimore submitted documents Friday to Department of Justice officials who have frozen some of the city's stimulus money because of poor recordkeeping a decade ago. Sheryl Goldstein, director of the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice, said she believes the city's response will be enough to take Baltimore off the Justice Department's "high-risk" list - clearing the way for as much as $8.2 million that can...

The Justice Department is threatening to withhold up to $8.2 million in stimulus money from Baltimore because of poor record-keeping for federal grants the city received a decade ago. Until the city can account fully for how those federal funds were spent, it could be blocked from receiving money that Mayor Sheila Dixon is counting on to hire police and pay for other crime-fighting measures. The Justice Department notified Dixon in a recent letter that the city is considered "high risk" and may not draw more Justice Department money until submitting documents on grants received in 1996, 1998 and 2000.

Attorney General Eric Holder will have his hands full cleaning up the mess at the Department of Justice. The department drew a steady stream of criticism during the Bush years for unprofessional conduct by government lawyers and political meddling in appointments and high-profile cases. Mr. Holder's selection last week of two career prosecutors to lead the effort to restore the department's reputation signals he is serious about turning his agency around. In naming Mary Patrice Brown as head of the Office of Professional Responsibility, which monitors misconduct by government lawyers, and H. Marshall Jarrett to run the executive office of U.S. attorneys, which directs and coordinates the work of the 94 U.S. attorneys around the country, Mr. Holder stressed they were chosen for their competence rather than for their political connections.

A Baltimore police officer and two retired officers have been indicted on federal civil rights and obstruction of justice charges in the beating of a 17-year-old boy five years ago and its cover-up, the Justice Department announced Wednesday. In 2005, Officer Gregory M. Mussmacher, 34, was found guilty by a Baltimore Circuit Court judge of misdemeanor assault and misconduct in office for striking the teen in an incident in late April 2004. But Mussmacher's conviction was overturned on appeal, leading the Justice Department to take on the case, officials said.

Politics drove hiring at Justice, report says WASHINGTON: Ideological considerations permeated the hiring process at the Justice Department's civil rights division, where a politically appointed official sought to hire "real Americans" and Republicans for career posts and prominent case assignments, according to a long-awaited report released yesterday by the department's inspector general. The extensive study of hiring practices between 2001 and 2007 concluded that a former department official improperly weeded out candidates based on their perceived ties to liberal organizations.

The U.S. Justice Department has launched an investigation of the long-troubled Rosewood Center to determine whether conditions at the state's largest facility for profoundly disabled adults violate the residents' civil rights. Although the institution is set to close next summer, federal authorities will look into the treatment of residents, including safety issues and medical care, along with plans for their placement in the community, according to a letter sent to Gov. Martin O'Malley.

WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department has told Congress that U.S. intelligence operatives attempting to thwart terrorist attacks can legally use interrogation methods that might otherwise be prohibited under international law. The legal interpretation, outlined in recent letters, sheds new light on the still-secret rules for interrogations by the CIA. It shows that the administration is arguing that the boundaries for interrogations should be subject to...

WASHINGTON -- Adding to complaints about one of the nation's primary counterterrorism safety nets, a Justice Department audit has concluded that the FBI provided the governmentwide terrorism watch list with incomplete, inaccurate and outdated information on suspects for nearly three years. As a result, many innocent people stayed on the "Consolidated Terrorist Watchlist" long after they were cleared of any wrongdoing, and real threats to national security were sometimes left off the list or not added to it in a timely manner, according to the audit, released yesterday by Inspector General Glenn A. Fine.