Gonzogate gets worse and worse

Seems as though the firing of US Attorneys for apparently political reasons was just the tip of the iceberg. Now we learn that, in March 2006, Gonzales gave authority to two young and inexperienced aides, Sampson and Goodling, to hire and fire most non-civil service staff in the DOJ. The secret order was neither filed in the Federal Register nor included in the documents provided to the House and Senate committees investigating the firing of the US Attorneys. Murray Waas has the story.

The existence of the order suggests that a broad effort was under way by the White House to place politically and ideologically loyal appointees throughout the Justice Department, not just at the U.S.-attorney level. Department records show that the personnel authority was delegated to the two aides at about the same time they were working with the White House in planning the firings of a dozen U.S. attorneys, eight of whom were, in fact, later dismissed.
[...]
The roles that Sampson and Goodling played in removing U.S. attorneys and selecting new ones drew fire from both Democrats and Republicans in Congress, who cited their youth, their scant prosecutorial experience, and their lack of law enforcement credentials. Goodling was a 1999 graduate of televangelist Pat Robertson's Regent University School of Law and had worked at the Republican National Committee as an opposition researcher. Sampson had tried one criminal case while at Justice and had worked as a counsel for Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and then for the White House counsel's office before rapidly ascending to become Gonzales's chief of staff.
[...]
Robert Litt, who served as a deputy assistant attorney general under former President Bill Clinton, said in an interview that during the Clinton presidency "it was routine that senior appointments in the department would be vetted by the White House. Appointees were often placed by the White House." Such a process is typical under most presidents, Litt said, because they "want to ensure that their administration's policies and priorities are carried out."

But Litt also called Gonzales's secret delegation of authority to Sampson and Goodling unprecedented. It was distressing, he said, that many of the most sensitive appointments at the highest levels of the Justice Department were to "be made by these two people with no law enforcement experience... that this extraordinary authority was being delegated to these two young puppies," and apparently without much input by more-experienced and less-partisan officials.
[...]
At the bottom of the delegation order, this note appeared, in all capital letters, referencing the Federal Register: "INTERNAL ORDER-NOT PUBLISHED IN F.R."

There's lots more in the Waas piece.

How refreshing to find that the Senate Judiciary chair, Patrick Leahy, is on top of things. The chutzpah of this administration has been astounding. But then, with their dreams of a permanent Republican majority and a rubber stamp Congress, guess they never expected to have any oversight.