Two local prosecutors were denied promotions by Bush appointee's interference
Actions of Bush aide hindered Hochul and Battle
WASHINGTON — Two career federal prosecutors from the Western New York district were denied high-level promotions because of the lawbreaking political influence exerted by a Bush administration appointee at the U.S. Department of Justice, according to an internal report released Monday.
One of the prosecutors, a candidate for a top Justice Department counterterrorism job, was denied the temporary Washington assignment “because of his and his wife’s political affiliation,” the report says.
The report does not name that attorney, but sources told The Buffalo News that it was William J. Hochul Jr., a winner of the Attorney General’s Award for Exceptional Service — and the husband of Kathleen C. Hochul, a longtime Democratic activist and former Hamburg Town Board member who was elected Erie County clerk in 2007.
The Justice Department’s liaison to the Bush White House, Monica M. Goodling, blocked Hochul’s appointment to the counterterrorism post, sources said.
“As a result, a much less experienced, but politically acceptable, attorney was assigned this important responsibility,” says the report, issued by the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility and Inspector General.
Similarly, although Michael A. Battle — former U.S. attorney in Western New York — headed the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys from 2005 to 2007, Goodling blocked his choice for his own top assistant.
Goodling viewed Battle’s pick as a “political infant” who had not proved himself to the Republican Party, Battle told investigators. Sources identified the failed nominee as John Kelly of the U.S. attorney’s office in Rochester.
The 140-page report portrays Goodling, rather than Battle, as the real power behind Justice Department hiring — and says she badly misused that power.
“Our investigation found that Goodling improperly subjected candidates for certain career positions to the same politically based evaluation she used on candidates for political positions, in violation of federal law and department policy,” the report says.
The report portrays Battle — like Goodling, a GOP political appointee — as a bystander to Goodling’s decisions who repeatedly failed to complain about her improper conduct.
The long-anticipated report, which reviewed Justice Department hiring under then-Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales between 2005 and 2007, says the political hiring decisions took place without Gonzales’ knowledge.
Gonzales’ successor, Michael B. Mukasey, said he was “disturbed” by the report.
“I have said many times, both to members of the public and to department employees, it is neither permissible nor acceptable to consider political affiliations in the hiring of career department employees,” Mukasey said.
The report documents more than a dozen instances where White House political aides, most notably Goodling, allowed politics to interfere with appointments that are part of the nonpolitical career track at the Justice Department.
Political screenings conducted by Goodling and D. Kyle Sampson, Gonzales’ chief of staff, “resulted in high-quality candidates for important department positions being rejected,” the agency’s inspector general, Glenn A. Fine, said in a statement.
Among them was the prosecutor identified in the report as “Candidate #1,” whom sources identified as Hochul, who had been honored by then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft as part of the team that investigated and prosecuted the Lackawanna Six case.
Associate Counsel Natalie Voris told Battle that Hochul “was head and shoulders above the other candidates who had applied for the counterterrorism detail” in late 2006, and both Battle and Kelly, his chief of staff, agreed, the report says.
Nevertheless, Battle, Kelly and a third Justice Department official “all told us that Goodling refused to allow the candidate to be detailed [to the Washington job] solely on the basis of his wife’s political affiliation,” investigators wrote.
Instead, the department filled the counterterrorism job with an attorney who had no counterterrorism experience and who didn’t have the five years of federal criminal prosecution experience mandated in the job announcement, the report says.
Whereas Hochul had been registered at times as an independent and at times as a Democrat, the newly minted appointee was a registered Republican approved by Goodling.
Battle did not appeal the decision because he didn’t think he would be successful, the report says, noting that Hochul was never even told that he didn’t get the job.
Hochul, now the national security chief at the U. S. attorney’s office in Buffalo, could not be reached to comment.
His wife issued a statement saying she was “profoundly disappointed” by what the report found. “Enlisting the most experienced, most eminently qualified individuals to protect us in our fight against terrorism should be more important than what I do as a spouse,” Kathleen Hochul said.
In addition to being personally disappointed, “I am disappointed for our country, when it lost the chance to have one of the best, most dedicated antiterrorism prosecutors in the land serve us in Washington,” she said.
As for Kelly, he is identified as “EOUSA Deputy Director Candidate #2” in the report. He applied to be a deputy director under Battle after Goodling blocked an earlier nominee, only to be blocked himself.
“Battle gave us two explanations for why he believed Goodling refused to let him hire [Kelly],” the report says. “First, Battle said that Goodling did not like [Kelly], and second, Goodling told Battle she thought [Kelly] was a ‘political infant’ who had not ‘proved himself’ to the Republican Party by being involved enough in political campaigns,” the report says.
Investigators asked Battle why Goodling, as White House liaison for the Justice Department, had veto power over his hiring selections — and Battle told them that he believed that the office of deputy attorney general and the office of the attorney general had that power.
Neither Kelly nor Battle, who headed the office of U.S. attorneys between June 2005 and March 2007, could be reached to comment.
Goodling, a former Republican National Committee researcher, told the House Judiciary Committee last year that she “crossed the lines” while hiring Justice career employees. She testified under immunity, meaning she cannot be prosecuted for what she did.
She worked as one of Battle’s deputy directors until October 2005, at which point she went to work at the office of the attorney general. She was working as Gonzales’ White House liaison when she blocked the Hochul and Kelly promotions.
The report portrays Goodling as having far more hiring power at the Justice Department than Battle did, and it criticizes Battle for not standing up to her decision to block three separate promotions for a prosecutor whom Goodling suspected of being a lesbian.
Noting that federal regulations bar the Justice Department from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation, “we concluded that Goodling’s actions violated department policy and federal law, and constituted misconduct,” the report says. “In addition, we believe Battle should have raised concerns about Goodling’s actions.”
Similarly, the report notes that Battle also knew that Goodling discriminated against “Candidate #1” [Hochul] and “Deputy Director Candidate #2” [Kelly].
“We believe that Battle, as director of the Executive Office of U. S. Attorneys, should have raised concerns about Goodling’s actions with Goodling’s supervisor,” the Office of Professional Responsibility or the inspector general, the report says.
