Former U.S. Attorney Bradley Schlozman misled Congress when he played down the role that ideology and political hackery played in his hiring decisions, according to a recent Justice Department report. Did his testimony amount to a failure of duty as an officer of the court?
The recent investigation revealed some of the depths to which Bush apparatchiks politicized hiring. As head of the Civil Rights Division, Schlozman routinely boasted about hiring and promoting lawyers with conservative credentials, calling them "right-thinking Americans." In a 2003 voice mail to a colleague, Schlozman said he wanted to "make sure we don't start confining ourselves to, you know, Politburo members because they happen to be a member of some, you know, psychopathic left-wing organization designed to overthrow the government." Schlozman got rid of three lawyers seen as liberals, violating federal civil service law.
Schlozman continued to favor Republicans when he arrived in Kansas City in 2006 as interim U.S. attorney. A Justice Department investigation released last year described instances in which Schlozman vouched for the conservative bona fides of applicants. In one instance, he said a candidate was "hard core (in the most positive sense)."
Schlozman's law-breaking was referred to the U.S. Attorney in Washington, D.C., which declined to prosecute. But what's to stop the state of Kansas from deciding that Schlozman is too much of a clown to practice law?
Last fall, lawyers in Virginia asked the Virginia State Bar to conduct an ethics investigation of former Justice Department lawyer Monica Goodling. A liaison to the White House, Goodling violated the law and Justice Department policy by discriminating against lawyers who hadn't shown sufficient loyalty to George W. Bush and Karl Rove.
The status of the complaint against Goodling is unknown. Barbara Sayers Lanier, clerk of the Virginia State Bar's disciplinary system, tells me complaints are private until a charge of misconduct goes out.
In Kansas, the Disciplinary Administrator's Office, an agency in the judicial branch, reviews complaints of misconduct. Kansans concerned about Schlozman's fitness to practice law can learn more about the process here and here.
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The short answer is yes. Arkansas disbarred Clinton (for 5 years) after he lied to Congress, then subsequently he was disbarred from practice before the U.S. Supreme Court (not that Scholzman could ever get there, but as a US attorney he may have been licensed.)
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