Yesterday we got into the Justice Department's ugly internal report exposing their own politically biased hiring practices. In documenting former Gonzales aide Monica Goodling's "Nazi-like" interview techniques they mentioned an instance where Goodling blocked the appointment of a female prosecutor because she was thought to be a lesbian.
Now in the second of a series of internal DOJ reports, its documented that homosexuality was indeed used as a "litmus test" in hiring, and is particularly citing the case of former prosecutor Margaret M. Chiara.
Chiara is speaking out, and now believes she was fired because of the rumors that she was involved in a lesbian relationship with fellow prosecutor Leslie Hagen. Chiara denies the relationship and the report backs her up.
"I could not begin to understand how I found myself sharing the misfortune of my former colleagues," Chiara said of the eight other U.S. attorneys who were fired:
"Now I understand. I am persuaded with deep regret that this (not alleged charges of mismanagement) is what was the basis ... there is nothing else."The report tells of a conversation where Goodling first heard such rumors and reacted "by putting her head in her hands and asking why no one had told her about this information before." (Very Mildred Pierce)
The DOJ concludes that Goodling, along with former chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson, who also made internet searches of potential appointments for words such as "gay" and "homosexual" and "Ladies Professional Golf Assoc." (Just guessing on that last one) acted with deliberate sexual and political bias.
We have no idea how these rumors began, but its obvious that the picture of a very oppressive paranoid department under Alberto Gonzales has emerged. Ashcroft just covered up statues -- the Gonzales department made unwanted people disappear.
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