Eideard

Chief legal dimwit

Former U.S. Justice Department officials who improperly used political criteria in hiring decisions for career lawyers and immigration judges will not be prosecuted, says Attorney General Michael Mukasey.

“Where there is enough evidence to charge someone with a crime, we vigorously prosecute,” he told the American Bar Association annual meeting in New York. “But not every wrong, or even every violation of the law, is a crime. In this instance, the two joint reports found only violations of the civil service laws.”

The Justice Department’s internal investigation concluded that high-ranking officials injected politics into what should have been nonpartisan hiring decisions. Both department policy and federal law bar the use of politics in making decisions on hiring for career jobs.

Mukasey also said on Tuesday he disagreed with critics who have suggested that people hired through the flawed process should be fired or moved to different jobs.

“Two wrongs do not make a right,” he said. He said it would be “unfair, and quite possibly illegal given their civil service protections, to fire them or to reassign them without individual cause.”

This jerk knows all the logical fallacies for ignoring ethical standards. A perfect fit to end eight years of incompetence, corruption and cronyism.