With a new Government Accountability Office report on the activities of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice between 2001-2007, we are learning even more about a department that had been politicized to a dangerous degree under the Bush Administration. Instead of representing the best interests of the American people, the DOJ had been turned into a political machine. The report, obtained by The New York Times, found:

When compared with the Clinton administration, its findings show a significant drop in the enforcement of several major antidiscrimination and voting rights laws. For example, lawsuits brought by the division to enforce laws prohibiting race or sex discrimination in employment fell from about 11 per year under President Bill Clinton to about 6 per year under President George W. Bush.

The report also found that recommendations of career DOJ lawyers to pursue voter intimidation and other cases were inexplicably rejected, with the supervisors leaving no information explaining why the cases had been closed.

The office also found that case files often had no information explaining why supervisors had decided to close cases, sometimes against the recommendation of career officials. In a companion report, it also found that six years of internal audits about the division’s case-tracking system were missing.

People For the American Way followed the politicization of the DOJ during the Bush Administration, calling for the resignation of then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and others who played a part in the department’s politicization. We reported on the U.S. attorneys scandal, in which career attorneys at the department were instructed to follow the lead of the White House, not the rule of law, to smear Democratic candidates, protect GOP candidates, and suppress voter turnout through overzealous pursuit of baseless voter fraud claims. We responded to the Inspector General’s report which confirmed the inappropriate actions surrounding their firing.

Don't miss today's New York Times article on the steps Attorney General Eric Holder is taking to restore the Civil Rights Division's historic focus on high-impact enforcement against policies that have a discriminatory impact on minorities. Also underway are plans to beef up hiring of career attorneys and an administration-wide effort to enforce regulations that bar those who receive public funds from advancing policies that have a disparate impact on minorities.

Now all the Attorney General needs is for an end to the Republican obstruction that has prevented the confirmation of Tom Perez to head the Civil Rights Division, not to mention Dawn Johnsen to head the Office of Legal Counsel and Chris Schroeder to head the Office of Legal Policy. By the time the Senate returns from its August recess, these nominees will have waited nearly 8 months, more than three months, and nearly one and a half months, respectively, for a vote by the full Senate following approval of their nominations by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

It's time to stop the obstruction and to give the Attorney General the assistance he needs in returning justice to the Justice Department.

In my office, CNN is blasting the news that Karl Rove and Harriet Miers have agreed to testify before Congress, under oath, about the Bush Administration's firing of US Attorneys.

Both will give depositions to investigators from the committee, and claims of privilege will be "significantly limited," according to a statement from the committee. Rove and Miers had been resisting congressional subpoenas about the matter, but a federal judge in Washington ruled that the former Bush administration officials had no grounds to invoke executive privilege in the case.

This is, in short, very good news.

People For has been pushing for some time to make Bush Administration officials testify about the politicization of the Department of Justice.  (Click here to see pictures of yours truly delivering your "Hold Rove in Contempt" petitions to Rep. Linda Sanchez.)

Getting Rove and Miers to testify is a big step towards exposing the actions of the Bush Administration, but there's plenty more to do.  Be sure to join our Campaign to Restore Justice and be sure to sign the three point petition.

I just came back from an executive meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee where once again the Republicans are demonstrating a reflexive and not very wise strategy of just saying NO. Senator Leahy, chair of the Committee was trying to move the nominations of two key Justice Department nominees, Elena Kagan, who will be the first woman to be confirmed as the Solicitor General of the United States, and Tom Perrelli, who will be the third-most senior official at the Justice Department, but Republicans on the committee refused to permit a vote. 

It’s not that they’re not entitled to do this – they have the procedural right under the Committee’s rules to hold the votes over until the next meeting of the Committee. My concern is that the Republicans didn’t appear to have any good reasons for delaying the votes other than “because we can.” That shouldn’t be acceptable, particularly where, as here, the delay denies Attorney General Holder and President Obama the senior leadership team they need to address the enormous task of restoring public confidence in the Department’s commitment to the rule of law.

Senator Leahy has bent over backwards to accommodate the Committee Republicans, in much the same way that President Obama has tried to reach across the aisle on a range of issues. But the response is obstructionism and delay. Saying NO just because you can is not sound policy and is not good for the American people.

I’ve seen some concerns expressed about the possible nomination of Mark Gitenstein to head the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Policy, including questions about whether he’s sufficiently committed to protecting the rule of law to serve in the position at Justice involved in selecting and vetting potential federal judicial nominees. I want to weigh in on this conversation because I know Mark well.

I worked very closely with him when he was serving as Senator Biden’s Chief Counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee and I was counsel to Senator Howard Metzenbaum. If you’re looking for someone committed to the rule of law, no need to look further. Mark can claim a lifetime of service to advancing the cause of civil rights and civil liberties in this country. As chief counsel to Senator Biden, Mark fought against the confirmation of federal judicial nominees who were not committed to protecting the civil rights and individual liberties of all Americans. He worked tirelessly in his position with Senator Biden to help protect the Civil Rights Commission and to extend the Voting Rights Act.

As counsel on the Senate Intelligence Committee he played a leadership role in the oversight investigation of the FBI abuses in the illegal surveillance and intimidation of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights and anti-war activists. He played a key role in the development of FISA, which grew out of that investigation.

As an advisor to Senator and presidential candidate Biden, Mark helped focus on the plight of the shrinking middle class advancing measures such as reforming health care to permit middle class and disadvantaged families to buy into the same health care insurance program available to members of Congress and expanding the availability of health insurance for children and expanding employer based retirement programs.

Mark has the smarts, integrity and values that we need in someone heading this critical office.

After 8 years of the Bush Administration, it’s amazing how low our collective standards have fallen. For instance, the idea that Barack Obama has appointed people to the Department of Justice who will uphold the rule of law -- as opposed to wantonly ignoring it for political purposes -- struck me almost too good to be true.

But by any standards the team he’s put together looks top notch. Elena Kagan is clearly the big news, but there’s a lot of depth in the slate of nominees. TAPPED points out:

One particular point of interest: Johns[e]n, the new head of the Office of Legal Counsel, has recently written articles entitled Faithfully Executing the Laws: Internal Legal Constraints on Executive Power and What's a President to Do? Interpreting the Constitution in the Wake of the Bush Administration's Abuses. Given that OLC was a hotbed of torture-justifying and illegal-surveillance-allowing during the last administration, it's nice to see that the new boss has a different set of ideas.

Be still my beating heart!