Leahy, Conyers Press Mukasey For Details
Of Gonzales Legal Fees
WASHINGTON (Monday, Nov. 24, 2008) – Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and
Congressman John Conyers (D-Mich.), chairs of the Senate and House
Judiciary Committees, sent a letter Monday to Attorney General Michael
Mukasey urging him to disclose the details of a Department of Justice
agreement to pay a private attorney to represent former Attorney General
Alberto Gonzales in connection with his involvement in the politicized
hiring practices of the Justice Department during his tenure from 2005
to 2007.
A report released in June
by the Justice Department’s Inspector General and Office of Professional
Responsibility concluded that Gonzales and others in the Department
engaged in improper hiring practices that “constituted misconduct and
also violated the Department’s polices and civil service law.”
Recent press reports reveal that the Department of Justice has decided
to pay up to $24,000 a month for private counsel to represent Gonzales
in lawsuits filed by individuals whose applications for employment at
the Department were turned down while Gonzales was serving as Attorney
General.
Leahy and Conyers pressed
Mukasey to publicly disclose the specifics of the agreement, including
how the decision to pay Gonzales’s private legal expenses was made, by
whom, and whether the Department has decided to pay the legal fees for
other current or former Department officials in connection with the
hiring scandal.
Since January 2007, Leahy
and Conyers have led congressional investigations into politicized
hiring practices at the Department. The investigations led to the
resignation of the senior leadership of the Justice Department,
including Gonzales, and several senior White House officials. On
November 19, the Senate Judiciary Committee
filed a report detailing its investigation. The report
accompanied resolutions of contempt for former White House Deputy Chief
of Staff Karl Rove and White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten, who
have refused to cooperate with the investigations. On February 14,
the House of Representatives voted to hold Bolten and former White House
Counsel Harriet Miers in contempt of Congress, and subsequently filed
suit in federal court for their failure to cooperate.
The text of the
Leahy-Conyers letter to Mukasey follows. A PDF is available
online.
November 24, 2008
The Honorable Michael B. Mukasey
Attorney General of the United States
United States Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20530
Dear Attorney General Mukasey:
We write to follow up on reports that the Department will be covering
legal expenses for former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in
connection with findings of politicized hiring for the Department of
Justice Honor Program and Summer Law Intern Program. Department of
Justice Inspector General Glenn Fine released a report this past June
which concluded that hiring was improperly politicized, including in
2006 when, the report concluded, several Department officials engaged in
hiring practices that “constituted misconduct and also violated
the Department’s policies and civil service law that prohibit
discrimination in hiring based on political or ideological
affiliations.”
Following the
publication of the Inspector General’s report, several individuals whose
applications for employment through these programs were turned down
during the period that the hiring process was improperly politicized
have filed suit against Mr. Gonzales and others who held senior
positions at the Department at the time. Recent press
accounts indicated that the Department of Justice has decided to pay up
to $24,000 a month for a private attorney to represent Mr. Gonzales in
connection with this lawsuit. As far as we can tell, the
Department has thus far failed to confirm or publicly account for any
aspect of this arrangement.
Under section 50.16 of title 28 of the Code of Federal
Regulations, the Department may provide for a private attorney for a
current or former employee sued individually for conduct within the
scope of his employment, but the Government should not pay for private
representation if the Attorney General or his designee “determines that
the employee’s actions do not reasonably appear to have been performed
within the scope of his employment” or that “representation is not in
the interest of the United States.”
There is precedent for disclosure of information to
Congress about this type of arrangement. In May 2003, for example,
U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth ordered the release of similar
information regarding fees paid by the Department of the Interior to
private attorneys to defend its employees in a class action
lawsuit. Judge Lamberth wrote that “the Court believes that Congress
should have all available information at its disposal” in order to
inform the process of appropriating funds for court-appointed officials
and attorneys’ fees in the case.
We would appreciate your responses to these questions
on this issue:
-
What is the arrangement the Department has reached with Mr. Gonzales
in connection with representation in this matter, and why has that
arrangement not been made public?
-
Who made the decision to pay for Mr. Gonzales’s private legal
expenses in connection with the politicization of hiring at the
Justice Department, and how, when, and on what basis was the
decision made? Please include with your response any standing
guidelines governing the procedures for retention and payment for
private counsel for individual employees or former employees.
-
For what other current or former Department officials has the
Department decided to pay legal expenses in connection with these
matters?
-
Given the Inspector General’s findings of violations of Department
policy and Federal law in connection with the politicization of
Department hiring, on what basis did the Department determine that
the conduct at issue in this lawsuit was within the scope of Mr.
Gonzales’s employment and that his representation is in the interest
of the United States?
We look forward to your responses to these questions.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
PATRICK
LEAHY JOHN CONYERS, JR.
Chairman, U.S. Senate,
Chairman, U.S. House of Representatives,
Committee on the
Judiciary Committee on the Judiciary
# # # # #
