The Mess He Left Behind
Gonzales's successor will face daunting challenges at a scandal-plagued agency
The Justice Department may also butt heads with Congress over the expiration next year of recent changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which expanded the department's ability to screen E-mails and phone calls inside and outside the United States without judicial scrutiny. The administration says the legislation is crucial to national security, but progressive groups have condemned it for what they say is its lack of oversight and potential for privacy violations.
Congress is also likely to continue prodding the department over other long-standing concerns: the future of Guantánamo, renewed calls for immigration reform, and the FBI's use of national security letters. An inspector general's report found that the FBI has routinely used these letters—authorization without court review to obtain personal information about suspects in national security investigations—without proper basis, potentially violating civil liberties.
Low morale. On the defensive, the Justice Department will find it difficult to press forward with any new policy initiatives. Morale among career staffers, who bristle at allegations of political interference in prosecutions, remains low. Worse, the next attorney general will have to fill more than a half-dozen recently vacated top positions, including the heads of the Office of Legal Policy and the tax division.
While there may be many young lawyers eager for a plum political appointment, their willingness may not translate so easily into Senate confirmation. It will be looking for independence among the political appointees, too. Among the new AG's personal staffers, as well, Congress will watch out for appointees like former aide Monica Goodling, who admitted she may have "crossed the line" by bringing partisan politics into the administration of justice.
Yet the next attorney general may be able to break from the past in one important respect: recasting the public perception of the department. Key to that, says Daniel Metcalfe, who recently resigned as head of the department's Office of Information and Privacy, will be to "acknowledge that there has been damage to the department's reputation that is no less serious than what afflicted it during the Watergate era."
That admission could go a long way toward boosting the morale of career staffers, who have dutifully prosecuted cases despite the breakdown at the highest echelons of the department.
Still, even if the next attorney general reverses the anger against one of the most important wings of the executive branch, the policies are likely to remain. And it is those policies that have made the Bush Justice Department—particularly Gonzales—such a lightning rod.
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