Justice officials blocked liberal lawyers from program, investigation finds

From CNN Justice Producer Terry Frieden

WASHINGTON (CNN) - Justice Department officials blocked people with Democratic Party ties from a highly selective program that funneled young lawyers into government jobs, according to an internal investigation released Tuesday.

Esther Slater McDonald, a political appointee at the Justice Department, "wrote disparaging statements about the candidates' liberal and Democratic Party affiliations on the applications she reviewed and ... she voted to deselect candidates on that basis," said the report by Inspector General Glenn Fine. McDonald, who has left the department, refused to be interviewed for the investigation.

The report, the first official investigation to document politicization of the Justice Department during the Bush administration, is an offshoot of the larger investigation of Justice Department politics triggered by the furor over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys