Think Progress

Vetting process skipped by controversial prosecutor.

“As Congress and the administration spar over whether Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales allowed politics to unduly influence the work of the Justice Department,” the hiring of Jay Apperson “has been cited by government lawyers and others as an example of how a system that relies on apolitical prosecutors should not function.” The Washington Post notes:

When he was counsel to a House subcommittee in 2005, Apperson resigned after writing a letter to a federal judge in his boss’s name, demanding a tougher sentence for a drug courier. As an assistant U.S. attorney in Virginia in the 1990s, he infuriated fellow prosecutors when he facetiously suggested a White History Month to complement Black History Month.

Yet when Apperson was looking for a job recently, four senior Justice Department officials urged Jeffrey A. Taylor, the top federal prosecutor for the District of Columbia, to hire him. Taylor did, and allowed him to skip the rigorous vetting process that the vast majority of career federal prosecutors face.