Former DOJ attorney says US Attorney in MO is political operative

The fallout from the ongoing United States Attorney's scandal has brushed against Missouri once before. Thursday it landed with a thud.

In an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times Thursday, the former chief of the voting section in the Department of Justice's civil right's division, Joseph D. Rich, said the Bush administration has long-attempted to co-opt the Justice Department's power and influence for partisan gain.

Missouri's involvement involves a matter that generated considerable concern and speculation last November.

Rich points to the indictment by the U.S. Attorney for Missouri's Western Division, Bradley Schlozman, of members of ACORN before last November's election.

He makes the serious allegation that Schlozman deliberately ignored long-standing department policy to not bring indictments on the eve of an election in order to influence its outcome.

Schlozman appointment for the western division in March of 2006 utilized the now-defunct provision in the Patriot Act that circumvents Senate approval.

Rich says Schlozman's 3-year tenure at the DOJ was central to politicization efforts in the civil rights division; a division Rich worked in for 35 years until his departure in 2005.