Mon, Jul 7, 2008 (2:08 a.m.)

On the heels of last month’s disclosure by the Justice Department’s inspector general that hiring patterns for entry-level attorneys and interns in 2002 and 2006 favored conservative or Republican applicants in violation of civil service laws, The New York Times reported last week that the independent Office of Special Counsel has launched its own investigation of those practices.

For more than a year there have been similar disclosures involving politically motivated personnel decisions within the department. They included the controversial firings of Nevada’s Daniel Bogden and eight fellow U.S. attorneys that led to the resignation last year of then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

The Justice Department brought this scrutiny upon itself. Ever since President Bush took office, the department has often left the impression that it engages in partisan hatchet work on behalf of the administration. The impression is true.

We hope the Special Counsel, which exams political influence within federal agencies, rids the department of its biases so that it can properly do the people’s work.

The Special Counsel is not the only rock in the department’s shoe. There is a move afoot by snubbed applicants to file a class-action civil rights lawsuit against the department. The first step in that process was taken June 30 when one individual sued for up to $100,000 in damages.

In the end, taxpayers will likely be left to pay for the department’s premeditated actions. It could be a whopping bill, too, given the fact that as many as 359 applicants may have been wrongfully rejected in 2006 alone, the Times reported.

The next president will certainly have plenty of Bush administration messes to clean up, but one of the messiest will be the Justice Department.

We look forward to the Special Counsel’s investigation because it will, we hope, shed light on deficient practices that need to be corrected if the department wishes to amend its tarnished reputation. The American people deserve no less.