Mukasey rules out prosecutions from hiring scandal

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former U.S. Justice Department officials who improperly used political criteria in hiring decisions for career lawyers and immigration judges will not be prosecuted, Attorney General Michael Mukasey said on Tuesday.

The department recently issued reports detailing misconduct in hiring practices mainly by top aides to former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who resigned last year. While there was wrongdoing and "a failure of supervision by senior officials in the department," the conduct was not criminal, Mukasey said in a speech.

"Where there is enough evidence to charge someone with a crime, we vigorously prosecute," he told the American Bar Association annual meeting in New York. "But not every wrong, or even every violation of the law, is a crime. In this instance, the two joint reports found only violations of the civil service laws."

The Justice Department's internal investigation concluded that high-ranking officials injected politics into what should have been nonpartisan hiring decisions. Both department policy and federal law bar the use of politics in making decisions on hiring for career jobs.

Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine has previously told Congress he did not see a sufficient basis for prosecution of the former officials, saying the violations did not involve criminal laws.

Mukasey also said on Tuesday he disagreed with critics who have suggested that people hired through the flawed process should be fired or moved to different jobs.

"Two wrongs do not make a right," he said. He said it would be "unfair, and quite possibly illegal given their civil service protections, to fire them or to reassign them without individual cause."

(Editing by David Wiessler)