In non-Comey/Trump/Russia news, we have a new report from the U.S. Office of Special Counsel that showed the Justice Department under President Obama discriminated against veterans seeking two positions within the department. The report noted that at the time, the Obama DOJ tried to force the two applicants to withdraw from the process and removed the job postings, rewriting the positions so that veterans were excluded. Stephen Dinan at The Washington Times had more:
Under federal law, veterans should have gotten preferential consideration for the two positions in the International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program.[…]
OSC found hiring violations for two positions at DOJ where officials sought to encourage preference eligible veterans to withdraw their applications,” the watchdog agency said. “DOJ wanted to hire a non-veteran candidate. When the veterans declined to withdraw, DOJ selected the non-veteran candidate, despite rules mandating that veterans receive priority in hiring over non-veterans in certain circumstances.”
The ICITAP officials told investigators they didn’t try to pressure the veterans, but instead explained why they should withdraw.
OSC investigators said even if that was what happened, it still violated the law.
The re-listing of the jobs was also sketchy, but not a clear violation of the law, the OSC said.
Yeah, this is rather disconcerting, but Obama is out. Let's hope veterans are treated better in the employment lines at the DOJ, which is now under new management.