Esther McDonald -PCC alum who is accused of denying internships and honor programs at the U.S. Department of Justice for political or ideological affiliations – determined whether candidates had liberal affiliations based in part upon information she found when conducting Internet searches that was not reflected on the candidates’ applications, according to DOJ Inspector General report issued yesterday.
However, because the investigators were unable to reconstruct what information McDonald obtained from the Internet, their analysis of candidates’ affiliations is based upon the information in applications.
McDonald resigned from the DOJ before she could be interviewed by the Inspector General.
From the report:
McDonald declined to be interviewed during our investigation.When we first contacted her in September 2007 for an interview, she was a Counsel to the Associate Attorney General. She initially agreed to a tentative date for her interview, but she later asked us to postpone the interview while she retained counsel. We agreed.
After McDonald retained an attorney, and after allowing time for the attorney to familiarize himself with the matter, a new date for the interview was set, October 25, 2007. However, at 5:15 p.m. on October 24, McDonald’s attorney e-mailed our investigators to advise them that his client was canceling the interview. The attorney added that McDonald was no longer employed by the Department.
We learned that McDonald had resigned from the Department, effective October 24. On the evening of October 23, she had told her supervisor, Acting Associate Attorney General Katsas, that the next day would be her last day at the Department. Katsas said that her resignation came as a surprise to him.
After her sudden departure from the Department, we renewed our request to McDonald’s attorney to interview her. Through her attorney, she again declined. Accordingly, we have had to rely on the testimony of others, particularly Fridman and Elston, as well as the limited written record, to describe and assess McDonald’s actions in reviewing applications.
Here is the entire report:dojfinal.pdf