Speaking before the American Bar Association earlier this week, he said the department would not bring criminal charges against those named in two reports by the inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility. He also said it would be wrong to fire those who were chosen for their loyalty to President Bush over more qualified candidates.

The fact is, those political appointees who were cited as having used a political litmus test for hiring — including Monica Goodling and Kyle Sampson — have left the department. Under civil service regulations, they cannot be further disciplined because their transgressions were not criminal. They can, however, be disciplined by bar associations, and they can be sued by those they discriminated against.

Further, removing those already named to jobs would violate regulations designed to protect civil servants and would be unfair, because there is no indication the job applicants did anything wrong. And, as Mukasey noted, one of those hired to be an immigration judge because of his political leanings has since been promoted to the Board of Immigration Appeals.

But here is where Mukasey may have gone too far too fast. There still are two reports to come from the internal Justice Department investigations. One deals with the hiring of career attorneys in the Civil Rights Division. The other focuses on the firing of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006.

Also, committees in both the House and Senate are looking into the firings of the U.S. attorneys. And the House Judiciary committee is in a related battle with the White House over the use of executive privilege to prevent testimony of some former high-ranking administration officials.

Given this, the wiser course would have been for Mukasey to withhold department intentions until its role in these important matters was complete.

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