Notwithstanding Mr. Gonzales's assurances, other department officials
said that, by several measurements, the work of the department has
been severely disrupted by his troubles, especially in recent months.

There are vacancies through the senior ranks.

The department's No. 2 official, Deputy Attorney General Paul J.
McNulty, has resigned and is expected to leave next week;

his departure is widely assumed to have resulted from the outcry over
his role in the dismissal of nine United States attorneys last year.

A permanent successor has not been named.

William W. Mercer, the nominee for the department's third-highest job,
associate attorney general, withdrew his name from consideration for
the job last month after determining that his nomination would almost
certainly be rejected by the Senate, and also because of his role in
the firing of the prosecutors.

There is no indication that the administration is close to finding
another candidate.

Among the 93 United States attorneys, who serve as the chief federal
prosecutors for their regions, there are 24 vacancies.

The White House has announced nominations for only six of those
offices, which means that several of the jobs may remain unfilled for
the rest of the Bush administration.

Mr. Metcalfe, the retired lawyer who was the founding director of the
department's Office of Information and Privacy, said in an interview
that the questions over Mr. Gonzales's competence and credibility had
shattered morale at the department, especially after the attorney
general's testimony this week before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"When you have an attorney general with his personal integrity and
credibility so repeatedly reduced to shreds, not to mention in so
public a forum, that's just antithetical to the very nature of the
Justice Department and its role in upholding the rule of law," Mr.
Metcalfe said.

"This is the Department of Justice and the attorney general, where
absolute integrity is Job 1."

In an opinion article that was first published this month in The
Denver Post and has since been circulated in the department, Mr.
Koppel, the civil appellate lawyer, said that under the Bush
administration the department had been "thoroughly politicized in a
manner that is inappropriate, unethical and indeed unlawful."

Mr. Koppel, who has been with the department since 1981, wrote that
his decision to issue such a public criticism of Mr. Gonzales and the
department "subjects me to a substantial risk of unlawful reprisal
from extremely ruthless people who have repeatedly taken such action
in the past."

"But I am confident," Mr. Koppel continued, "that I am speaking on
behalf of countless thousands of honorable public servants, at Justice
and elsewhere."

From The New York Times, 7/28/07:http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/28/washington/28gonzales.html?ref=us

Justice Dept. Lawyers Join Chorus Criticizing Gonzales

By PHILIP SHENON and JIM RUTENBERG

WASHINGTON -

Daniel J. Metcalfe, a lawyer who began his government career in the
Nixon administration and retired from the Justice Department last
winter, said morale at the department was worse under Attorney General
Alberto R. Gonzales than during Watergate.

John S. Koppel, who continues to work at the department as a civil
appellate lawyer in Washington, wrote this month that he was "ashamed"
of the department and that if Mr. Gonzales told the truth in recent
Congressional testimony, "he has been derelict in the performance of
his duties and is not up to the job."

Even though they worry that it may hinder their career prospects, a
few current and former Justice Department lawyers have begun to add to
the chorus of Mr. Gonzales's critics who say that the furor over his
performance as attorney general, and questions about his truthfulness
under oath, could do lasting damage to the department's work.

________________________________________________

In short, Justice Department morale is in the shitter

Harry