American Oversight and a number of other organizations dedicated to ethics and accountability in government have called on Attorney General Jeff Sessions to ensure that hiring at the Department of Justice is “based on merit, rather than improper considerations such as actual or perceived political affiliation.”

On March 28, the Department of Justice received a letter from various interest groups calling on the agency to essentially reinstate Bush-era hiring practices that violated federal law by giving preference to candidates who agreed with the president’s politics.

The Civil Service Reform Act provides that “[a]ll employees and applicants for employment should receive fair and equitable treatment in all aspects of personnel management without regard to political affiliation,” and that “[e]mployees should be . . . protected against arbitrary action, personal favoritism, or coercion for partisan political purposes.”

The full text of the letter is below: