Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez (File photo by Ryan J. Reilly / Main Justice)

Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez testified on Capitol Hill Thursday about his “agenda of restoration and revitalization” for the Civil Rights Division.

That agenda includes new rules for hiring career civil service lawyers intended to protect the process from politics. Those rules are being finalized, according to Alejandro Miyar, a Justice Department spokesman.

In a statement before the House Judiciary subcommittee on civil rights, Perez said the rules will “ensure that the very best candidates for the job are selected through a process that is conducted fairly, transparently and without any consideration of the candidate’s political view.”

While the cautious Perez didn’t make explicit reference to the George W. Bush administration, committee Democrats filled in the blanks for him.

“The division has been deeply troubled over the past eight years. Career civil rights attorneys were routinely overruled by political appointees,” said Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) chairman of the subcommittee. “Enforcement was in some key areas grossly neglected.”

During the Bush administration, the Civil Rights Division was in turmoil as Bush political appointee Bradley Schlozman drove out career lawyers deemed to be liberal and hired conservatives to replace them.

Schlozman, who served in a variety of posts in the division from 2003 to 2006, broke federal law in taking political and ideological affiliations into account for the career civil service jobs, according to this Justice Department Inspector General report.

Perez testified on the same day the Government Accountability Office released a 180-page report showing a marked declined in enforcement of anti-discrimination and voting rights laws under the administration of George W. Bush. Perez said the Obama administration would not be “picking and choosing” which laws to enforce. (We’ll have a separate story on the GAO report later).

As Democratic members of the committee focused on the GAO report’s findings, Republicans honed in on two of their favorite political targets: the Association for Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) and the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case that was dismissed by the Obama DOJ in May.

After a half hour of opening statements from committee members, Nadler prepared to introduce Perez, saying “now we can get back to the subject of the hearing, which is the Civil Rights Division and not ACORN.”

Rep. Lamar Smith countered that Democrats were “playing the Bush blame game” instead of overseeing the Obama administration.

Republicans also attacked the notion of hate crimes laws, which Perez has made a top priority for the division. Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) asked Perez if the murders at Fort Hood by alleged shooter Maj. Nidal Hasan would be considered a hate crime because it appeared to be religiously motivated. Perez said he wasn’t involved with the investigation so didn’t comment directly.

Attorney General Eric Holder told a Senate panel today that the Justice Department is not prepared to work with Congress to probe the fatal Nov. 5 shootings at Fort Hood, Texas,  until federal law enforcement authorities have a better understanding of the crimes allegedly perpetrated by Maj. Nidal Hasan.

The FBI and the military are in the early stages of investigating the shootings at the Army base near Killeen, Texas. Holder, speaking at a wide-ranging Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing for the Justice Department, said federal authorities are still trying to sort out all of the facts in the case.

“Once we have a handle on that, we can work with the committee to propose ways to prevent a tragedy like this from happening again,” Holder said.

There are few reported details on what caused Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, allegedly to kill 13 people at the military base. But federal authorities have been investigating e-mail conversations between Hasan and Anwar al-Awalki, a radical Muslim cleric in Yemen. Holder said at the hearing that the e-mails are “disturbing.”

Members of Congress have pushed for immediate hearings on the massacre. Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) will hold a hearing tomorrow on the shootings, but no Obama administration officials are slated to testify.

Aides from the Justice and Defense departments have briefed senior members of Congress in closed door meetings, according to The Washington Post. Lieberman is also slated to meet with Holder and Defense Secretary Robert Gates this afternoon, according to Politico.

The Obama administration has made it clear to lawmakers that it doesn’t want Congress interfering with its probe of the shootings at this time, according to The Post.

“I want a successful prosecution, but I also want to know what happened,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said at today’s hearing.

Former Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey on Tuesday during a radio interview with The Washington Times joked that Rep. James Moran (D-Va.) “ought to get professional help, perhaps from Maj. Nidal [Hasan],” the accused Fort Hood shooter, The Huffington Post reports.

Last week, Moran criticized opponents of Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his Sept. 11, 2001, co-defendants in the Southern District of New York, Talking Points Memo reported. “They see this as an opportunity to demagogue,” Moran told TPM. “They will seize on any opportunity to do that, and that means they’ll even take a stand that’s un-American.” He added, “It’s un-American to hold anyone indefinitely without trial. It’s against our principles as a nation.”

During his interview, Mukasay was asked to respond to Moran’s comments. “I think he’s lost touch with reality. He ought to get professional help, perhaps from Maj. Nidal.” Last week, Mukasey slammedthe decision to try Mohammed in New York City.

Former U.S. Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey on Sunday called last week’s shooting at Fort Hood “the worst terrorist act carried out on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001.”

Mukasey made his remarks in a little noticed speech to military families at a Veterans Day ceremony in central Pennsylvania. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan is suspected of opening fire at the Texas military base last Thursday in an attack that killed 13 and wounded 30.

Former Attorney General Mukasey (doj)

The former Attorney General criticized the New York Times and government officials for appearing to rule out the possibility that Hasan’s shooting spree was directed or inspired by any terrorist group. Mukasey told the military families that al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden has sought to create a “leaderless jihad” that promotes solo attacks, according to The Patriot-News newspaper.

“In that respect, there certainly are very close links to terrorism,” Mukasey said in the Sunday speech. “In that respect, this is, in fact, the worst terrorist act carried out on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001.”

Mukasey, who is now a partner at the Debevoise & Plimpton law firm in New York, wasn’t available for comment on Monday.

Hasan was vocal about his opposition as a Muslim to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and had once worshiped at a Northern Virginia mosque with ties to radical Islam. But The New York Times on Nov. 7 published an article with the headline, “Little Evidence of Terror Plot in Base Killings.”

Instead, the Times and other news organizations have focused on the psychological strains associated with military service, depicting Hasan, an Army psychiatrist about to be deployed to Afghanistan, as having snapped under pressure. Today, however, The Associated Press and The Washington Post reported that federal authorities are looking into Hasan’s ties to an al-Qaeda linked imam.

Anwar al-Aulaqi, a former preacher at the Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Va., praised Hasan on his personal blog today as a “hero” for opening fire on U.S. service members. Hasan worshiped at the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in 2001, when Aulaqi was its spiritual leader. Aulaqi, who now lives in Yemen, also counseled two of the Sept. 11, 2001 attackers in the months before they hijacked airplanes and crashed them into the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Federal authorities have said they suspect Aulaqi has been involved in plotting al-Qaeda attacks.

Mukasey, a former federal judge, presided over the 1995 trial of the “blind sheik” Omar Abdel Rahman, who led a precursor organization to al-Qaeda in Brooklyn in the 1990s. Rahman was tied to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and later convicted of a plot to blow up New York City landmarks.

On Sunday he told the military families that Hasan didn’t need to have formal ties to a foreign terrorist organization to have carried out a terrorist attack. ”To tell us to believe that someone has to have a membership card in al-Qaida or any other organization in order for them to act as a terrorist, and in order for us to call what he does an act of terrorism, is to tell us to refuse to look facts in the face, and to refuse to believe what we see and hear with our own eyes and ears,” Mukasey said, according to The Patriot-News.

Update: The New York Times reports that a joint terrorism task force knew of 10 to 20 communications between Hasan and Awlaki. Read our update here.

The al Qaeda-linked former imam of a prominent Northern Virginia mosque today praised Fort Hood shooting suspect Maj. Nidal Hasan as a hero. ”How can there be any dispute about the virtue of what he has done?” Anwar al-Awlaki wrote in a posting on his personal blog.

Awlaki is the American-born former spiritual leader of the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, Va., which has long been under law enforcement scrutiny for suspected ties to radical Islam. Aulaqi counseled two of the Sept. 11, 2001 hijackers in the months before they carried out the attacks on New York and Washington. He later moved to Yemen, where he conducted on-line propaganda campaigns on al-Qaeda’s behalf, U.S. authorities have said. The U.S. also suspects Aulaqi helped plot al-Qaeda attacks, according to this February 2008 article in The Washington Post.

The Washington Post and The Associated Press reported last night that federal investigators are examining links between Hasan and Awlaki, who was the imam at Dar al-Hijrah in 2001, a time when Hasan and his family attended the mosque. The funeral of Hasan’s mother, Hanan, was held at the mosque on May 31 2001.

Former Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey on Sunday called the attacks at Fort Hood “the worst terrorist act carried out on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001.” He made the remarks in an address to military families at an early Veterans Day ceremony in central Pennsylvania, according to a local newspaper.

Awlaki wrote on his blog:

“Nidal Hassan is a hero. He is a man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people,” wrote al-Aulaqi, who now lives in Yemen since leaving the U.S. in 2002. “This is a contradiction that many Muslims brush aside and just pretend that it doesn’t exist. Any decent Muslim cannot live, understanding properly his duties towards his Creator and his fellow Muslims, and yet serve as a US soldier.”

Full blog post reprinted below:

Nidal Hassan is a hero. He is a man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people. This is a contradiction that many Muslims brush aside and just pretend that it doesn’t exist. Any decent Muslim cannot live, understanding properly his duties towards his Creator and his fellow Muslims, and yet serve as a US soldier. The US is leading the war against terrorism which in reality is a war against Islam. Its army is directly invading two Muslim countries and indirectly occupying the rest through its stooges.

Nidal opened fire on soldiers who were on their way to be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. How can there be any dispute about the virtue of what he has done? In fact the only way a Muslim could Islamically justify serving as a soldier in the US army is if his intention is to follow the footsteps of men like Nidal.

The heroic act of brother Nidal also shows the dilemma of the Muslim American community. Increasingly they are being cornered into taking stances that would either make them betray Islam or betray their nation. Many amongst them are choosing the former. The Muslim organizations in America came out in a pitiful chorus condemning Nidal’s operation.

The fact that fighting against the US army is an Islamic duty today cannot be disputed. No scholar with a grain of Islamic knowledge can defy the clear cut proofs that Muslims today have the right -rather the duty- to fight against American tyranny. Nidal has killed soldiers who were about to be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan in order to kill Muslims. The American Muslims who condemned his actions have committed treason against the Muslim Ummah and have fallen into hypocrisy.

Allah(swt) says: Give tidings to the hypocrites that there is for them a painful punishment –
Those who take disbelievers as allies instead of the believers. Do they seek with them honor [through power]? But indeed, honor belongs to Allah entirely. (al-Nisa 136-137)

The inconsistency of being a Muslim today and living in America and the West in general reveals the wisdom behind the opinions that call for migration from the West. It is becoming more and more difficult to hold on to Islam in an environment that is becoming more hostile towards Muslims.

May Allah grant our brother Nidal patience, perseverance and steadfastness and we ask Allah to accept from him his great heroic act. Ameen