I imagine that along with the arrest quota, there might be recruiting quota as well. It would be completely in line with how the rest of this administration operates, and large bureaucracies in general, for the people in charge of hiring to only worry about hitting their numbers and covering their own asses.

If there’s not a rule that says “don’t hire left-leaning reporters” and the guy was otherwise “qualified”, the recruiter just wasted an afternoon of work and missed a coffee break because he backed out.

If the reporter had taken the job, his political leanings would have been his first supervisors problem and not the recruiters.