Inspector general to look into racial preference system at Justice

The other shoe is dropping on the stonewallers at the Obama Justice Department. Yesterday, the department's inspector general, Glenn A. Fine, informed Rep. Lamar Smith, Texas Republican, and Rep. Frank Wolf, Virginia Republican, that he will open "a review of the enforcement of civil rights laws by the Voting Rights Section of the Department's Civil Rights Division." Such an investigation is bound to kick up a lot of dirt.

Although the review won't directly or solely analyze the now-infamous decision to deep-six a voter-intimidation case against members of the New Black Panther Party, it could include that case within its broader analysis of "whether the Voting Section has enforced the civil rights laws in a non-discriminatory manner; and whether any Voting Section employees have been harassed for participating in the investigation or prosecution of particular matters." This is big stuff. It would be difficult not to find something shady in Justice's decision not to pursue a case in which a Black Panther wielded a nightstick at a voting place while he and another spit violently racist epithets at voters.

For months, Mr. Wolf implored Mr. Fine to investigate the Black Panther scandal. For months, Mr. Fine said it was out of his jurisdiction. Yet it turns out that while he claims no legal authority to review a specific prosecutorial decision, the inspector general asserts he may by law "conduct the broader program review."

This is the same sort of review, from outside the department, that the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has been attempting, despite an utter and lawless lack of cooperation from Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. The poignant point about Mr. Fine's change of heart is that the New Black Panther case was never merely about two menacing thugs standing outside a single polling place. The overdue need for an investigation centers on the broader question of whether the Obama-Holder Justice Department enforces civil rights laws equally in defense of whites and Asians as it does on behalf of blacks or Hispanics. Ample anecdotal and strong circumstantial evidence indicates it doesn't.

Mr. Fine's investigation and an upcoming report from the Civil Rights Commission amount to a one-two punch against racial preferences at Justice. Between the two efforts, the American public can muster hope for a forced return to equal justice under the law.

Examiner to Justice: "stop stonewalling" on voter intimidation

On Election Day 2008, three members of the New Black Panther Party were captured on tape at a Philadelphia polling place attempting to intimidate voters. All three wore military attire and one wielded a nightstick. The Justice Department, in the last days of President George W. Bush’s presidency, brought a voter intimidation case against the trio, which the department won by default. Then President Obama’s political appointees in the Justice Department got involved. Without even reading the memoranda connected to the case, they forced its dismissal after it was already won. Justice dropped the case against two of the defendants and settled with the third, requiring him only to refrain from carrying a “deadly weapon” near a Philadelphia polling place until 2012.

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has attempted to investigate the dismissal, only to meet resistance from Obama’s Department of Justice at every turn. J. Christian Adams, a career attorney in Justice’s voting rights section, testified before the commission last month, but only after resigning his position due to “the corrupt nature of the dismissal, statements [by Obama appointees] falsely characterizing the case, and most of all, indefensible orders for the career attorneys not to comply with lawful subpoenas investigating the dismissal.” Justice is now blocking another career attorney at Justice, Christopher Coates, from testifying on the case. Coates, who led the Justice Department’s voting rights section, reportedly objected to dismissal of the case, at which point he was removed from his post and transferred to South Carolina.

This case matters. What’s at stake is the fair and honest administration of justice, something the Obama administration seems to regard all too lightly. If, as Adams testified, Obama’s Justice Department consciously ignores voting rights violations allegedly committed by minorities, that is a big deal. We need transparency now, to restore faith in government. We need to hear from Coates and others about why such clear-cut wrongdoing only merited dismissals and a wrist-slap.

Thomas Perez, Obama’s appointee to head the Civil Rights division at Justice, is apparently so busy suing Arizona law enforcement and blocking Ivy League colleges from using the Amazon Kindle that he doesn’t think flagrant violations of the laws protecting voters are worth his time. Obama should get his priorities in line, embrace transparency in this case, and stop stonewalling a legitimate investigation into Justice Department corruption.

Former Justice lawyer says voter intimidation case against New Black Panther Party was ordered dropped for racial reasons

A former Justice Department attorney who quit his job to protest the Obama administration's handling of the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case is accusing Attorney General Eric Holder of dropping the charges for racially motivated reasons.

J. Christian Adams, now an attorney in Virginia and a conservative blogger, says he and the other Justice Department lawyers working on the case were ordered to dismiss it.

"I mean we were told, 'Drop the charges against the New Black Panther Party,'" Adams told Fox News, adding that political appointees Loretta King, acting head of the civil rights division, and Steve Rosenbaum, an attorney with the division since 2003, ordered the dismissal.

Asked about the Justice Department's claim that they are career attorneys, not political appointees, Adams said "obviously, that's false."

"Under the vacancy reform act, they were serving in a political capacity," he said. "This is one of the examples of Congress not being told the truth, the American people not being told the truth about this case. It's one of the other examples in this case where the truth simply is becoming another victim of the process."

Adams claimed an unnamed political appointee said if somebody wants to bring these kinds of cases, "that' not going to de done out of the civil rights division."

Adams also accused Deputy Attorney General Thomas Perez of lying under oath to Congress about the circumstances surrounding the decision to drop the probe.

The Justice Department has defended its move to drop the case, saying it obtained an injunction against one member to keep him away from polling stations while dismissing charges against the others "based on a careful assessment of the facts and the law."

But Adams told Fox News that politics and race was at play in the dismissal.

"There is a pervasive hostility within the civil rights division at the Justice Department toward these sorts of cases," Adams told Fox News' Megyn Kelly.

Adams says the dismissal is a symptom of the Obama administration's reverse racism and that the Justice Department will not pursue voting rights cases against white victims.

Is Obama's AG maintreaming voter intimidation?

"Justice Department political appointees overruled career lawyers and ended a civil complaint accusing three members of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense of wielding a nightstick and intimidating voters at a Philadelphia polling place last Election Day, according to documents and interviews.

The incident - which gained national attention when it was captured on videotape and distributed on YouTube - had prompted the government to sue the men, saying they violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act by scaring would-be voters with the weapon, racial slurs and military-style uniforms.

Career lawyers pursued the case for months, including obtaining an affidavit from a prominent 1960s civil rights activist who witnessed the confrontation and described it as "the most blatant form of voter intimidation" that he had seen, even during the voting rights crisis in Mississippi a half-century ago."

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/29/career-
lawyers-overruled-on-voting-case/?feat=home_cube_position1