Green Energy
From Hot Air:
Remember J. Christian Adams and the New Black Panther Party voting rights case? Thanks to Adams, the DOJ pursued a civil action against two Panther members for intimidating voters outside a polling place in Philly in 2008. The Panthers didn’t contest it and the DOJ won a permanent injunction — only to then drop the charges, seemingly inexplicably. Adams and a colleague claimed that the Department backed off because they didn’t want to pursue voting rights actions against minority defendants. DOJ higher-ups denied it. The Civil Rights Commission started investigating, and they eventually started splitting over what happened too.
Finally, at long last, WaPo decided to try to figure out what happened. Who’s right? Adams in asserting that there’s institutional resistance to using voting rights laws — which were, after all, passed in response to white abuses against blacks — against minority defendants? Or the higher-ups in insisting that the Panther case had nothing to do with race but merely with weak evidence? WaPo’s verdict:
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Scribecast: J. Christian Adams on Obama’s ‘Lawless’ Justice Department (Heritage).In June 2010, J. Christian Adams resigned his post as a career attorney in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. Adams cited DOJ’s decision to...
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American Hero: Coates Negates a Year of Justice Department Spin on New Black Panther Case We no longer must consult history for a lawyer-hero willing to take personal risk for sacred principles such as the rule of law and racial equality. Our age can...
- Obama Dept. Of Justice: No More Voting Rights Cases Against Black Defendants
Megyn Kelly interviews former Deparment of Justice Attorney, J. Christian Adams, on Fox News: KELLY: Do you believe that the DOJ has a policy now of not pursuing cases if the defendant is black and the victim is white? ADAM: Well, particularly in voting....
- Obama Administration May Have First Real Scandal
Hopefully followed closely by Dealergate. . . Human Events: Obama Administration May Have First Real Scandal by Hans von Spakovsky 06/08/2009 Lawyers everywhere are scratching their heads. Who among us has ever heard of a prosecutor dismissing a successful...
- We Need An Special Prosecutor To Find Out Why Obama Appointees At Doj Dropped The Black Panther Case
From Reliapundit, the Astute Blogger: WASH TIMES: 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...
Green Energy
Washington Post: Racial Politics Are The Norm Among Many At The DOJ
From Hot Air:
Remember J. Christian Adams and the New Black Panther Party voting rights case? Thanks to Adams, the DOJ pursued a civil action against two Panther members for intimidating voters outside a polling place in Philly in 2008. The Panthers didn’t contest it and the DOJ won a permanent injunction — only to then drop the charges, seemingly inexplicably. Adams and a colleague claimed that the Department backed off because they didn’t want to pursue voting rights actions against minority defendants. DOJ higher-ups denied it. The Civil Rights Commission started investigating, and they eventually started splitting over what happened too.
Finally, at long last, WaPo decided to try to figure out what happened. Who’s right? Adams in asserting that there’s institutional resistance to using voting rights laws — which were, after all, passed in response to white abuses against blacks — against minority defendants? Or the higher-ups in insisting that the Panther case had nothing to do with race but merely with weak evidence? WaPo’s verdict:
In recent months, Adams and a Justice Department colleague have said the case was dismissed because the department is reluctant to pursue cases against minorities accused of violating the voting rights of whites. Three other Justice Department lawyers, in recent interviews, gave the same description of the department’s culture, which department officials strongly deny…
Civil rights officials from the Bush administration have said that enforcement should be race-neutral. But some officials from the Obama administration, which took office vowing to reinvigorate civil rights enforcement, thought the agency should focus primarily on cases filed on behalf of minorities.
“The Voting Rights Act was passed because people like Bull Connor were hitting people like John Lewis, not the other way around,” said one Justice Department official not authorized to speak publicly, referring to the white Alabama police commissioner who cracked down on civil rights protesters such as Lewis, now a Democratic congressman from Georgia…
Three Justice Department lawyers, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation from their supervisors, described the same tensions, among career lawyers as well as political appointees. Employees who worked on the [Ike] Brown case were harassed by colleagues, they said, and some department lawyers anonymously went on legal blogs “absolutely tearing apart anybody who was involved in that case,” said one lawyer.
“There are career people who feel strongly that it is not the voting section’s job to protect white voters,” the lawyer said. “The environment is that you better toe the line of traditional civil rights ideas or you better keep quiet about it, because you will not advance, you will not receive awards and you will be ostracized.
Go read the whole thing.
-
Scribecast: J. Christian Adams on Obama’s ‘Lawless’ Justice Department (Heritage).In June 2010, J. Christian Adams resigned his post as a career attorney in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. Adams cited DOJ’s decision to...
-
American Hero: Coates Negates a Year of Justice Department Spin on New Black Panther Case We no longer must consult history for a lawyer-hero willing to take personal risk for sacred principles such as the rule of law and racial equality. Our age can...
- Obama Dept. Of Justice: No More Voting Rights Cases Against Black Defendants
Megyn Kelly interviews former Deparment of Justice Attorney, J. Christian Adams, on Fox News: KELLY: Do you believe that the DOJ has a policy now of not pursuing cases if the defendant is black and the victim is white? ADAM: Well, particularly in voting....
- Obama Administration May Have First Real Scandal
Hopefully followed closely by Dealergate. . . Human Events: Obama Administration May Have First Real Scandal by Hans von Spakovsky 06/08/2009 Lawyers everywhere are scratching their heads. Who among us has ever heard of a prosecutor dismissing a successful...
- We Need An Special Prosecutor To Find Out Why Obama Appointees At Doj Dropped The Black Panther Case
From Reliapundit, the Astute Blogger: WASH TIMES: 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...