Justice Department

Justice Department Lawyer Resigns Due to Politicization of Justice Department; Obama Administration Defies Civil Rights Commission

by Hans Bader on May 20, 2010 · 1 comment

in Culture, Legal, Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Sanctimony, Zeitgeist

A career Justice Department lawyer has resigned after the Obama administration defied a subpoena from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.  The Commission is investigating the Administration’s politically-motivated dismissal of a voter intimidation lawsuit against members of the racist, anti-semitic New Black Panther Party.  Career justice department lawyers brought and won the lawsuit, which was then dismissed by political appointees in the Justice Department, so that they could snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Members of the New Black Panther Party, one of whom was an Obama campaign poll watcher and local Democratic official, used nightsticks and racial epithets to drive white voters away from the polls in a Philadelphia precinct. But the Obama administration killed a successful lawsuit against them, dismissing it after career Justice Department lawyers had already obtained a default judgment against the defendants  (As a result of the dismissal, the only consequence for the defendants was a temporary injunction telling just one of the three defendants not to repeat his crimes in Philadelphia for a short period of time.)  The New Black Panther Party, which attacks what it refers to as “bloodsucking Jews,” is recognized as a racist, anti-semitic hate group even by liberal civil-rights groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center.

After the case was dismissed, the Civil Rights Commission began investigating the Obama administration’s actions.  The administration ordered the career attorneys who had worked on the lawsuit to remain silent and not comply with the Commission’s investigation (contrary to federal law, which mandates that “all Federal agencies shall cooperate fully with the Commission“), and refused either to comply with the Commission’s subpoenas, or to bring a motion to quash the subpoena (which is the appropriate step to take if a subpoena is somehow invalid).  This left the subpoena and one of the career lawyers “in limbo” and in apparent violation of the law, forcing him to run up thousands of dollars in legal bills.  (The other lawyer was transferred to the civil-service equivalent of Siberia to take him “out of reach of the subpoena power of the Civil Rights Commission.”)

Justice Department attorney J. Christian Adams, who helped bring the lawsuit, “resigned in obvious disgust” at its dismissal and the administration’s stonewalling.  The other career lawyer most responsible for bringing the voter intimidation case, former Voting Rights Section Chief Christopher Coates, has a liberal pedigree: he was formerly with the “Voting Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union.”  Yet both Coates and Adams have been depicted as “right-wing activists“ by “liberal media outlets“ and unnamed Obama administration officials–apparently because those officials “don’t believe the voting rights laws should ever be enforced against blacks and other minorities.”

(The idea that the civil rights laws do not protect whites or apply to minorities was rejected by a unanimous Supreme Court ruling in 1976, in an opinion authored by the black justice and civil-rights icon Thurgood Marshall.  See McDonald v. Santa Fe Trail Transportation Co. There are limited to exceptions to bans on race discrimination for affirmative action, but they do not apply to voting, as the Supreme Court made clear in its 7-to-2 ruling in Rice v. Cayetano (2000).  In his 2008 campaign, Obama promised “change,” and apparently that change includes a departure from basic legal norms that even liberal judges like Thurgood Marshall, and liberal lawyers like Christian Adams and Christopher Coates took for granted.  If you want to work in the Obama Justice Department, you had better disagree with the Supreme Court.)

“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.” But Obama’s political appointees at the Justice Department overruled them, dropping the case after victory was already assured because “the court had already entered a default judgment against the” Black Panthers. Thanks to that outrageous decision, the only result of the case was a meaningless injunction telling one of the three defendants not to commit such crimes again (and telling him not to commit such crimes only until 2012, and not barring him from committing such crimes in his home city, but rather barring such crimes only in Philadelphia).

As the Washington Times notes,

The Voting Rights Act is very clear. It prohibits any ‘attempt to intimidate, threaten or coerce’ any voter or those aiding voters. The explanation for moving to dismiss the case is shocking. According to the Department of Justice: ‘These same Defendants have made no appearance and have filed no pleadings with the Court. Nor have they otherwise raised any other defenses to this action. Therefore, the United States has the right … to dismiss voluntarily this action against the Defendants.’ In other words, because the defendants haven’t tried to defend themselves, the Justice Department won’t punish them. By that logic, if a murderer doesn’t respond to the charges, he should be let free. That’s crazy. The Obama Justice Department did take one action against one of the four defendants: It forbade him from again ‘displaying a weapon within 100 feet of any open polling location’ in Philadelphia. Given that it already was illegal to display a weapon at a polling place and that he was not even enjoined from carrying a weapon at polling places outside of Philadelphia, it is hard to see what this order accomplished. We asked the Justice Department if it was unable to provide any explanation for dropping the case. Justice press aide Alejandro Miyar merely said: ‘That is correct.’ Multiple times we asked both the department and the White House to comment on charges that the dismissals represented political bias. We received no substantive response. Hans Von Spakovsky, a legal scholar at the Heritage Foundation and a former commissioner at the Federal Election Commission, tells us, ‘In my experience, I have never heard of the department refusing to take a default judgment… . If a Republican administration had done this, it would be front-page news and every civil rights group in the country would be screaming about it.’ Consider that the behavior of the defendants was so bad that witness Bartle Bull, a former Robert F. Kennedy organizer who did extensive legal work on behalf of black voters in Mississippi, testified it was “the most blatant form of voter discrimination I have encountered in my life.’ Eric Eversole, a former litigation attorney with the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, told us: ‘It is truly unprecedented for the Voting Section to voluntarily dismiss a case of such blatant intimidation. The video speaks for itself.’ We couldn’t agree more. After the 2000 Presidential election, Democrats complained about voter intimidation in Florida by pointing to a police car that had been two miles away from a polling place. The police didn’t do anything to anyone, but their presence was deemed sufficient to vaguely intimidate people en route to the polls. In this case, the New Black Panther Party actually blocked access to a poll. Unlike the Florida incident, this case involving the New Black Panthers screams out for tough justice. Instead, the Obama administration looks the other way. This all but invites racial violence at future elections.

In 2008, Obama disingenuously complained about the supposed “politicization” of the Justice Department under Bush. But Obama has politicized the Justice Department far more than Bush was accused of doing. Obama’s Justice Department has given a green light to unconstitutional bills pushed by liberal congressmen that even liberal Justice Department attorneys have conceded are unconstitutional. It has been deafeningly silent about blatant voter fraud and voter intimidation committed by black officials, chronicled in a ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. And it did little to prevent violations of the voting rights of overseas soldiers and sailors that may have tipped election results in the Minnesota Senate race (which provided the deciding vote in the Senate for passage of the costly new health care law) and the New York special Congressional election.

Senator seeks to cover up report showing Honduras acted legally in removing authoritarian ex-president

by Hans Bader on October 29, 2009

in Features, International, Legal, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Sanctimony, Zeitgeist

The Obama administration and congressional allies like Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) are seeking to silence government lawyers who point out their mistakes and misinterpretations of the law:

“A month ago, the Law Library of Congress reviewed the removal of Manuel Zelaya from his post as President of Honduras, an act that the Obama administration called a ‘coup’ and demanded reversed for its illegality.  To the embarrassment of the White House and State Department, the Congressional body determined that Honduras acted lawfully in removing Zelaya for his crimes against their constitution, although they determined that his exile broke Honduran law.  Now John Kerry wants the Law Library to retract its findings, apparently trying to rewrite history to hide the facts of the case.”

Earlier, the Obama administration overruled career justice department lawyers in voting rights and voter intimidation cases, to give a green light to unconstitutional legislation, and protect an Obama poll-watcher and Democratic Party official from being held accountable for wrongdoing.  Obama also fired an inspector general for uncovering wrongdoing by a prominent Obama supporter.

Contrary to what Senator Kerry claims, there are many legal commentators who say that Honduras’s removal of ex-president Manuel Zelaya was legal — and thus, not a coup.

The ex-president’s removal was perfectly constitutional, say many lawyers and foreign policy experts, including attorneys Octavio Sanchez, Miguel Estrada, and Dan Miller, former Assistant Secretary of State Kim Holmes, Stanford’s William Ratliff, and The Wall Street Journal’s Mary Anastasia O’Grady.

Former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, a lawyer, says that Honduras’s removal of Zelaya from office was legal, although its exiling of him was not.

Honduras removed ex-president Zelaya after he systematically abused his powers: he sought to circumvent constitutional term limits, used mobs to intimidate his critics, threatened public employees with termination if they refused to help him violate the Constitution, engaged in massive corruption, illegally cut off public funds to local governments whose leaders refused to back his quest for more power, denied basic government services to his critics, refused to enforce dozens of laws passed by Congress, and spent the country into virtual bankruptcy, refusing to submit a budget so that he could illegally spend public funds on his cronies.

Journalists nonsensically refer to Honduras’s removal of its ex-president as a “coup” even while admitting that it was approved by the country’s supreme court. But if it was legal, by definition, it cannot be a coup, since a coup is defined as “the unconstitutional overthrow of a legitimate government by a small group.”

Moreover, the ex-president’s removal was not a “coup” because it was not committed by a “small group,” as the definition of “coup” requires. The removal of Honduras’s president was supported by the entire Honduran Supreme Court, an almost unanimous Honduran Congress, and much of Honduran society. Honduras did not lose its government, but merely replaced one illegitimate part of it: its overbearing president. And his removal from office (as opposed to his subsequent exile) was clearly legally justified.

Law professors like James Lindgren, Jonathan Adler, Glenn Reynolds, and William Jacobson have also criticized the administration’s position on Honduras.

By levying sanctions on Honduras, and refusing to recognize its current government, the Obama administration has destabilized the country, one of the poorest in Latin America, resulting in mass layoffs leading to 65% unemployment among workers at small and medium-size enterprises in Honduras.  Vulnerable social groups in Honduras, like orphans, have suffered especially acutely, and malnutrition has risen.

While attacking Honduras’ democratically-elected Congress and Supreme Court for their role in removing and replacing the country’s ex-president and would-be dictator, the Obama administration has paid little attention to human-rights abuses in countries ruled by dictatorships.  Those countries include Guinea, where troops recently committed mass rapes against women in broad daylight; Niger, where the president recently turned himself into a dictator; Iran, where vast numbers of pro-democracy demonstrators have been tortured or killed; and Nicaragua, right next door to Honduras, where the unpopular president, who routinely engages in vote fraud, is busy trampling on constitutional term limits in order to turn himself into a president-for-life.

Hillel: Justice Department’s fear of Google book publishing is misplaced

by Gary Howard on July 23, 2009

in Economy, Features, Legal, Tech & Telecom, Zeitgeist

In yesterday’s San Jose Mercury News, CEI Policy Fellow Jonathan Hillel talks about the Justice Department’s antitrust investigation into the Google Search Settlement. Read it here.

Afraid of Google taking over the world? The Justice Department seems to be. It recently confirmed its antitrust investigation into the Google Book Search Settlement, citing “public comments expressing concern” as impetus for the inquiry. European Union officials have also started sniffing around.

These concerns are misguided, and outmoded antitrust regulation will stunt the growth of the emerging book search market.

Commission Asks Justice Department Why Pro-Obama Thugs Got Away With Menacing White Voters

by Hans Bader on June 22, 2009 · 1 comment

in Bailout Watch, Culture, Economy, Features, Legal, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Stimulus to Nowhere, Zeitgeist

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is demanding to know why the “Obama Justice Department took the unusual action last month of dismissing a default judgment against the New Black Panther Party in connection with a case of voter intimidation on Election Day on November 4, 2008. Members of the NBPP were caught on film blocking access to the polls and physically and verbally intimidating voters, even going so far as to wield a nightstick in front of voters and poll watchers. The Justice Department’s lawyers gathered evidence, obtained the affidavit of former civil rights advocate Bartle Bull, and filed a complaint. When the defendants did not respond and the court invited the Justice Department to file a default judgment, the case was inexplicably withdrawn.”

By dismissing the case, political appointees in the Obama Justice Department blocked action against a racist, anti-semitic hate group whose members included an Obama poll-watcher and city democratic official, who used racial epithets and physical intimidation to drive white voters away from a polling place in Philadelphia last year.

Even as it engages in costly, unauthorized, illegal auto bailouts, and a monumentally-costly stimulus package that will shrink the economy “in the long run,” the Obama Administration is abdicating core federal responsibilities like enforcing the voting-rights laws.

The Obama Justice Department has also rubberstamped unconstitutional legislation, failed to protect the voting rights of American servicemen, and been deafeningly silent about a liberal black political boss in Mississippi who prevented voters from casting ballots and engaged in vote fraud.

Today, the Supreme Court permitted more local governments to “bail out” of the “preclearance” provisions of the Voting Rights Act, which the Obama Justice Department is using to block states from requiring proof of citizenship to vote, and to force race-based redistricting. (The Obama Justice Department recently blocked Georgia’s attempts to prevent illegal alien voting by requiring voter ID).

Obama Justice Department Protects Racist, Anti-Semitic Hate Group and Anti-White Voting Rights Violators

by Hans Bader on June 2, 2009

in Legal, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Sanctimony

Members of the New Black Panther Party, one of whom was an Obama campaign poll watcher and local democratic official, used nightsticks and racial epithets captured on videotape to drive voters away from the polls in a Philadelphia precinct. But the Obama Administration killed a successful lawsuit against these criminals, dismissing it after career Justice Department lawyers had already obtained victory in the case, as a former Justice Department lawyer, the Philadelphia Bulletin, and a newspaper editorial note. (The New Black Panther Party, which attacks what it refers to as “bloodsucking Jews,” is recognized as a racist, antisemitic hate group even by liberal civil-rights groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center).

“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.” But Obama’s political appointees at the Justice Department overruled them, dropping the case after victory was already assured because “the court had already entered a default judgment against the” Black Panthers. Thanks to that outrageous decision, the only result of the case was a meaningless injunction telling one of the three defendants not to commit such crimes again (and telling him not to commit such crimes only until 2012, and not barring him from committing such crimes in his home city, but rather barring such crimes only in Philadelphia).

As the Washington Times notes,

“The Voting Rights Act is very clear. It prohibits any ‘attempt to intimidate, threaten or coerce’ any voter or those aiding voters. The explanation for moving to dismiss the case is shocking. According to the Department of Justice: ‘These same Defendants have made no appearance and have filed no pleadings with the Court. Nor have they otherwise raised any other defenses to this action. Therefore, the United States has the right … to dismiss voluntarily this action against the Defendants.’ In other words, because the defendants haven’t tried to defend themselves, the Justice Department won’t punish them. By that logic, if a murderer doesn’t respond to the charges, he should be let free. That’s crazy. The Obama Justice Department did take one action against one of the four defendants: It forbade him from again ‘displaying a weapon within 100 feet of any open polling location’ in Philadelphia. Given that it already was illegal to display a weapon at a polling place and that he was not even enjoined from carrying a weapon at polling places outside of Philadelphia, it is hard to see what this order accomplished. We asked the Justice Department if it was unable to provide any explanation for dropping the case. Justice press aide Alejandro Miyar merely said: ‘That is correct.’ Multiple times we asked both the department and the White House to comment on charges that the dismissals represented political bias. We received no substantive response. Hans Von Spakovsky, a legal scholar at the Heritage Foundation and a former commissioner at the Federal Election Commission, tells us, ‘In my experience, I have never heard of the department refusing to take a default judgment… . If a Republican administration had done this, it would be front-page news and every civil rights group in the country would be screaming about it.’ Consider that the behavior of the defendants was so bad that witness Bartle Bull, a former Robert F. Kennedy organizer who did extensive legal work on behalf of black voters in Mississippi, testified it was “the most blatant form of voter discrimination I have encountered in my life.’ Eric Eversole, a former litigation attorney with the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, told us: ‘It is truly unprecedented for the Voting Section to voluntarily dismiss a case of such blatant intimidation. The video speaks for itself.’ We couldn’t agree more. After the 2000 Presidential election, Democrats complained about voter intimidation in Florida by pointing to a police car that had been two miles away from a polling place. The police didn’t do anything to anyone, but their presence was deemed sufficient to vaguely intimidate people en route to the polls. In this case, the New Black Panther Party actually blocked access to a poll. Unlike the Florida incident, this case involving the New Black Panthers screams out for tough justice. Instead, the Obama administration looks the other way. This all but invites racial violence at future elections.”

In 2008, Obama disingenuously complained about the supposed “politicization” of the Justice Department under Bush. But Obama has politicized the Justice Department far more than Bush was accused of doing. Obama’s Justice Department has given a green light to unconstitutional bills pushed by liberal Congressmen that even liberal Justice Department attorneys have conceded are unconstitutional. It has been deafeningly silent about blatant voter fraud and voter intimidation committed by black officials, chronicled in a ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. And it did little to prevent violations of the voting rights of overseas soldiers and sailors that may have tipped election results in the Minnesota Senate race and New York special Congressional election.

Crucial Military Votes Excluded in New York Special Election

by Hans Bader on April 3, 2009 · 13 comments

in Legal, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Sanctimony

The outcome of a special Congressional election in New York’s 20th Congressional District will likely turn on the illegal exclusion of up to 1,000 overseas military ballots, which otherwise would have tipped the race in favor of James Tedisco (R). Tedisco and Scott Murphy (D) are in a dead heat, with 77,225 votes each.

Democrats on the state elections board blocked GOP attempts to allow overseas military voting in the special election. Overseas ballots take weeks to reach voters and be returned unless special measures are taken to speed things up. But the elections officials refused to do anything to speed things up, or mail the ballots out early enough. The result is that perhaps 90 percent of the ballots will be tossed in the trash without ever being counted. (Military ballots are cast mostly for Republican candidates).

The exclusion of these ballots violates a federal law known as UOCAVA, but the Justice Department filed only a “Potemkin Village” lawsuit in response, seeking a brief, cosmetic extension of time for returning the ballots — an extension that will result in only a handful of the wrongfully-excluded military ballots being counted. The Justice Department could easily have sought and obtained broader, more meaningful relief, as it did on several occasions during the Bush Administration. But it didn’t want to, for partisan political reasons.

So much for Obama’s campaign promise to defend “the right of every American to vote.” (Obama’s Justice Department is also not interested in protecting the voting rights of white people denied the right to vote by black political bosses in predominantly-black counties).

This is just one facet of the continuing politicization of the Justice Department, which is now blessing unconstitutional bills that even liberal legal scholars admit violate the plain language of the Constitution.

And it is reflects just one broken promise in a long line of broken promises from Obama. Obama has violated his campaign pledge of a “net spending cut” through an unprecedentedly-large federal budget that will generate $4.8 trillion in increased deficits, a trillion-dollar toxic-asset program, and an $800 billion, economy-shrinking “stimulus” package.

And Obama’s promise not to raise taxes in “any form” on anyone making less than $250,000 per year has been broken by his SCHIP excise tax increase and his proposed $2 trillion cap-and-trade carbon tax.

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