Asked at a civil rights commission hearing in May whether any of the department's political leadership was "involved in" the decision to dismiss the Panthers case, assistant attorney general for civil rights Thomas E. Perez said no.
"This is a case about career people disagreeing with career people,'' said Perez, who was not in the department at the time. He also said that political appointees are regularly briefed on civil rights cases and, whenever there is a potentially controversial decision, "we obviously communicate that up the chain."
Justice Department records turned over in a lawsuit to the conservative group Judicial Watch show a flurry of e-mails between the Civil Rights Division and the office of Associate Attorney General Thomas Perelli, a political appointee who supervises the division.
"Where are we on the Black Panther case?" read the subject line of a Perelli e-mail to his deputy the day before the case was dropped. Perelli, the department's No. 3 official, wrote that he was enclosing the "current thoughts" of the deputy attorney general's office, the No. 2 official.
Perelli's staff brought the matter to Holder's attention before the department dropped the charges, other documents show. Holder did not make the decision, officials say.
And why was that? As BooMan reminds us, the case was brought by the Bush-era justice department originally, and the goal of its civil rights division was to "up the number" of cases filed by white voters against minorities as part of the GOP's political shop.
A joint report filed by the Office of the Inspector General and the Office of Professional Responsibility found that Brad Schlozman, who had been appointed to run the division, along with von Spakovsky and Tanner, regularly considered political affiliation when hiring career attorneys. According to the report, Tanner in particular complained that prior to the Bush appointees removing safeguards against politicized hiring, you had to be a "civil rights person" to work in the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. In 2007, then-Sen. Barack Obama blocked von Spakovsky's nomination to the Federal Election Commission saying von Spakovsky was "directly involved" in efforts to "disenfranchise voters" and "politicize" the Voting Rights Section.
A Government Accountability Office report released in December confirmed what veteran civil-rights lawyers who left the division over the past eight years had feared -- during the Bush administration, enforcement of civil-rights laws in employment discrimination, voting, and hate crimes fell across the board. It wasn't just about the cases: The racial atmosphere in the division was so hostile toward African Americans that by 2007, almost all the black lawyers in the division had left.
The NBPP case was just one of the "mountain out of a molehill" cases that Bush DoJ filed in order to go after minority voters. Everything in the Bush administration was political. Everything...including the civil rights and voting rights sections of the DoJ.
Still so much Bush garbage to clean up in this country. It will take decades.
As BooMan reminds us, the case was brought by the Bush-era justice department originally, and the goal of its civil rights division was to "up the number" of cases filed by white voters against minorities as part of the GOP's political shop.
ReplyDeleteDo you know how many cases of voter intimidation were handled by the DoJ against black politicians between the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 and before the Noxubee County, MS case in 2005? 0, as in none. As was shown in Noxubee County, it isn't as if some white voters didn't have a legitimate complaint; it was that up until then the DoJ ignored those complaints.
So what you say is absolutely wrong. Prior to 2005, The DoJ wasn't enforcing the law in the manner required by the Constitution; that is, the DoJ was enforcing the 1965 Voting Rights Act as if it were a bill of attainder, completely politicizing the process. The Bush-era Civil Rights Division of the DoJ took the politics out of the 1965 Voting Rights Act by enforcing it equally, as prescribed by the 14th Amendment.
The NBPP case was just one of the "mountain out of a molehill" cases that Bush DoJ filed in order to go after minority voters.
There are five corroborating statements, two of which are in the form of testimony given under oath, indicating a much bigger problem which came to light out of the NBPP case. It also means that the report mentioned by BooMan is itself politicized garbage. Liberals want to maintain the status quo of enforcing the 1965 Voting Rights Act as an unconstitutional bill of attainder, and will throw out the "race card" when threatened to apply the law in a Constitutional manner; that is, equally.
By the way, you and BooMan should read the actual law. It states clearly that both intimidation and attempted intimidation are illegal. The NBPP clearly attempted to intimidate voters, poll workers, and poll watchers.
Facts have no importance in your worldview, do they? Florida in 2000? What about the rather obvious work to tamp down the Democrat vote in Ohio in 2004? Oh, those are overblown or completely fabricated, right?
ReplyDeleteWhat you're doing is referred to by psychiatrists as "projection". Whenever you talk about how uninterested liberals are in real debate or (your concept of) the truth, you're talking about yourself. I'm wrong? What do you do here other than disagree with every single thing that Zandar writes? You don't come to this or any other liberal blog for a real exchange of ideas, you come to let liberals know that they are wrong about EVERYTHING.
You are the worst kind of demented partisan lunatic. And like almost all genuinely crazy people, you haven't got the slightest idea how ridiculous you are.
Facts have no importance in your worldview, do they?
ReplyDeleteI actually did cite facts, in case you care to re-read my comment. Everyone of those items I mentioned in in the WaPo piece Zandar linked to.
Florida in 2000?
You mean where Al Gore tried to steal the Presidential election? He and his Democrats did everything they could to disenfranchise Florida voters, those members of the military who were serving overseas, just as the Democratic DoJ is doing today. Then Gore tried to get the activist Florida judiciary to change the law in order to illegally keep the recount going. Did you forget that part? That was the crux of Bush v. Gore. Perhaps you forgot the Washington gubernatorial election stolen by Gregoire or the Minnesota senate election stolen by Stuart Smalley.
What about the rather obvious work to tamp down the Democrat vote in Ohio in 2004? Oh, those are overblown or completely fabricated, right?
Yes, it was overblown.
What do you do here other than disagree with every single thing that Zandar writes?
I'm presenting facts against the evidence-free assertions presented by Zandar. If Zandar can show where what I wrote is invalid, I'd be happy to discuss it.
No, I'm not "projecting". You are doing a fine job of it though.
"Just like Al Gore tried to steal the election in 2000"?
ReplyDeleteReally?
Your tinfoil hat is showing, Stevey.
He is an utter lunatic, completely divorced from reality and unable to even comprehend why.
ReplyDeletePS: interesting that he chose not to mention the nearly 100,000 people thrown off the rolls by Jeb Bush in the run-up to the 2000 election. Guess that didn't happen. Moron.
ReplyDeletePS: interesting that he chose not to mention the nearly 100,000 people thrown off the rolls by Jeb Bush in the run-up to the 2000 election.
ReplyDeleteSee what I mean? You are projecting. Plus, you are accusing the administration of former Gov. Bush of doing its job under Sec. 8 of the 1993 National Voter Registration Act (specifically subsections (c) and (d)); this is called following the law. The Obama DoJ has no interest in enforcing the law (see pages 13 through 16 of this PDF).