Bill Clinton's former Deputy
Attorney General, has been named Attorney General. Holder
was involved in the pardon of Marc Rich, the Democratic donor who
had fled the country to avoid prosecution on 51 counts of tax fraud and
was not eligible for a pardon under Justice Department guidelines.
Rich's ex-wife, Denise, was a major contributor to Clinton campaigns and to
the Clinton library fund -- and probably one of Clinton's bimbos.
Mr. Holder's recommendation to pardon circumvented normal procedures and
kept other Justice Department lawyers in the dark. A congressional
committee described his conduct as "unconscionable."
Then there was Holder’s
involvement in the Elian Gonzalez case in 2000. It was Holder, for
the first time in history, that took a child from his residence at the
point of a gun to enforce his custody position, even though he did not
have an legal order authorizing it.
Holder denied that Gonzalez was taken at the point of a gun. When he
was confronted with the fact that there was a photograph showing he was
taken at the point of a gun,
Holder defended himself, saying "They were armed agents who went in
there who acted very sensitively."
Holder also
argued that members of a terrorist organization should get clemency.
He was grilled in Congress after the Clinton Administration
pardoned FALN terroristsbefore leaving office.
This testimony on the Clinton pardons of the 16
FALN terrorists took place in front of the Senate Judiciary
Committee.
Chairman Orrin Hatch grilled Holder because the FALN
terrorists never even requested clemency... And,
the Clinton Administration never even contacted the victim's families.
Then Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder and the pardon attorney
continued to invoke the president's executive privilege throughout the
testimony. (video)
Attorney General Of The United
States Of America
Eric Holder's Baffling KSM Decision
David Beamer says that on Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee
met to question Attorney General Eric Holder about his decision to
prosecute Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others in criminal courts
rather than military tribunals. As the father of Todd Beamer,
who died on United Airlines Flight 93, I was able to attend that
hearing. What transpired caused me great concern and shook my
confidence in Obama's administration.
The committee, chaired
by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.), displayed the division in our
country not only visually -- the Democrats were seated on the left
and the Republicans on the right -- but in every aspect of the
proceedings. I expected that some members would agree with Mr.
Holder and that others would have challenging questions about his
decision. What I did not anticipate was the level of
partisanship showed by the Democrats. It seemed clear to me
and other family members of victims that party loyalty is trumping
concern for America's security interests.
In his opening
remarks, Attorney General Holder acknowledged that these defendants
could have been brought to trial in civilian court or before
military tribunals. But he made the argument that trying them
in our criminal courts would restore the integrity of our judicial
system. He assured us that the trials would be quick, that the
safety of New Yorkers would be paramount, that classified
information would not be revealed, that the evidence was
overwhelming, and that justice would be served.
Then he said that the USS Cole attackers would be tried in military
courts since they attacked our military. So how does Mr.
Holder categorize the Pentagon? Inexplicably, he offered up
the body count of 9/11, the fact that civilian deaths outnumbered
military ones, as a rationale for his decision.
Then the
Republican members proceeded to ask Mr. Holder thoughtful questions.
Some examples:
How can we be assured that these enemies will
be found guilty? Given that criminal courts are now the
presumed venue for those captured on the battlefield, will soldiers
need to read them their rights at the time of capture? Since
you wish to make exceptions on a case-by-case basis to the presumed
civil venue, don't all those captured need to be read their rights
and have the opportunity to remain silent? Won't this venue
expose intelligence to our enemies? Can our classified
information really be secured? Can we in fact predict how the
judge will rule? If these people are brought into the country
will they get additional rights under immigration law? What if
they claim asylum?
The attorney general seemed bewildered in
the face of these inquiries. Recurring themes in his responses
included, "I think," and "I can't imagine," and "I am not an expert
in immigration."
Has our attorney general not considered
these issues, or imagined the possible unintended consequences that
will arise from his historic decision? It certainly seemed
that way. If he had, he would have had better answers.
Holder
assures us that the trials will be quick, and that the safety of New
Yorkers would be paramount. However, NY's slimy Sen. Schumer
surely doesn't believe it. He
wants $100 million to cover the costs of the trail and security.
And, anybody that believes
this decision, to provide KSM with all the rights and protections of
an American citizen, was made by Eric Holder has their head up their
address.
Obama's fingerprints are all over this. He's
just doing what he said he would do for a brother, "I will stand
with them should the political winds shift in an ugly direction."
Did U.S. Attorney General
Secretly Counsel Land?
The affidavit of Mr. Robert D. Douglas, dated Sept.
26, sworn before Mr. Lamar Rozier, notary public in the state of
Georgia, Bacon County, submitted in support of Attorney Orly Taitz’s
latest Motion of Recusal against Judge Clay D. Land.
His
affidavit reads as follows:
BEFORE ME, the undersigned Notary, Lamar
Rozier
on this 26th day of September, 2009, personally
appeared Robert D. Douglas, known to me to be a credible person and
of lawful age, who being by me first duly shown on his oath deposes
and says:
On the day of he hearing for Major Stephan Cook
before Federal Judge Clay D. Land, Columbus, Ga., my wife, my wife’s
sister, her husband and I had entered the little coffee shop
directly across from the Court House while waiting for the doors to
open to the public. I was sitting in the small seating area,
set aside for their customers, while facing and looking directly at
the entrance to the shop. All persons entering had to pass withing
8-10 feet from where I was sitting.
I looked up and
immediately recognized an individual entering and approaching the
serving counter, due to his well known TV displayed distinguishing
features: his trim upper lip mustache, not large of stature and
general olive complexion. I knew instantly it was non other
than Eric Holder, the current Attorney General of the United States.
I called this to the attention of those present and all agreed it
appeared to be who I readily recognized. He entered unguarded,
no accompanying entourage and probably thought he would not be
recognized.
Red flags went up immediately in my mind and the
questions remain, as yet. Why does the Attorney General of the
United States need to be present in an obscure hearing well of his
beaten path? Could it possible be, since Holder did not
present himself in open court, he may have had a little "whisper in
the ear" to a Federal Judge in order to bias his judicial vision and
adhere to the President’s agenda of obstruction?
Only Judge
Clay D. Land can answer those question.
Robert D. Douglas
[address redacted]
Holder’s presence is not that unbelievable, because quite
contrary to the logic of their position Obama supporters have
consistently shown irrational passion to defend Obama from what they
claim are ridiculous charges.
Indeed, the lengths
Obama’s supporters will go to deny the facts, can be seen from one
comment at The Right Side of Life, where it is claimed that this
affidavit, transcribed above, has not been submitted as evidence on
Judge Land’s Docket. Also in the comment section of TRSOL article, there
is a link to Holder’s schedule for the day, which leaves a seemingly 18
hour window between 9PM July 15th, and 3 PM, July 16th, Eastern Daylight
Savings Time.
Eric Holder Meets
With CAIR
Debbie Schlussel says
Politico’s Josh Gerstein posted a "scoop" -- which wasn’t a scoop at
all, since she broke the story
seven and
nine months ago. And, of course, Politico’s partner in
promotion and denying proper credit where it’s due, Matt Drudge,
followed suit linking to the unoriginal piece.
The story was ostensibly about Attorney General Eric Holder speaking
to a group of left-wing interest groups, including
CAIR, but it was mostly about how the group regularly meets with the
FBI, including CAIR-Michigan Executive Director Dawud Walid (DS
exclusive reporting: real name, Delano Anthony Willis, Jr., who has
quite a rap sheet). This, as the story notes, violates the FBI
claim they won’t meet with the extremist CAIR -– the Council on American
Islamic Relations. But, hello . . ., I reported months ago that
they were still
meeting with each other and that the embargo/boycott/ban was bogus.
Phony. A lie. A fraud. Fiction.
The FBI is still meeting with CAIR. CAIR-Michigan was
still meeting with the FBI as part of a larger "dialog" group of
Arabs and Muslims.
Is Holder Stonewalling New Black Panther
Inquiry?
Congressman Frank Wolf (R-Va.), a Philadelphia
native, and House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member, Lamar Smith
(R-Texas) sent a letter, on November 10, to Attorney General Eric Holder
requesting information about the Justice Department’s inquiry into
the sudden and unusual dismissal of voter intimidation charges against
the New Black Panther Party.
The congressmen are concerned that
the Justice Department (DOJ) is using the investigation as a means to
continue stonewalling Congress in this matter. It has been three
months since DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility initiated an
investigation at the request of Smith and Wolf.
Yet, despite
repeated requests made during the past three months DOJ has not provided
Congress with a clear explanation for why the Civil Rights Division
dismissed the complaint.
According to Messrs. Smith and Wolf,
"Congress and the American people must have confidence that the
Department’s Voting Rights Act enforcement is free of improper political
motives … it is important for Congress, in furtherance of its oversight
obligations, to receive answers before the end of this year -- before we
enter a political season" so that voters can be assured that voter
intimidation will not be tolerated.
Justice Department attorneys
filed charges in January against three individuals and the New Black
Panther Party for allegedly threatening voters at a poll in Philadelphia
during last November’s presidential election. The Justice
Department effectively won the case when the defendants declined to
appear before the court and challenge the charges.
Yet, when the
Obama administration took control of the Justice Department, the case
against the Democratic Party’s political ally was suddenly dropped.
There were no new facts or evidence to justify the decision. The
impression that politics played a role in the decision has been a source
of concern for Rep. Wolf who has been a strident defender of voting
rights.
Not only has Congress made unanswered inquiries into this
matter, so too has the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. The
Commission’s chairman, Gerald Reynolds, sent a letter on September 30 to
Mr. Holder saying the responses were "overdue" and asking for
"Department officials to fully cooperate" with the Commission’s
investigation as required by federal law.
Mr. Reynolds noted that
the Commission still has not received any of the documents they
requested in their initial June inquiries. He said this
information is needed because the Commission is responsible to
investigate voting rights deprivations and evaluate federal enforcement
of federal voting rights laws. They want to form an independent
opinion about DOJ’s enforcement actions and the potential impact on
future voter intimidation enforcement. It may also try "to
determine whether any decisions in the case were induced or affected by
improper influences."
As of this date, neither members of
Congress nor members of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission have called for
a special prosecutor to be appointed to investigate the matter.
ACORN and Justice
Department Plot Thickens
Following the courageous
expose by two young investigative journalists released on the
pages of this very blog, there were widespread calls for a U.S.
Department of Justice investigation into the
criminal enterprise that is ACORN. One would
think there would be swift, decisive action from the administration that
promised to be the most transparent in history. Despite the
urging
of some in congress and
action on the regional level, and an
internal investigation into funding,
terrorist sympathizer U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder
refuses to appoint a special prosecutor to oversee a criminal
investigation of ACORN. There’s no evidence that any internal
investigation is ongoing or making any progress since a 2008
request from Indiana’s Secretary of State.
Instead, Obama’s political arm is
attempting to dismiss it as a "fear campaign" while
ACORN insinuates that it is racist. Yes, they are still playing
that card.
What’s Holder’s hold-up? One major factor of course is that
ACORN serves as a taxpayer-funded Democrat army.
As with unions, it behooves Democrats to ignore
corruption amongst the ranks of the powerful forces that
elect them. What appears on the surface to be mere
political payback for a job well done is in fact much more insidious.
One family’s involvement with ACORN and the Obama administration is of
particular interest and elucidates the complicated web of connections
and cash behind ACORN and Obama.
Meanwhile, ACORN is
suing
the federal government, saying that Congress violated the U.S.
Constitution when it barred the group from receiving federal funds --
only in America!
Cover-Up At The Obama-Holder Justice Department
Paul Mirengoff
directs us to this Washington Times
editorial that updates the growing scandal at the Obama-Holder
Justice Department over the New Black Panther case. As the Times reminds
us, that case involves paramilitary-garbed Panthers caught on videotape
engaged in intimidating activities outside a Philadelphia polling booth
on Election Day 2008. A judge was ready to enter a default judgment
against the Black Panthers, based on a case brought by career Justice
Department attorneys, but the Obama administration decided last spring
to drop three of the four cases and punish the final one with only a
weak injunction.
Now the Justice Department is attempting to
cover its tracks on this matter. Thus, last week it ordered two key
career attorneys not to comply with a subpoena about the case issued by
the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. The Commission has the power to
issue subpoenas, and the law requires that "all federal agencies shall
cooperate fully with the Commission." The Justice Department, however,
is citing its own regulations as a basis for ignoring the subpoena.
The career DOJ attorneys are caught in the middle. According to the
Times, one of them has been advised by his personal attorney that
failure to comply with the subpoena could put him at risk of
prosecution, although presumably not during the tenure of the Obama
administration.
In addition, congressional Republicans are
accusing Thomas Perez, head of the Civil Rights Division, of not telling
the truth while under oath. Perez testified before Congress that, in the
case of the one New Black Panther thug against whom charges were not
dropped, "the maximum penalty was sought and obtained." That penalty,
says the Times, consisted of an injunction barring him from brandishing
a weapon near a polling place, within Philadelphia, through Nov. 15,
2012.
It's difficult to imagine that this was the maximum
penalty available, and the Times maintains that it was not. First, the
injunction could have been broader geographically and could have run for
a longer period of time. Second, if DOJ had sought a criminal
indictment, Title 18, Section 245 of the U.S. Code provides that those
found guilty of voter intimidation "shall be fined under this title, or
imprisoned not more than one year, or both."
The more the
Obama-Holder Justice Department covers up and dissembles, the more
traction this story is likely to get. And the chances are not
inconsiderable that Republicans will obtain congressional subpoena power
at some not too distant point in the future. But perhaps the truth is
sufficiently damaging that merely delaying it from being revealed is
well worth the price.
The
brothers are all sticking together on this one. Malik Shabazz, the racist leader of the New
Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, defended Attorney General Eric H.
Holder Jr. and a decision by the Justice Department to drop a voter
intimidation suit against the group.
The Dove That Dare Not Speak Its Name
Scott at Powerline blog has a
comment, or two, on Chris Wallace's interview of Deputy National
Security Adviser John Brennan on FOX News Sunday this morning. The
interview transcript will be posted on
RealClearPolitics this
afternoon. At the moment I'm writing from memory.
In the middle of the interview Wallace asked Brennan why the
administration was treating Nigerian terrorist bomber Umar Abdulmutallab
as a criminal defendant rather than an enemy combatant. Wallace
referred to the fact that Abdulmuttalab had reportedly been cooperating
with authorities until he obtained a lawyer.
Brennan declined to challenge the premise of the question, but he
talked a bit around the question. He stated that Abdulmutallab was
apprehended in Detroit. He referred to the treatment of Richard
Reid and others by the Bush administration as criminal defendants.
He asserted that Abdulmutallab might start talking at a later date when
it may serve his interest in the criminal process. He emphasized
that the determination regarding Abdulmutallab's treatment was made by
the Department of Justice.
Eureka! The DoJ determination takes us back to the
administration's treatment of Khalid Sheik Mohammed as a criminal
defendant. No reason of law or justice, history or tradition,
supports the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed et al. in federal court. Indeed, as Thomas Sowell observed, it is something of
an obscenity.
Cloaking Khalid Sheikh Mohammed et al. with the constitutional
protections afforded American citizens comes at a steep price. In the
case of Omar Abdulmutallab the cost is foregone intelligence regarding
the planning of future attacks on American citizens.
Why is the Obama administration paying the price? In his interview
with Wallace, Brennan simply stated and reiterated the conclusion. Missing is any statement of the rationale that supports the conclusion. The Obama administration is stalwart in its refusal to articulate the
rationale supporting the treatment of particular perpetrators as
criminal defendants rather than enemy combatants.
Attorney General Holder's
announcement of the "forum decisions for
10 Guantanamo Bay detainees" likewise lacked the statement of a
rationale. Addressing KSM et al., here is what Holder said:
I am confident in the ability of our courts to
provide these defendants a fair trial, just as they have for over 200
years. The alleged 9/11 conspirators will stand trial in our justice
system before an impartial jury under long-established rules and
procedures....
[M]y decision as to whether to proceed in federal
courts or military commissions was based on a protocol that the
Departments of Justice and Defense developed and that was announced in
July. Because many cases could be prosecuted in either federal courts or
military commissions, that protocol sets forth a number of factors --
including the nature of the offense, the location in which the offense
occurred, the identity of the victims, and the manner in which the case
was investigated -- that must be considered. In consultation with the
Secretary of Defense, I looked at all the relevant factors and made case
by case decisions for each detainee.
In his announcement Holder never got around to articulating the
rationale or applying it to the cases. He left the rationale unstated. It is, you might say, the dove that dare not speak its name.
At the conclusion of his announcement Holder stated: "For over two
hundred years, our nation has relied on a faithful adherence to the rule
of law to bring criminals to justice and provide accountability to
victims."
But the United States has never tried enemy leaders responsible for
acts of war in civilian courts. Never before in American history has the
United States brought its martial enemies to trial in a civilian court
and cloaked them with the protections of the United States Constitution.
Someone in a position to do so really ought to question responsible
administration officials such as Holder and Brennan in a forum designed
to secure a full statement of reasons accounting for the
administration's actions.
Brennan, who
estimated Al-Qaeda had several hundred members in Yemen, also said,
"indications [are] al-Qaida is planning to carry out an attack against a
target" in the capital, possibly the embassy, so the U.S. and Britain
bravely locked up their embassies in Yemen on Sunday
-- at least they won't be able to
issue any visas for jihadists.
However, Brennan
doesn't consider Yemen a second front with Afghanistan and Pakistan in
the fight against terrorism, and when asked if U.S. troops might be sent
to Yemen, he said, "We're not talking about that at this point at all."
However, he pledged to provide the Yemeni government with "the
wherewithal" to take down al-Qaida.
Brennan's statement, "He emphasized
that the determination regarding Abdulmutallab's treatment was made by
the Department of Justice," is a lie. The AG can't order the
Secretary of Defense to do anything. They are peers. Obama
made the decision, and everyone knows it.
When Holder said, "In consultation
with the Secretary of Defense, I looked at all the relevant factors and
made case by case decisions for each detainee," it was clear to both men
that Obama had given Holder the Authority to make those decisions.
And the fact that the Attorney General
of the United States of America has declared illegal combatants,
terrorist, as "criminals" is insane.
Do you know why John Brennan is Obama's Deputy
National Security Adviser? Brennan is the guy who
sanitized Obama's passport
file.
Voter Intimidation Case To Judiciary Committee
The Bulletin (Philadelphia) is
reporting that Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) continues to try get answers
from the Obama Justice Department about a
voter intimidation case in
Philadelphia. The incident which occurred during the 2008
presidential election was summarily dismissed by Eric Holder's office.
He has stonewalled efforts to
learn why ever since.
Mr. Wolf took his case to the House
Judiciary Committee. He has introduced a measure that would
require the committee to deal with the issue.
He also announced
that he had language inserted in the annual spending bill that funds the
Justice Department requiring that its Office of Professional
Responsibility provide the results of the investigation it is conducting
surrounding the dismissal the case to the House Appropriations
Committee. Mr. Wolf, the top Republican on the
Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations subcommittee, and Rep. Lamar
Smith (R-TX), the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, requested
the investigation earlier this year.
Mr. Wolf introduced a
Resolution of Inquiry last Wednesday and it has been referred to the
House Judiciary Committee. Under House rules, committees must take
action on resolutions of inquiry within 14 legislative days.
Wolf’s resolution directs the U.S. attorney general to provide Congress
will "all information" relating to the decision to dismiss the case.
The committee must vote the resolution up or down.
Despite
writing six requests to the attorney general six times Wolf has yet to
receive a response. He also has written DOJ’s inspector general
seeking answers.
Holder has also
ignored repeated inquiries from the U.S Civil Rights Commission.
The Commission's Chairman is outraged by Holder's actions.
Mr.
Wolf's said that he did not want to take such a drastic measure.
However he was forced to do so since Attorney General Holder is flouting
the law.
"I regret that Congress must resort to oversight
resolutions as a means to receive information about the dismissal of
this case," Mr. Wolf said in a written statement, "but the Congress and
the American people have a right to know why this case was not
prosecuted.... This House must not turn a blind eye to the attorney
general’s obstruction. He has an obligation to answer the legitimate
questions of the House and the Civil Rights Commission. It is
imperative that we protect the right of all Americans to vote -- the
sacrosanct and inalienable right of any democracy."
Justice
Department attorneys filed charges in January 2009 against three members
of the New Black Panther Party for allegedly threatening voters (video)
at a poll in Philadelphia during last November’s presidential election.
The Justice Department effectively won the case when the defendants
declined to appear before the court and challenge the charges.
Yet, when the Obama administration took control of the Justice
Department (DOJ), the case was suddenly dropped against two of the three
members after they already received a judgment against all three.
According to those familiar with the case there were no new facts or
evidence to justify the decision. The impression that politics
played a role in the decision has been a source of concern for Rep. Wolf
who has been a strident defender of voting rights.
This is an outrageous case.
Obama and Holder have been running interference for the brothers since
January 21, 2009.
From the Washington Times: The Justice
Department told the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights to drop dead
yesterday. The growing controversy is over a voter-intimidation case
involving the radical New Black Panther Party and why Justice is
carrying water for the villains. The department's intransigence
should frighten Congress because Justice is asserting broad privileges
that undermine congressional authority to oversee government's executive
branch.
The Justice Department is out of control. If
this power grab doesn't trigger a congressional investigation, Congress
is admitting it is no more than a body of lapdogs, fetching slippers for
their executive masters. --
more.
Crotch-Bomber Not Interrogated
Flopping Aces reports that the Obama Administration did not
interrogate the Crotch Bomber for
intelligence to stop future attacks -- the attack was treated nearly
entirely as a criminal matter!
Shocking information came from
Wednesday’s Senate hearings with the Administration’s top intelligence
and homeland security officials. At the top of that list was the
admission that Nigerian would be bomber Abdulmutallab had been
interrogated with an eye towards criminal prosecution by local FBI
officials. He was not interrogated by intelligence specialists
with an eye towards collecting key information that could prevent future
attacks. And after Abdulmutallab was given his Miranda rights, he
stopped talking altogether.
Just who it was at the Dept. of
Justice who made these decisions is not clear. Republican Senate
Leader Mitch McConnell (KY) has demanded answers but none have been
forthcoming. At Wednesday’s hearing Director of National
Intelligence Dennis Blair, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, National
Counterterrorism Center Director Michael E. Leiter and Homeland Security
Secretary Janet Napolitano told lawmakers that they were not consulted
about the charging decision.
Late breaking news from the White
House briefing by Robert Gibbs fingers Attorney General
Eric Holder as the culprit in
deciding that the Crotch Bomber would be
treated as a criminal and not as a terrorist.
It was also learned
that a special unit to interrogate prisoners for intelligence value
which Obama promised in his first days in office would replace the CIA’s
program of enhanced interrogations is not even operational and was not
used.
Byron York says it seems like a pretty simple question. Who
made the decision to charge Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the accused
terrorist arrested for trying to blow up a Northwest Airlines jet on
Christmas Day, as an everyday criminal, as opposed to an enemy
combatant?
After all, Abdulmutallab was trained by al Qaeda,
equipped with an al Qaeda-made bomb, and dispatched by al Qaeda to bring
down the airliner and its 278 passengers. Even though the Obama
administration has mostly abandoned the term "war on terror," Obama said
clearly that the United States is at war with al Qaeda. So who
decided to treat Abdulmutallab as a civilian, read him the Miranda
warning, and provide him with a government-paid lawyer -- giving him the
right to remain silent and denying the United States potentially
valuable intelligence that might have been gained by a military-style
interrogation?
This week that simple question -- Who? -- became
more complicated after several of the administration's top
anti-terrorism officials testified on Capitol Hill. The director
of the National Counterterrorism Center, Michael Leiter, said he wasn't
consulted before the decision was made. The director of National
Intelligence, Dennis Blair, said he wasn't consulted, either. The
secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, said she wasn't
consulted. And the head of the FBI, Robert Mueller, said he wasn't
consulted.
Jennifer Rubin says Eric Holder is botching the war on terror.
Attorney General Eric Holder has been the Obama administration’s
point man in revising the nation’s approach to terrorism. Holder
said last summer that it was his decision to reinvestigate CIA
operatives who had employed enhanced interrogation techniques during the
Bush administration, although these individuals had been cleared by the
Justice Department’s career prosecutors. It was Holder’s call,
Obama said, to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) in a New York courtroom
rather than before a military tribunal. And Holder, in a letter
this past week, took responsibility for the decision to mirandize the
Crotch Bomber, Umar Farouk
Abdulmutallab, and classify him as an ordinary criminal defendant rather
than an enemy combatant.
There is doubt whether Holder was
acting independently in all these critical decisions, and whether the
White House would not, at the very least, have weighed in. Either
way, Holder has become the Obama’s Achilles' heel, a lightning rod for
critics and a headache for supporters.
Defending his KSM
decision, Holder appeared ill-prepared in Senate testimony last
November. A fumbling attorney general was stumped by Senator
Lindsey Graham’s questions probing what other enemy combatant seized on
foreign soil had been tried in federal court. The answer, after a
painful pause, was supplied by Graham: There has never been one.
Nor did Holder rule out Mirandizing Osama bin Laden if he were captured.
It is not merely poor preparation that has plagued the nation’s top
law enforcement figure. As New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg,
and a bipartisan parade of senators came forward objecting to KSM’s
trial in Manhattan, it became evident Holder had failed to consult with
city officials before announcing the decision. New York Police
Department Commissioner Ray Kelly revealed, "There was no
consultation...with the police department. That decision was made.
We were informed. Mayor Bloomberg then blasted away: "It
would be great if the federal government could find a site that didn’t
cost a billion dollars... It’s going to cost an awful lot of money
and disturb an awful lot of people... Yeah, and I mean -- the suggestion
of a military base is probably a reasonably good one." Some 18
senators then joined in proposing legislation to block a civilian trial.
Holder, in short, utterly failed to build support for what he
bragged would be the "trial of the century." Even liberal pundits
were left sputtering that Holder had botched what was to be the showcase
for the criminal justice approach to fighting terrorism.
Holder
is now on the hot seat for his decision to mirandize Abdulmutallab,
indict him in federal court, and permit him to remain silent for weeks.
I have
repeatedly opined that the decision was made by Obama, since Holder and
Defense Secretary Gates are peers, and neither one can give the other
directives. The following item has a segment that, to my mind,
clearly indicates Obama is making these decisions.
Holder Admits DoJ Officials Worked For Terrorists
Byron York
says Attorney General Eric Holder says nine Obama appointees in the
Justice Department have represented or advocated for terrorist detainees
before joining the Justice Department. But he does not reveal any
names beyond the two officials whose work has already been publicly
reported. And all the lawyers, according to Holder, are eligible
to work on general detainee matters, even if there are specific parts of
some cases they cannot be involved in.
Holder's admission comes
in the form of an answer to a question posed last November by Republican
Sen. Charles Grassley. Noting that one Obama appointee, Principal
Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal, formerly represented Osama bin
Laden's driver, and another appointee, Jennifer Daskal, previously
advocated for detainees at Human Rights Watch, Grassley asked Holder to
give the Senate Judiciary Committee, "the names of political appointees
in your department who represent detainees or who work for organizations
advocating on their behalf…the cases or projects that these appointees
work with respect to detainee prior to joining the Justice
Department…and the cases or projects relating to detainees that have
worked on since joining the Justice Department."
In his response,
Holder has given Grassley almost nothing. He says nine Obama
political appointees at the Justice Department have advocated on behalf
of detainees, but did not identify any of the nine other than the two,
Katyal and Daskal, whose names Grassley already knew. "To the best
of our knowledge," Holder writes,
...during their employment prior to joining the
government, only five of the lawyers who serve as political
appointees in those components represented detainees, and four
others either contributed to amicus briefs in detainee-related cases
or were otherwise involved in advocacy on behalf of detainees.
Holder says other Obama appointees, like Holder
himself, came from law firms which represented detainees but did no work
on behalf of the terrorist prisoners. But other than Katyal and
Daskal, Holder does not reveal any names of any Obama appointees, nor
does he mention the cases they worked on.
And what are they
recused from, anyway? Very little. Holder writes that Katyal
has not worked on any Guantanamo detainee matters but has participated
in litigation involving detainees who continue to be detained at Bagram
Airfield, Afghanistan and in litigation involving [Ali Saleh Kahlah] al-Marri,
who was detained on U.S. soil." As for Daskal, "she has generally
worked on policy issues related to detainees," Holder writes. "Her
detainee-related work has been fully consistent with advice she received
from career department officials regarding her obligations."
As
for everyone else, Holder lists no names and no cases, but in a
paragraph filled with modifiers, he makes it clear that all the lawyers
who had advocated for detainees are free to work on general detainee
matters.
The senior Department officials referenced
above, like other political appointees who are similarly situated,
have recused from particular matters regarding specific detainees in
which their former firms represent the detainee or another party and
from decisions relating specifically to the dispositions of
particular detainees represented by their former firms. These
recusals pertain to decisions relating to particular matters
involving specific parties who are or have been represented by their
former law firms within the relevant time period. However, as
noted above, these senior officials have been authorized to
participate in policy and legal decisions regarding detainee
matters, in particular matters regarding specific detainees whom
their prior employer did not represent, and in decisions relating to
the disposition of such detainees.
Finally, it is possible that there are more than
nine political appointees who worked for detainees. Holder tells
Grassley that he did not survey the Justice Department as a whole but
instead canvassed several large offices within the organization.
Bottom line: Holder revealed no names beyond the two already publicly
known. He revealed no cases from which Justice political
appointees recused themselves. The letter, which will likely be
interpreted on Capitol Hill as a thumb-your-nose statement, is sure to
anger Republican senators more than satisfy them.
We know that Obama has DoJ
attorneys illegally defending him against the reasonable inquiries of
the American People -- now we find out Holder's attorneys are
representing terrorists -- this is some administration.
DOJ: Department Of Jihad
Investors.com
says the Justice Department employs nine lawyers previously involved
in the defense of terrorist detainees. This is a colossal conflict
of interest. Just whose side are they on?
From the dropping
of a voter-intimidation case
against the New Black Panther Party to the decision to try
9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Muhammed in a
civilian court within blocks of where the World Trade Center once stood,
the actions and attitudes of the Justice Department and Attorney General
Eric Holder toward the thugs and terrorists who threaten us has grown
curiouser and curiouser.
We may now have a clue as to why.
Last November, Sen. Charles Grassley, a member of the Senate Judiciary
Committee, asked the Justice Department how many of its lawyers had
defended terrorist detainees over whom the department holds sway.
Grassley knew from earlier press reports of two such lawyers who
worked on behalf of detainees at the liberal organization Human Rights
Watch. He wanted to know how many more there were. Last
Friday, Holder answered nine.
"To the best of our knowledge,
during their employment prior to joining the government, only five of
the lawyers who serve as political appointees in those components
represented detainees," Holder said in a letter dated Feb. 18.
"Four others contributed to amicus briefs in detainee-related cases
involved in advocacy on behalf of detainees."
So the decision to
Mirandize the Crotch Bomber, Umar
Abdulmutallab, and to quickly get him lawyered up was made by a
department populated by leftist lawyers who believe terror is a law
enforcement matter and who have tried to get off those actively trying
to kill us.
We still have no official answer to what the Justice
Department would do if Osama bin Laden were captured.
"It's like
they're bringing al-Qaida lawyers inside the Department of Justice,"
said Debra Burlingame, whose brother was the pilot of the plane driven
by terrorists into the Pentagon, following KSM's plan.
We still
have not been told all the lawyers' names. Like the detainees they
represented, presumably they have the right to remain silent. So
much for transparency.
Lawyers in private practice are free to
choose their clients and their reasons for defending them. But
these lawyers are in the employ of the American people and have the task
of prosecuting those who try to kill them. Some chose to defend
enemies who are making war on America. We have a right to know who
they are, who their clients were and why they defended them.
Another Far Left Nut
Jim Hoft
says Eric Holder has hired another far left nut.
Jennifer
Daskal (photo)
is a radical far left American lawyer who serves as senior counsel for
Human Rights Watch, and focuses on issues of terrorism, criminal law and
immigration. She is also currently a political hire at Eric
Holder’s Department of Justice, which is seeking to prosecute terror
suspects through the criminal justice system instead of through military
tribunals.
In 2008, Daskal claimed that Khalid Sheikh Mohammad
was tortured and recommended that his guilty plea be thrown out of
court. Now this radical is working for the Obama Administration,
in the Justice department, of all places -- it figures.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others
announced that they plan to plead guilty to conspiring in the
September 11 attacks and related crimes at a hearing before US
military commissions at Guantanamo today. All five defendants face
the death penalty.
"What should have been a major victory in
holding the 9/11 defendants accountable for terrible crimes has been
tainted by torture and an unfair military commissions process," said
Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights
Watch. "These five men are known to have been mistreated and
tortured during their years in CIA custody, including the
acknowledged waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed."
Prior
to their transfer to the US military detention facilities at
Guantanamo Bay in 2006, all five defendants were held for years in
secret CIA detention. Earlier this year, CIA Director Gen.
Michael Hayden acknowledged that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had been
subjected to "waterboarding" -- a form of mock drowning that has
been prosecuted as torture by the United States for more than 100
years. Other defendants are believed to have been subjected to
other abusive interrogation methods such as extended sleep
deprivation, the use of painful stress positions, and forced nudity,
while in CIA custody.
Under the rules of the military
commissions, a judge cannot accept a guilty plea unless he
determines that the plea is voluntary and free of coercion.
Of course, the fact that such a twisted radical is
serving in the Holder Justice Department, surprises no one.
More -- at least 9 Holder Justice officials have previously
represented terrorists.
This Guy Won't Last Long
A Third Former DOJ Official Steps Forward
To Support Adams
Pajamas Media says several former Department of
Justice (DOJ) employees have been in contact with Pajamas Media,
interested in publicly supporting
J. Christian Adams as he comes forward
about the DOJ’s failure to enforce the country’s laws from a
race-neutral perspective.
These former DOJ employees have
expressed a willingness to go on record regarding Adams’
professionalism, excellent performance, and outstanding record of
enforcing the law without racial bias.
Additionally, they would
like to corroborate Adams’ statements about the DOJ, and offer their own
accounts of the DOJ’s hostility to race-neutral law enforcement.
Click
here to read the statements (Updates) of Mark Corallo, former
Department of Justice Director of Public Affairs, and Robert Driscoll,
former Deputy Assistant Attorney General.
Department Of Justice Is Corrupt
The Washington Times
reports the Justice
Department’s decision to file the lawsuit against Arizona comes on the
heels of the re-emergence of accusations that the department’s handling
of the Philadelphia Black Panther voter intimidation case was not
prosecuted due to the racial politics at DoJ, according to a former
lawyer at the Department who testified in front of the Civil Rights
Commission on Tuesday.
While the government’s case against
Arizona does not include issues regarding racial profiling, it appears
some at DoJ, who worked on the Black Panther case, will now be working
on Arizona immigration law case.
"As I was reading through the
complaint of the Arizona case, I did notice some of the names were the
same. The interesting thing here is that you have the Justice
Department within a short period of time dropping a slam-dunk lawsuit
against the New Black Panther Party…and bringing a nearly impossible
claim against the state of Arizona," explained Mr. Kobach.
"So
they drop the slam-dunk, and they’re attempting the half-court shot.
What’s going on here? In both cases, if you’re going to bring one
of the cases, you’re going to bring the Black Panther case, but they
have already conceded defeat," he said.
Mr. Kobach finds it hard
to believe that the government, in the Arizona case, is bringing a case
where there is "not a single precedent in all the federal appellate
court opinions or Supreme Court opinions that support" the case.
"So, they’re doing the legally unwise thing in both instances -- the
legally questionable thing."
The government’s odd behavior in the
legal process does make the co-author of Arizona’s law suspicious,
though, if there is something more political going on at DoJ than what
is being admitted to.
"That tells me there are some very perverse
political forces at work either within the Justice Department, or in the
White House forcing the Justice Department to do this, and I don’t know
which it is, but its really troubling."
Related: The Obama Justice Department
stands accused in the Black Panther case -- racism rules.
We're in terrible trouble when the
Justice Department becomes so blatantly
political.
"Never Bring Another Lawsuit Against a
Black"
Obama Appointee, "Never bring another lawsuit against a black"
(08:34) YouTube
link
Bob Parks
says that not only does Todd Gaziano (Congressional appointee to the
United States Commission on Civil Rights) claim that the 2008 Election
Day voter intimidation charge against the Philadelphia New Black Panther
Party was "open and shut," but that Deputy Assistant Attorney General
Julie Fernandes ordered, "Never bring another lawsuit against a black or
other national minority, apparently no matter what they do."
Like
the Van Jones story, the
ACORN story, and the Charlie
Bolden/Muslim outreach story, this is another example of stories the
ObamaMedia doesn’t want you to know about. And why not?
This
video is longer than most, and contains a couple of previously-seen
snippets, but it is a killer, must-see video. The charges made in
this video will bring down Holder if proven.
Related: Black Panther who
threatened Philly voters is a credentialed Democratic poll watcher and
his interests include "Killing Crakkkas."
Deliberate Nonfeasance At Justice
John Steele Gordon
says if
this article is even half true, it should be a major scandal and
pretty much proof positive that the Obama Justice Department is totally
politicized.
The so-called Motor Voter Law of 1993 (a time when
the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress and the Presidency)
requires states to provide voter registration materials at many state
offices, such as state departments of motor vehicles and welfare
offices. Also, it requires the states to purge their voter rolls
of the dead, felons, people who have moved, and others not eligible to
vote.
According to J. Christopher Adams, who recently resigned
from the DOJ and has been testifying in front of the U.S. Civil Rights
Commission -- which the department had forbidden him to do when he was
an employee, despite a subpoena -- the Deputy Assistant Attorney General
Julie Fernandes told the Voting Rights Section at a meeting that, "We
have no interest in enforcing this provision of the law. It has
nothing to do with increasing turnout, and we are just not going to do
it."
Nothing equivocal about that. Indeed, it’s a plain and
simple statement that the Obama Justice Department intends to commit
nonfeasance regarding the enforcement of this provision of a duly
enacted law. But that, of course, puts Ms. Fernandes and her boss,
Eric Holder, in flat violation of their oaths of office:
I (name), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that
I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States
against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true
faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely
without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I
will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which
I am about to enter. So help me God.
Enforcing the law is, perhaps, the prime duty of
the Department of Justice.
The only reason I can think of why the
DOJ would not want to purge the voter rolls of the names of those
ineligible to vote is to make voter fraud as easy to accomplish as
possible.
Chicago politics indeed.
Deliberate Nonfeasance At Justice
John Steele Gordon
says if
this article is even half true, it should be a major scandal and
pretty much proof positive that the Obama Justice Department is totally
politicized.
The so-called Motor Voter Law of 1993 (a time when
the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress and the Presidency)
requires states to provide voter registration materials at many state
offices, such as state departments of motor vehicles and welfare
offices. Also, it requires the states to purge their voter rolls
of the dead, felons, people who have moved, and others not eligible to
vote.
According to J. Christopher Adams, who recently resigned
from the DOJ and has been testifying in front of the U.S. Civil Rights
Commission -- which the department had forbidden him to do when he was
an employee, despite a subpoena -- the Deputy Assistant Attorney General
Julie Fernandes told the Voting Rights Section at a meeting that, "We
have no interest in enforcing this provision of the law. It has
nothing to do with increasing turnout, and we are just not going to do
it."
Nothing equivocal about that. Indeed, it’s a plain and
simple statement that the Obama Justice Department intends to commit
nonfeasance regarding the enforcement of this provision of a duly
enacted law. But that, of course, puts Ms. Fernandes and her boss,
Eric Holder, in flat violation of their oaths of office:
I (name), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that
I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States
against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true
faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely
without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I
will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which
I am about to enter. So help me God.
Enforcing the law is, perhaps, the prime duty of
the Department of Justice.
The only reason I can think of why the
DOJ would not want to purge the voter rolls of the names of those
ineligible to vote is to make voter fraud as easy to accomplish as
possible.
Chicago politics indeed.
Justice Announces Investigation
Mike Levine is reporting that the Justice
Department's internal watchdog is launching an investigation into the
Justice Department's enforcement of civil rights laws, eliciting praise
from Republicans on Capitol Hill who have been blasting the Justice
Department for months over a controversial voting rights case.
For more than a year, Republicans and others have been questioning why
the Obama administration reversed course on a federal lawsuit against
two members of the New Black
Panther Party, who were videotaped outside a Philadelphia polling
station on Election Day 2008. The two were dressed in
military-style uniforms, and one was holding a nightstick. The
issue escalated in June when a former Justice Department attorney, J.
Christian Adams, alleged it was all part of an Obama administration
policy to avoid prosecuting minorities, an allegation the Justice
Department has strongly denied.
On Monday, the Justice
Department's Inspector General said his office does not have legal
authority or jurisdiction to investigate the handling of the New Black
Panther Party case specifically, but it does have authority to look
"more broadly [at] the overall enforcement of civil rights laws by the
Voting Section," including "information about cases such as the New
Black Panther Party matter and others."
"This review will
examine, among other issues, the types of cases brought by the Voting
Section and any changes in these types of cases over time; any changes
in Voting Section enforcement policies or procedures over time; 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 of prosecution of
particular matters," Inspector General Glenn Fine wrote in a letter to
House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Lamar, R-Tex., and Rep. Frank
Wolf, R-Va., two outspoken critics of the Justice Department's handling
of the New Black Panther Party case. "We believe that our review
of these issues will address many of the issues raised in your recent
letters to me."
In response, Smith issued a statement saying he
was "pleased" to learn that Justice Department investigators will be
looking into the issue.
"Recent allegations of politicization
within the Justice Department raise serious concerns," he said.
"In order to preserve equality under the law, we must ensure that the
Justice Department enforces the law without prejudice. I look
forward to seeing the results of Inspector General Fine’s review of this
matter."
In his letter, Fine emphasized that his office's
unwillingness to look into the New Black Panther Party case is motivated
solely by the law, not "by any hesitancy to investigate the Department's
senior political leadership." In addition, Fine noted that the
Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility, which does
have authority to investigate such a case, is "near the end" of its
investigation into the New Black Panther Party case.
Meanwhile,
the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, led by a conservative majority, has
also been investigating the case.
The Washington Times
says Attorney General Holder can't hide testimony forever.
The Obama Justice Department can put an end to the scandal surrounding
the New Black Panther voter-intimidation case. All Attorney
General Eric H. Holder Jr. would have to do is allow members of his
Voting Rights Section to answer a few simple questions under oath,
without waiving a single legal privilege.
On Friday, the U.S.
Commission on Civil Rights approved two letters to Mr. Holder.
Both ask, again, for more cooperation than the Justice Department has
provided for 16 months. The commission is seeking information
about an alleged "broad culture of hostility to race-neutral enforcement
of the civil rights laws; a pattern of harassment and intimidation
against those who work on suits in which the defendants are racial
minorities; and instructions from a political appointee that basic
voting rights laws will not be enforced against racial minorities during
this administration."
On the Black Panther case, the department
has made stunningly expansive claims that a "deliberative process"
privilege obviates the need for a transparent administration, but
"instructions from a political appointee" carry no such privilege.
They don't involve discussions about how and whether to prosecute
specific cases but instead pertain to broad policy pronouncements.
No valid legal argument could claim such policy choices are exempt from
disclosure to an independent commission, Congress or the public.
Respected Justice lawyers J. Christian Adams (now in private practice)
and Christopher Coates testified under oath that Deputy Assistant
Attorney General Julie Fernandes told employees of the Voting Rights
Section that the department would not enforce certain portions of voting
laws. Mr. Coates said Ms. Fernandes told staff in September 2009,
"the Obama administration was only interested in bringing traditional
types of [Voting Rights Act] Section 2 cases" -- meaning only those that
protected minorities, not ones that protect whites.
According to
Mr. Coates and Mr. Adams, Ms. Fernandes told staffers at a November 2009
lunch meeting, "the Obama administration was not interested" in
enforcing the part of the national "Motor Voter" law requiring states to
remove the names of dead people and felons from their voting rolls.
Mr. Coates further testified that when he wrote a memo recommending the
department act against eight states for failure to abide by this law,
the Holder team ignored it. To this day, Justice has taken no
public action against these states.
This controversy is about the
integrity of the voting process, which is the heart of our
constitutional republic. Mr. Holder would serve the public
interest by permitting Ms. Fernandes to testify under oath and clear her
name, if she has been slandered. Allowing testimony from other
lawyers present at those meetings could help clear up any
misunderstanding about the policies the Obama administration is
pursuing. If the attorney general continues to stonewall
transparency, it looks like he's hiding something.
Jerry Seper is reporting that the Justice
Department's Civil Rights Division Tuesday came out in support of the
construction and expansion of an Islamic mosque in Murfreesboro, Tenn.,
that local landowners and others have bitterly opposed.
A "friend
of the court" brief was filed in a pending lawsuit in state court
against Rutherford County, Tenn. The county had granted permission
for the construction of the $5 million mosque on a 15-acre site.
The move comes in the wake of a bitter national debate in New York City
over a planned mosque and Islamic community center to be built just two
blocks from the Sept. 11 ground zero site.
The Justice
Department's brief argued that Islam is a religion entitled to
protection under the First Amendment, noting that "consistent among all
three branches of government, the United States has recognized Islam as
a major world religion." It also said that Rutherford County
properly determined it must treat the mosque project as it would other
proposals for construction of places of worship.
"A mosque is
quite plainly a place of worship, and the county rightly recognized that
it had an obligation to treat mosques the same as churches, synagogue or
any other religious assemblies," said Assistant Attorney General Thomas
E. Perez, who heads the department's Civil Rights Division.
"This
is not only common sense; it is required by federal law," said Mr.
Perez, who visited Murfreesboro earlier this month to reassure local
Muslims that the department would take seriously any civil rights
violations.
To put this
action into context, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, is
the Justice Department unit that dropped the New
Black Panther case, and has
a policy of enforcing laws
only for
minorities.
Worst Fears About Holder Justice Department
Race Policies Confirmed
Congratulations to the editors at the
Washington Post. Seventeen months after the Eric Holder Justice
Department dismissed a slam-dunk
case against the New Black Panther Party for voter intimidation, the
Post gets around to printing a thorough
vetting of the dismissal. While other media like Breitbart/The
Bigs, Fox News, the Washington Times, the Weekly Standard, Pittsburgh
Tribune Review, Investors Business Daily, Pajamas Media, and Drudge have
had dozens of stories on the corrupt New Black Panther dismissal, the
Washington Post is in the game at last.
The story is a shocker
too. The shock comes from the middle of the road and factual
nature of the story.
There are small problems with the story.
For one, the Washington Post is the only outlet that calls
King Samir Shabazz
by his old "slave name" (Shabazz’s own words) of Maruse Heath.
Even Heath doesn’t call himself Heath. Of course this takes some
of the sting off Shabazz’s rants against Jews and calls to kill "cracker
babies in their crib."
The Post’s decision to change a man’s name
for him is controversial. It has no place.
But overall, the
story is very bad news for Eric Holder. It debunks many of the
myths spun by the administration. Inside DOJ sources describe deep
hostility to protecting whites at Justice. DOJ sources say Panther
prosecutor Christian Adams never allowed his conservative views to
influence his work, contradicting administration spin. And perhaps
most damning of all to Holder, sources defending the administration
defend the idea that whites aren’t protected by the Civil Rights laws.
The latter is the blockbuster news in the Post piece.
The Post
also shatters the false administration spin that only low level career
lawyers had a fight among themselves: "After the Obama administration
took over, high-level political appointees relayed their thoughts on the
case in a stream of internal e-mails in the days leading to the
dismissal." The administration told Congress and the public a lie
for over a year, and now the Washington Post even knows.
The
Post’s Jerry Markon and Krissah Thompson write, "But neighbors said they
view Jackson and Heath -- who declined to comment -- as annoyances
rather than threats." What did you expect the neighbors to say?
The Post has a major revelation, the first on the record
confirmation of the attitude inside the Civil Rights Division that
whites should not necessarily be protected by the civil rights laws:
"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."
This is a startling admission. It is part and
parcel of a wide hostility to protecting whites who are victims of
racial discrimination, as Christopher Coates and Adams alleged all
along. That admission is a major mistake for the administration
and should be made well known before the upcoming election.
Quin Hillyer says
that under attorney general Eric Holder, the Obama Department of Justice
(DOJ) is dangerously politicized, radically leftist, racialist, lawless,
and at times corrupt. The good news is that it's also often
incompetent. This means the Holderites can bungle their leftist
lawlessness so badly that even the most reticent of judges are obliged
to smack them down.
The abuses by the Holderites are legion.
They range from DOJ's infamous abandonment of the already-won
voter-intimidation case against several New Black Panthers to
multi-faceted assaults on traditional standards of voting rights and
obligations; from a growing list of lawsuits deliberately destructive of
border security and citizenship laws to outrageously race-based bullying
tactics; from efforts to undermine military discipline and state
sovereignty on homosexual-related issues to the dangerous obsession with
terrorists' "rights" to the detriment of national security; and,
finally, to the selection of judges openly contemptuous of the existing
law-all while dedicated to a vision of judge-imposed "universal justice"
based not on the text of American statutes but instead on the reigning
cultural standards of coastal and international elites. While
doing all this, the Holderites operate the least transparent DOJ in
decades, treat congressmen and independent agencies with contempt, and
claim breathtakingly spurious "privileges" against disclosure of public
information.
This isn't law enforcement and it isn't justice, but
instead is subversive of both.
The politically moderate blogger
and law professor Ann Althouse, who voted for Barack Obama, wrote a
reaction to a November 2009 Holder testimony before the Senate that
could stand as a far broader condemnation of his qualities.
Holder, she wrote, "is utterly pathetic here. Either he knows
damned well what he's doing and he's lying or he's outrageously
unqualified for his job."
The New Black Panther case, which
concerns the attempts of two club-wielding gang members to intimidate
voters outside voting stations in Philadelphia in the 2008 election,
provides a perfect window into the modus operandi of the Holder Justice
Department, one which has far wider implications than just the question
of whether two crackpot thugs deserved to receive stiff sanctions for
clear, unambiguous attempts at voter intimidation. How clear?
Consider the words of Laughlin McDonald, director of the ACLU Voting
Rights Project. He told me on September 17 that he had not delved
deeply into the case, but had seen the videos and was generally aware of
the controversy: "I thought that that definitely raised very serious
questions about what was going on. I think that if people were
doing the same things while wearing white robes and hoods, most other
people would be outraged by it -- certainly very concerned about the
propriety of it."
Well, of course. Yet all along, the question
asked by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which conducted an
in-depth study of the matter, was a bigger one: whether case was
indicative of a broad policy change at DOJ. Whistle-blowing attorney J.
Christian Adams told the commission it was, and he was backed to the
hilt on September 24 by his former Justice Department colleague (and
onetime ACLU stalwart) Christopher Coates in riveting testimony to the
commission -- and, long before that, backed in general terms by at least
three other former DOJ officials.
What Adams, Coates, and the
others say, and back up with a fair amount of strong circumstantial
evidence combined with firsthand experience, is twofold. Their first
charge is that the Holderites have consciously adopted a practice of
refusing to enforce civil rights laws when the perpetrators are black
(or maybe Latino) and the victims are white (or Asian). It's a charge
certainly in keeping with Holder's own words to the Washington Post in
1996 that a black man's "race defines him more particularly than
anything else. Black people have a common cause that requires attending
to." Mr. Holder elaborated: "It really says that…I am not the tall U.S.
Attorney, I am not the thin U.S. Attorney. I am the black U.S.
Attorney.… There's a common cause that bonds the black U.S. Attorney
with the black criminal or the black doctor with the black homeless
person."
No wonder the Obama administration rushed, just a month
after taking office, to file a brief effectively on behalf of the city
of New Haven, Connecticut, to defend its refusal to promote, on purely
racial grounds, white firefighters who had by objective standards earned
the higher positions. On the same day, the Holder Justice Department
ordered Dayton, Ohio, to hire a specific number of black policemen and
firemen-a racial quota, pure and simple. In an Alabama-based case in
September, meanwhile, a federal judge ridiculed DOJ's clumsy attempt to
dismiss a challenge to the controversial Section 5 of the Voting Rights
Act -- which requires certain jurisdictions, and only those
jurisdictions, to secure "pre-clearance" from the department for any
change in voting procedures, even as small as moving a polling place
from a school gym to the same school's cafeteria. Federal district judge
John Bates wrote that the Holderites were "unable to articulate any
reason" for one of its positions, and that they could "point to no
authority" for another contention. He blasted them for "fishing
expeditions," and wrote that a conclusion in their favor "would be
absurd."
Nothing, though, was more absurd than the Section 5
ruling by Loretta King-one of the chief racialists at DOJ and one of the
major crusaders in favor of dropping the Black Panther case -- that a
black-majority town in North Carolina would not be allowed to hold
nonpartisan municipal elections. Even though the majority of black
precincts in this majority-black town wanted no party affiliations on
the label, Ms. King decided, in effect, that the black townies in
Kinston, N.C., were too stupid to know their own interests. If voters
don't know which candidates are Democrats, she ruled, black voters would
be unable to elect their "candidates of choice" -- who, by her
definition, could only be Democrats.
The Washington Times
believes Obama's Justice Department has gone rogue on civil rights
abuses.
The Justice Department still hasn't explained its
decision to drop most of its voter-intimidation
case against violent Black
Panthers 18 months ago. If the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights
finally adopts its report on the controversy, the great lengths Justice
officials have taken to avoid scrutiny will be exposed.
As the
draft comes up for a vote on Friday, new findings from a Judicial Watch
lawsuit will further eviscerate the lame excuses Justice has offered.
Even in heavily redacted form, department e-mails unearthed last week
show top political appointees not just vaguely reviewing and approving
the decision to drop most of the case, but actually directing and
editing court filings.
This contradicts the department's official
story that the decisions were made by career attorneys who merely
secured pro-forma approval from political superiors. The political
interference alleged by Judicial Watch is part of a larger pattern.
Much of the information included in the Civil Rights Commission draft --
some of it first unearthed by The Washington Times -- details evidence
of a broader politicization of the Justice Department.
According
to the commission draft, which has been circulating for weeks, "The
involvement of senior [Justice] officials by itself would not be
unusual, but the Department's repeated attempts to obscure the nature of
their involvement and other refusals to cooperate raise questions about
what the Department is trying to hide." The report says Justice
has refused the basic step of providing the commission with original
witness statements regarding the Black Panther incident.
The
report also recounts the department's evolving excuses for deep-sixing
the case. At first, senior officials claimed First Amendment
concerns were at play. They weren't. Then Justice claimed
Black Panther Jerry Jackson had a right to be at the polling place
because he lived there. He didn't live there. Next came
dissembling about Jackson being a registered poll watcher, which, of
course, doesn't excuse vulgar threats and voter intimidation.
Finally, it was claimed that Jackson shouldn't be charged because local
police allowed him to stay on-site -- which is immaterial. As the
commission report notes, "local police officers are not charged with
enforcement of the federal Voting Rights Act," nor are they trained to
determine what constitutes a violation.
The commission's report
outlines other areas of concern. This includes an alleged refusal
to enforce some civil rights laws as well as procedural misconduct, such
as repeated claims of extraordinary privileges used to block the
commission from relevant documents and testimony. Thus far, for
example, Justice has gotten away with hiding information on the vague
grounds that it "otherwise would undermine its ability to carry out its
mission." The whole mess is an offense against the concept of open
government.
Under Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., the
Justice Department acts as a law unto itself, defining its own mission
without regard to oversight by any other branch of government.
That's beyond all bounds in a nation of laws.
Holder Fears Terror Attacks
Aaron Klein says in a wide ranging interview,
that Attorney General Eric Holder warned of the immediate need to combat
the threat of homegrown Islamic extremism, stating he is alarmed by the
rise in the number of Americans willing to carry out terrorist attacks.
However, the Obama administration has maintained close
relationships with radical Muslim organizations, many tied to the Muslim
Brotherhood, which seeks to create a worldwide Islamic caliphate.
Al-Qaida, Hamas and other terrorist organizations are offshoots of the
Brotherhood.
Also, Obama and White House officials long have
been accused of minimizing Islamic extremism, including recent attacks
carried out by U.S. Muslims.
Holder told ABC News yesterday: "It
is one of the things that keeps me up at night. You didn't worry
about this even two years ago -- about individuals, about Americans, to
the extent that we now do. And -- that is of -- of great concern.
"The threat has changed from simply worrying about foreigners
coming here, to worrying about people in the United States, American
citizens -- raised here, born here, and who for whatever reason, have
decided that they are going to become radicalized and take up arms
against the nation in which they were born," he said.
Still, the
Obama administration has been legitimizing Islamic organizations of
questionable character.
One of those organizations is the
Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), a radical Muslim group that was
an unindicted co-conspirator in a scheme to raise money for Hamas.
ISNA's extensive relationship with the Obama administration started
even before Obama took office in 2009. One week before Obama's
inauguration, Sayyid Syeed, national director of ISNA's Office for
Interfaith and Community Alliances, was part of a delegation that met
with the directors of Obama's transition team. The delegation
discussed a request for an executive order ending "torture."
ISNA President Ingrid Mattson represented American Muslims at Obama's
inauguration, where she offered a prayer during the televised event.
Mattson also represented ISNA at Obama's annual Ramadan dinners at the
White House, including in August, where Obama expressed support for the
rights of an Islamic organization, the Cordoba Initiative, to build an
Islamic cultural center and mosque two blocks from the area known as
Ground Zero.
Meanwhile, last February, ISNA sponsored a
question-and-answer session with Obama's top adviser on
counter-terrorism, John Brennan. At that session, which took place
at New York University, Brennan announced the Obama administration was
working to calibrate policies in the fight against terrorism that ensure
Americans are "never" profiled.
"We need to be looking at
ourselves as individuals. Not the way we look or the creed we have
or our ethnic background. I consider myself a citizen of the
world," he said.
Brennan told the audience the Obama
administration is trying to "make sure that we as Americans can interact
in a safe way, balance policies in a way that optimizes national
security but also optimizes the opportunity in this country never to be
profiled, never to be discriminated against."
Hey, Holder,
They're not Americans, they're jihadists.
And Obama's
personal spook, Brennan, is
a piece of work. Imagine, announcing he's a citizen of the world
and promising Muslims that they will never be profiled.
And here
I thought Brennan was supposed to be working for us.
Department Of Justice Goes Black
Pamela Geller
has reported extensively on Obama's Department of Injustice (DoJ)
over the past two years. In every case, the DoJ has gone to war
against America. Against the military, against free speech,
against the voter, against the war on jihad, against Arizona and the
protection of our borders, in support of Islamic law (sharia) and as a
proponent of reverse racism ..... the list goes on.
Now, the DoJ
has ditched the red, white, and blue stars and stripes and has gone
black. The move speaks volumes. The U.S. DoJ has changed its
web site. Gone are the patriotic, distinctly proud American red,
white, and blue U.S. flag decorations on the page:
The
new banner contains a rather
interesting quote:
"The common law is the will of mankind,
issuing from the life of the people."
Catchy, huh? Just one tiny little (too small
to be relevant obviously) point -- the quote is from C. Wilfred Jenks,
who in the 1930's was a leading proponent of the "international law"
movement, which had as its goal to impose a global common law and which
backed global workers' rights.'
Call it Marxism, call it
Progressivism, call it Socialism -- under any of those names, it
definitely makes the DoJ look corrupt in their sleek, new black website
with Marxist accessories to match.
How very interesting that
"they" couldn't find a nice quote from one of our Founders.
People, we have lost our Republic. Get it back.
The Investigations Begin
Ben Johnson
says new Congressional leaders have
begun their investigations into the most potent scandal facing the Obama
administration, one that seems destined to expose injustice at the
highest levels of government. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-TX, the new chairman
of the House Judiciary Committee, has opened a probe into the Justice
Department's handling of the Black Panther case in a letter to Attorney
General Eric Holder. Smith is looking into whether the case's dismissal,
and the underlying culture of the department's Voting Rights division,
show a decision to deny justice to a broad category of Americans based
on race. In the five-page letter, Smith writes, "Allegations that the
Civil Rights Division has engaged in a practice of race-biased
enforcement of voting rights law must be investigated by the Committee."
In his sworn testimony before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights,
whistleblower Christopher Coates -- who then headed the Voting Rights
division -- testified to a "deep-seated opposition to the equal
enforcement of the" law "for the protection of white voters." J.
Christian Adams agreed that the department indicated it would not
prosecute cases against a minority defendant on behalf of a white
plaintiff. Coates remembered Julie Fernandes, Obama's Deputy Assistant
Attorney General for Civil Rights, telling DoJ employees "the Obama
administration was only interested in bringing…cases that would provide
political equality for racial and language minority voters."
Four
other employees have spoken of the department's hostility to enforcing
the law against minorities, two having sworn affidavits to that effect.
Smith singled out the another reported refusal by Fernandes in his
letter: an alleged determination not to enforce a provision of the
National Voter Registration Act (known as the "Motor Voter Law")
requiring localities to purge the voting rolls of dead and ineligible
voters. Smith asked if Fernandes opted to "explicitly or implicitly
direct Voting Section staff not to enforce any section of any federal
rights statute."
Fernandes seems to have admitted as much in
public. Discussing that specific section, she publicly stated, "We have
no interest in enforcing this provision of the law. It has nothing to do
with increasing turnout, and we are just not going to do it." (video)
The refusal to enforce any law is troubling in itself. The
well-grounded possibility that the federal government is denying justice
on racial grounds is a fundamental perversion of government that strikes
at the very heart of our national principles. In endorsing an
investigation, National Review‘s Andrew McCarthy wrote, "It is a grave
violation of law for the Justice Department to practice racial
discrimination in deciding which cases it will bring, to determine that
Americans of one race or class are not entitled to the same protection
as all Americans…Under the Constitution, it is Congress's obligation to
stop it."
Congress similarly has the duty to determine where this
policy originated, and whether officials who publicly deny its existence
are guilty of perjury or obstruction of justice. Thomas Perez, the
Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, testified on
May 14 that the decision to drop the case was simply "a case of career
people disagreeing with career people," and that no "political
leadership involved in the decision not to pursue this particular case." However, the watchdog group Judicial Watch has uncovered proof of
significant political involvement in lobbying on behalf of the Panthers. Did Perez commit perjury? If so, how high did the political pressure go? Who handed down the decision to dispense race-based "justice"? How high
does the cover-up of this decision reach? Namely, did Eric Holder or
Barack Obama suborn perjury?
Answering these questions will require vigilance and indefatigable
tenacity. Their answers threaten to blow apart the Justice Department
and possibly uncover an ugly core of racial discrimination at the heart
of the Obama administration.
Holder Is On The Hot Seat In Black Panther
Case
Ben Johnson
says new Congressional leaders have begun their investigations into
the most potent scandal facing the Obama administration, one that seems
destined to expose injustice at the highest levels of government.
Rep. Lamar Smith, R-TX, the new chairman of the House Judiciary
Committee, has opened a probe into the Department of Justice's (DoJ)
handling of the Black Panther
case in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder. Smith is
looking into whether the case's dismissal, and the underlying culture of
the department's Voting Rights division, show a decision to deny justice
to a broad category of Americans based on race. In the five-page
letter, Smith writes, "Allegations that the Civil Rights Division has
engaged in a practice of race-biased enforcement of voting rights law
must be investigated by the Committee."
In his sworn testimony
before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, whistleblower Christopher
Coates -- who then headed the Voting Rights division -- testified to a
"deep-seated opposition to the equal enforcement of the" law "for the
protection of white voters." J. Christian Adams agreed that the
department indicated it would not prosecute cases against a minority
defendant on behalf of a white plaintiff. Coates testified that
Julie Fernandes, Obama's Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil
Rights, telling DoJ employees, "the Obama administration was only
interested in bringing…cases that would provide political equality for
racial and language minority voters."
Four other employees have
spoken of the department's hostility to enforcing the law against
minorities, two having sworn affidavits to that effect.
Smith
singled out the another reported refusal by Fernandes in his letter: an
alleged determination not to enforce a provision of the National Voter
Registration Act (known as the "Motor Voter Law") requiring localities
to purge the voting rolls of dead and ineligible voters. Smith
asked if Fernandes opted to "explicitly or implicitly direct Voting
Section staff not to enforce any section of any federal rights statute."
Fernandes seems to have admitted as much in public. Discussing
that specific section, she publicly stated
in this video,
"We have no interest in enforcing this provision of the law. It
has nothing to do with increasing turnout, and we are just not going to
do it."
The refusal to enforce any law is troubling in itself.
The well-grounded possibility that the federal government is denying
justice on racial grounds is a fundamental perversion of government that
strikes at the very heart of our national principles. In endorsing
an investigation, National Review‘s Andrew McCarthy wrote, "It is a
grave violation of law for the Justice Department to practice racial
discrimination in deciding which cases it will bring, to determine that
Americans of one race or class are not entitled to the same protection
as all Americans…Under the Constitution, it is Congress's obligation to
stop it."
Congress similarly has the duty to determine where this
policy originated, and whether officials who publicly deny its existence
are guilty of perjury or obstruction of justice. Thomas Perez, the
Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, testified on
May 14 that the decision to drop the case was simply "a case of career
people disagreeing with career people," and that no "political
leadership involved in the decision not to pursue this particular case."
However, the watchdog group Judicial Watch has
uncovered proof of significant political involvement in lobbying on
behalf of the Panthers. Did Perez commit perjury? If so, how
high did the political pressure go? Who handed down the decision
to dispense race-based "justice?" How high does the cover-up of
this decision reach? Namely, did the attorney general or the
president of the United States himself suborn perjury?
Answering
these questions will require vigilance and indefatigable tenacity.
Their answers threaten to blow apart the Justice Department and possibly
uncover an ugly core of racial discrimination at the heart of the Obama
administration.
