'Particularly in voting, that will be the case for the next
few years, no doubt about it'
Posted: June 30, 2010
3:29 pm Eastern
© 2010 WorldNetDaily
A leading Department of Justice attorney
who quit his job after over the Obama administration's
refusal to prosecute Black Panthers who intimidated voters outside polls during the 2008 election claims the administration has
ordered the DOJ not to pursue voting
rights cases against black people.
In an interview today, J. Christian Adams, former DOJ attorney
and now a contributor at Pajamas Media, told Fox News, "There is a
pervasive hostility within the Civil
Rights Division of the Justice Department toward these sorts of cases."
Asked whether there is a specific Justice Department policy
against pursuing cases where the defendant is black and the victim is
white, Adams replied, "Particularly in voting, that will be the case for
the next few years. No doubt about it. If you had all the attorneys who
worked on this case here, I am quite sure that they would say the exact
same thing."
When Fox News asked Adams who has issued that mandate, he said,
"There are some things I'm not going to reveal. They know who they are.
They said if somebody wants to review these kinds of cases, it's not
going to be done out of the Civil Rights Division. If the U.S. attorney
wants to do it, that's up to them, but it's not going to happen in the
Civil Rights Division. … It's a political appointee."
He added, "This is one of the examples of Congress not being told
the truth and the American people not being told the truth about this
case. It's one of other examples in this case where the truth simply is
becoming another victim in the process."
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As
WND reported, the Justice Department originally brought the case
against four armed men who witnesses say derided voters with catcalls of
"white devil" and "cracker" and told voters they should prepare to be
"ruled by the black man."
One poll watcher called police after he reportedly saw one of the
men brandishing a nightstick to threaten voters.
"As I walked up, they closed ranks, next to each other," the
witness told Fox News at the time. "So I walked directly in between
them, went inside and found the poll watchers. They said they'd been
here for about an hour. And they told us not to come outside because a
black man is going to win this election no matter what."
He said the man with a night stick told him, "'We're tired of
white supremacy' and he starts tapping the nightstick in his hand. At
which point I said, 'OK, we're not going to get in a fist fight right
here,' and I called the police."
Officials with Judicial Watch, which investigates and prosecutes
government corruption, filed a lawsuit seeking the government's
documentation about the case. Likewise, the U.S. Commission on Civil
Rights has opened an active investigation
into the DOJ dismissal.
The 2008 election incident in Philadelphia has appeared on video
on YouTube:
As WND
reported, two men, Minister King Samir Shabazz and Jerry Jackson,
wearing paramilitary uniforms and armed with a nightsticks, blocked a
doorway to a polling location to intimidate voters. Shabazz is leader of
the Philadelphia chapter of the New Black Panther Party.
The Justice Department's complaint was under Section 11(b) of the
Voting Rights Act of 1965 against four defendants: the New Black
Panther Party for Self-Defense and its leader, Malik Zulu Shabazz, and
the two men who appeared at the Philadelphia polling place Nov. 4, 2008.
The complaint accused them of attempting to engage in, and engaging in,
both voter intimidation and intimidation of individuals aiding voters.
A federal judge ordered default judgments
against the Panthers after party members refused to appear in court. The Washington Times reported the
Justice Department was seeking sanctions when Loretta King, acting
assistant attorney general who had been granted a political appointment
by President Obama in January 2009 to temporarily fill the position,
ordered a delay in the proceedings. According to the report, the ruling
was issued after King met with Associate Attorney General Thomas J.
Perrelli, the department's No. 3 political appointee, who approved the
decision.
Even though DOJ lawyers had won the case, it was suddenly
dropped.
"The case was dismissed on May 15, [2009]," Adams told Fox News.
"All the charges were dropped against three of the defendants and the
final order against one of the defendants was a timid restraint."
Only one of four defendants faced punishment: a temporary
injunction against appearing at Philadelphia polls with a weapon. The
department stopped at the injunction and didn't call for criminal
penalties, monetary damages or other civil penalties.
"We were ordered to dismiss the case," Adams said. "I mean, we
were told drop the charges against the New Black Panther Party."
The Department of Justice said it made a decision based on the
evidence that the case could not go forward.
Reacting to Adams' statement the DOJ told Fox News:
The department sought and obtained an injunction against
the Black Panther who had a nightstick at the polling station. After a
thorough review, the facts did not support the case against the other
defendants in the case. It is not uncommon for attorneys within the
department to have good-faith disagreements about the appropriate course
of action in a particular case, although it is regrettable when a
former department attorney distorts the facts and makes baseless
allegations to promote his or her agenda.
But Adams said high-ranking DOJ officials did not review the facts of
the case nor the briefs before making that call.
"It's obviously false that they knew all the evidence," he said.
"Steve Rosenbaum hadn't even read the memos which detailed all of the
facts and the law. Before he started arguing against the case the mind
was made up."
Adams said career DOJ lawyer Chris Coates believed in the merits
of the case and opposed "corruption of this sort." He confronted Steve
Rosenbaum, a DOJ lawyer in the civil rights division.
"It was so derelict and so corrupt that Chris Coates actually
threw the memo at Steve Rosenbaum and said, 'How dare you make these
arguments without even knowing what's in the briefs?'"
In a commentary published in the Washington
Times, Adams wrote, "Based on my firsthand experiences, I believe
the dismissal of the Black Panther case was motivated by a lawless
hostility toward equal enforcement of the law. Others still within the
department share my assessment. The department abetted wrongdoers and
abandoned law-abiding citizens victimized by the New Black Panthers."
He added, "If the actions in Philadelphia do not constitute voter
intimidation, it is hard to imagine what would, short of an actual
outbreak of violence at the polls. Let's all hope this administration
has not invited that outcome through the corrupt dismissal."
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