Freedom Line Blog

Below is a section of the IG report on the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, amply confirming longstanding allegations by Christian Adams, Chris Coates, Hans von Spakovsky, and others that the division is full of people who are openly hostile to the very notion that civil rights laws merit race-neutral enforcement. The section is chilling.

B. Treatment of Members of the Noxubee Case Team (2006-07)

As discussed in detail in Chapter Three, in 2006 the Voting Section filed

a complaint under Sections 2 and 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act against the

Noxubee County (Mississippi) Democratic Election Committee and its

chairman, Ike Brown. The Noxubee case was developed and litigated by thenSpecial Litigation Counsel Christopher Coates along with two trial attorneys

and an intern. This was the Department’s first lawsuit under Section 2 of the

VRA against Black defendants alleging denial or abridgment of the rights of

White voters on account of race. Numerous witnesses told us that there was

widespread opposition to the Noxubee case among the Voting Section career

staff because it was being brought against Black defendants on behalf of White

voters. We found that as a result of their hostility to the Noxubee case, some

career staff harassed a Black Voting Section intern who volunteered to travel to

Mississippi to assist the trial team, and mocked Coates for his work on the

case.

The intern told the OIG that two career Voting Section employees made

disparaging comments directly to him about his involvement in the trial. In

particular, the intern recalled being questioned directly and indirectly about

why he participated in this trial and told the OIG that Voting Section personnel

made comments like: “You know why they asked you to go down there,” “They

used you as a token,” and “People are saying, ‘Why did you go down there?’”

According to a memorandum drafted by Section management summarizing the

incidents, the intern told a Section manager that the Voting Section employees

informed him that someone who was attending the trial was reporting his

activities and, therefore, the employees knew exactly where he was sitting in

the courtroom and what he did at the trial.

Section Chief Tanner subsequently announced that files on one of the drives would be locked

to prevent employees from accessing such documents without permission. It appears that the

decision to lock the computer files most likely resulted from the discovery of what the team

member had done. However, we were unable to question Tanner regarding this matter because

he refused to be interviewed by the OIG.

121

B. Treatment of Members of the Noxubee Case Team (2006-07)

As discussed in detail in Chapter Three, in 2006 the Voting Section filed a complaint under Sections 2 and 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act against the Noxubee County (Mississippi) Democratic Election Committee and its chairman, Ike Brown. The Noxubee case was developed and litigated by thenSpecial Litigation Counsel Christopher Coates along with two trial attorneys and an intern. This was the Department’s first lawsuit under Section 2 of the VRA against Black defendants alleging denial or abridgment of the rights of White voters on account of race. Numerous witnesses told us that there was widespread opposition to the Noxubee case among the Voting Section career staff because it was being brought against Black defendants on behalf of White voters. We found that as a result of their hostility to the Noxubee case, some career staff harassed a Black Voting Section intern who volunteered to travel to Mississippi to assist the trial team, and mocked Coates for his work on the case.

The intern told the OIG that two career Voting Section employees made disparaging comments directly to him about his involvement in the trial. In particular, the intern Read more…

That headline seems to be the upshot of a little-noticed July 23 ruling by federal judge Reggie Walton — confirming what many of us have been saying and writing for well over two years now. The official in question is longtime trouble-making Civil Rights Division chief Thomas Perez. Hans von Spakovsky explains.

At a hearing before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights on May 14, 2010, Perez was asked by Commissioner Peter Kirsanow whether “any political leadership [was] involved in the decision not to pursue this particular case?” Perez’s answer, on page 79 of the transcript of that hearing is an uncategorical “No.” When the statements of Perez are compared to the documents that Judicial Watch forced DOJ to release in the FOIA lawsuit, Judge Walton was polite when he said they are contradictory and “cast doubt on the accuracy” of Perez’s account.

A less diplomatic judge might have said that Perez testified falsely in his hearing testimony before the Commission on Civil Rights. In other words, he may have committed perjury if he knew his statements were false when uttered.

The Commission on Civil Rights repeatedly asked Attorney General Holder to appoint a special counsel to investigate the handling of the NPBB case by the Department and the refusal of Perez to comply with lawful documents requests and subpoenas served on DOJ by the Commission. When will the Attorney General do so, and when will he ask for an investigation of this possible perjury by Perez?

This case has been a travesty all along — and all along, the Department of Justice has been giving false stories about what happened. There will be lots more to say about this in the days ahead.

Hans von Spakovsky had an eye-opening piece this past week at Pajamas Media about horribly abusive prosecution by the legal thugs in the Obama/Holder Justice Department, led by chief legal thug and mendicant Thomas Perez at the Civil Wrongs, er Civil Rights, Division.  It seems as if DoJ is trying to prosecute entirely peaceful protesters outside abortion clinics, with zero evidence of criminal behavior. Read all about it at the link above. I’ve written numerous times about these lawless goons at DoJ. So has Hans. I repeat: They are a menace to a free society.

The rot in the Obama/Holder Justice Department, especially in its Civil Rights Division, is a particularly important topic to me, and a big sore spot (as well as a threat to the constitutional order).

Thus I was particularly aghast to see the New York Times the other day run a truly bizarre story attempting, somehow, to show that the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice has been wonderfully de-politicized by the Obamites.  The story is bizarre because the facts cited within the article show precisely the opposite.

Here’s how the NYT (via reporter Charlie Savage) frames the story:  “Under the Obama administration, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has reversed a pattern of systematically hiring conservative lawyers with little experience in civil rights, the practice that caused a scandal over politicization during the Bush administration.” The Times then goes to great lengths to explain that those hired by the Obama team came from law schools with higher “ranks” than did the Bush hires (“more selective law schools,” in another description), and that those hires had far more “experience in civil rights.”

Bosh.

Having a “background in civil rights” is a self-defining criterion — as defined by the Left.  As the story itself explained it, the definition of “civil rights” experience is self-limiting, because it encompasses (only) “traditional civil rights organizations with liberal reputations, like the American Civil Liberties Union or the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.”

Of course, all sorts of right-leaning organizations also are concerned with civil rights, as are lawyers in private firms who fight against absurd actions by these liberal groups that purport to be in favor of “civil rights” but that in conservative understandings actually undermine civil rights.  If one defines “experience in civil rights” as encompassing only lefty versions of civil rights, then, of course, more Obamite hires will show such “experience” on their resumes. But that does NOT mean that they are the only ones who have done legal work dealing with civil rights issues.

Here are the key facts, dutifully reported by the Times but buried and spun so that the real import is hidden:

At the same time, there was a change in the political leanings of organizations listed on the résumés, where discernible. Nearly a quarter of the hires of the Bush group had conservative credentials like membership in the Federalist Society or the Republican National Lawyers Association, while only 7 percent had liberal ones.

By contrast, during the first two Obama years, none of the new hires listed conservative organizations, while more than 60 percent had liberal credentials. They consisted overwhelmingly of prior employment or internships with a traditional civil rights group, like the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Look at that again. Not one single new hire for a “career” position by the Obamites had any prior conservative associations. Not one. If that isn’t a sign of true politicization, nothing is.  There is quite literally no way that an apolitical hiring practice could fail to snag at least a single conservative, from 120 hires, in a nation that is majority center-right and with a very large conservative plurality.

If the establishment media had an ounce of intellectual integrity — yeah, I know, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride — then this report would be treated as a major scandal.

This topic merits far lengthier exposition and discussion, but for now suffice it to say that a Civil Rights Division that absolutely excludes conservatives is a sign of viewpoint discrimination that itself should trigger a civil rights investigation — and investigation into the Civil Rights Division itself, one which ought to take some real scalps, starting with that of flagrantly dishonest division chief Thomas E, Perez.

Meanwhile, in sad news that further indicts the DoJ, Hans von Spakovsky writes that whistleblower Christopher Coates, with a tremendous amount of terrific “civil rights experience,” effectively has been hounded out of the Justice Department that he has served with great distinction for nearly two decades.  This comes after he first was, in effect, banished from Washington, all for the sin of trying to enforce laws against racist New Black Panthers to the letter of the law.

Today at the Wall Street Journal, Dorothy Rabinowitz was referring more to the terrorism-related actions/inactions of DOJ than to the other Civil Rights Division problems when she wrote that a good Republican candidate for president “would do well to give time and all due detail—the material is rich—on the activities of the Justice Department under President Obama, the most ideologically driven one in U.S. history. He would make the connection between the nature of this Justice Department and the president’s view of the American nation.” But her advice applies across the board, including and especially to the Civil Rights Division.

NRO today reports the amazing news, via this blog post by Roger Clegg and Hans von Spakovsky, that the Atlanta J-C’s columnist Cynthia Tucker is having second thoughts about racial gerrymandering. Glory be! The big question is, will the rest of the Left follow suit, thus enabling all of us to end this pernicious practice even though the Obama-Holder Justice Department remains radically wedded to it and to related legal stances? Abigail Thernstrom wrote a great piece (one of many on this topic she has written through the years) at NRO last month.

I have been writing on this and related Voting Rights Act Section 5 issues for at least ten years now (I think even longer), and for what it’s worth I thought I’d share some of those pieces (some of which I acted as lead drafter of, on behalf of full editorial boards, whose opinions they represent rather than being my own personal columns). Here and here and here and here and here are some of them. Oh, and if you read ANY of them, please read this one, because it addresses the issue most directly.