Items are archived in order of
discovery. Previous years in left column . . .
The Decline Of Justice
Jennifer Rubin got Judge Michael Mukasey to
talk about what has happened to the Department of Justice since he
turned it over to Eric Holder. The result is explosive. Mukasey is a
sober and distinguished judge and lawyer with first-hand knowledge of
many of the relevant facts, so his characterizations should be given
considerable weight. In a nutshell, he says that Eric Holder (presumably
with the blessing of Barack Obama) has politicized the Department of
Justice to a shocking extent. You should
read it all, but here are a few excerpts:
In a far-ranging interview, he candidly
asserts that Holder's conduct in several key respects has been
"amazing." That's not meant as a compliment. ...
In
August 2009, Holder authorized the reinvestigation of CIA operatives
who had employed enhanced interrogation techniques on terrorist
detainees. It had the feel of a witch hunt: Career prosecutors
who investigated the interrogators under the previous administration
had concluded there was no basis for a criminal prosecution. A
year and a half later, the Holder reinvestigation is still dragging
on. "I have to believe that the effect on people involved in
national security is devastating," says Mukasey, "in part because
the cases were closed before." ... Mukasey, moreover, finds it
"amazing" that Holder "conceded he didn't read the [career]
prosecutors' memo" that recommended against prosecution.
With regard to the New Black Panther party controversy ... Mukasey
is flabbergasted that the attorney general would declare in a New
York Times interview that in effect "there is nothing to see."
Mukasey says, "I can't see how he would bring himself to say such a
thing. There are investigations pending" -- by the Justice
Department's inspector general and Office of Professional
Responsibility. The case against the New Black Panthers for
intimidating voters at a Philadelphia precinct in 2008 was already
won when Holder's team ordered the charges dropped; famed civil
rights attorney Bartle Bull deemed it, "the most blatant form of
voter intimidation I've ever seen." Says Mukasey, with a
measure of indignation, "It seems to me you don't whitewash such a
thing."
But,
says
John Hinderaker, that's how it goes at Eric Holder's Department of
Justice. If you threaten voters with a club at a polling place you
are off the hook -- depending on your race, of course. If you are
a CIA agent loyally trying to protect your country, and have already
been cleared of any wrongdoing, Holder reopens the investigation so he
can harass you for a few more years. The politicizing of the
Department by Obama and Holder is a major scandal, but one that has so
far escaped any serious scrutiny.
Witching Hour For Black Panthers
The Washington Times
says the Black Panther
voter-intimidation scandal is approaching the boiling point on four
different burners. Evidence grows that the Justice Department is
using illegitimate means to keep a lid on legitimate investigations.
Because his department can’t be trusted to police itself, Attorney
General Eric H. Holder Jr. needs to appoint a special counsel.
On
Wednesday, Judicial Watch -- a private watchdog -- filed a brief in its
case seeking release of official memoranda, arguing that government
stonewalling, "is about political interference in [Justice’s]
decision-making process and [the department‘s] efforts to avoid public
scrutiny of that interference." Most abused is the "deliberative
process" privilege, which is intended for discussions made before and
during litigation but is being claimed for documents created after the
Black Panther case was concluded.
On Thursday night, Todd Gaziano
of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights protested, "The department
doggedly continues to obstruct this investigation … Even the privileges
that are recognized law (as opposed to being newly invented) are not
valid against the [Civil Rights] Commission." His most significant
revelation is that, "The department‘s own Office of Legal Counsel has
issued at least two opinions, which are binding on the department unless
overruled, that came to the same conclusion."
Holder has been
hiding behind questionable self-investigations made by his own
department. On Wednesday, former Justice attorney Hans von
Spakovsky, now at the Heritage Foundation, challenged the bona fides of
Robin Ashton, the new head of Justice’s Office of Professional
Responsibility. OPR, which investigates ethics charges against
department lawyers, has delayed for 17 months its inquiry into alleged
wrongdoing by officials who dismissed complaints against the Black
Panthers. Von Spakovsky warns Ashton is "completely
untrustworthy," especially regarding allegations of improperly "rifling
through confidential files and documents," and charges Holder and other
bureaucrats with directly compromising the overall OPR investigation.
The final internal review into Justice’s seemingly race-based
decision-making also lies in question. In September, Justice
Inspector General Glenn A. Fine announced he would examine "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 or prosecution of
particular matters." Today, Fine retires from his post with that
examination not even close to being finished. His successor will
be appointed by Obama based on Holder‘s recommendation. That’s
hardly a recipe for investigatory independence.
Collusion Between Justice Department And
ACLU
Patriot Action Network
is reporting that documents obtained by Judicial Watch through a
Freedom of Information request reveal that the Department of Justice
colluded with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) while preparing
its lawsuit against Arizona and the state's immigration enforcement law.
Emails between the two organizations that were obtained by Judicial
Watch revealed information sharing and strategy discussions.
One
email exchange obtained by Judicial Watch involved the leader of the
ACLU's Immigrants' Right Project, Lucas Guttentag, and the Deputy
Solicitor General, Edwin Kneedler. The email exchange revealed
that the two men had met briefly to discuss their respective cases and
discussed district court rules and legal strategies.
Another
email exchange revealed a conversation between ACLU staffers and the
Assistant U.S. Attorney Josh Wilkenfeld who signed the government's
pleadings in the lawsuit against Arizona.
"It is one thing to
share the ACLU’s disrespect for the rule of law but it is quite another
to collude with the organization on a prosecutorial strategy against the
State of Arizona. Frankly, these new documents show it is hard to
tell where the ACLU ends and the Justice Department begins," said
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. "The Obama Justice Department
is supposed to be an independent, nonpartisan law enforcement agency.
Many Americans will be disturbed, though maybe not surprised, to find
that Eric Holder’s Justice Department is colluding with one of the most
leftist organizations in the nation. We know whose 'side' this
Justice Department in on when it comes to the enforcement of our
immigration laws."
More Proof of Unequal Justice from Obama's
Department Of Justice
Ben Johnson
says Barack Obama has provided yet more proof that only his
administration’s allies enjoy the equal protection of the law;
conservatives should expect no right to justice in Obama’s America.
We have learned, from firsthand testimony, that civil rights protections
do not apply when Black Panthers deny white citizens the right to vote.
We have seen that immigration laws do not apply in Arizona. And
the president has made clear he feels his administration will ignore
court decrees and impose ObamaCare. Now those on Obama’s enemies
list cannot expect to receive their Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
requests. FOIA allows private citizens access to government
documents, which are often expose treasure trove of government
corruption. J. Christian Adams, who blew the whistle on the
Justice Department’s racialist justice, reveals that Obama promptly
filled some FOIA requests:
• Gerry Hebert, noted free speech
opponent, partisan liberal, and former career Voting Section lawyer
who testified against now-Senator Jeff Sessions when he was
nominated to the federal judiciary. Same day service. •
Kristen Clarke, NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Clarke sought the
dismissal of the voter intimidation case against the New Black
Panther party. Same day service. • Ari Shapiro of
National Public Radio. Five day service. • Nicholas
Espiritu of the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund. Next day
service. • Eugene Lee of the Asian Pacific American Legal
Center. Three day service. • Edward DuBose, president
of Georgia NAACP. Same day service. • Raul
Arroyo-Mendoza of the Advancement Project. Same day service.
• Nina Perales of the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund.
Two day service.
Others did not enjoy the same treatment:
• Jed Babbin, editor at Human Events.
Six month wait. • Jerry Seper, Washington Times. Six
month wait. • Jim Boulet of the English First Foundation.
No reply at all. • Jenny Small of Judicial Watch.
Five month wait. • Republican Pennsylvania state
Representative Stephen Barrar. Four month wait. •
Jason Torchinsky, former DOJ and now ace GOP lawyer. No reply
at all. • Ben Conery, Washington Times. Five month
wait.
Despite the media’s attempts to portray Barack
Obama as a learned professor, and perhaps the most brilliant senator
since Cicero, he remains what he has always been at core: a left-wing
radical and community organizer. Those who are part of his
coalition receive government favors; those who are not are denied equal
protection of the law. (This, and pure cowardice, explains why
some "conservatives" were so quick to toady to Obama before or soon
after his election.) Black Panthers, the NAACP, illegal
immigrants, and NPR are his team players; conservative journalists,
Republicans, and those who believe all Americans should speak the
English language are not.
Obama believes he can trust certain
media outlets -- like NPR -- to overlook any untoward details in
administration documents, spin them to his favor, or lack the capability
and work ethic to identify them in the first place. Jerry Seper,
Jed Babbin, and Jim Boulet would keep him honest. Obama is
petrified of the avalanche of investigations the Republican Congress
could unleash.
Adams' revelations again prove that denial of
equal justice is endemic under Barack Obama. Republicans should
investigate whether this omnipresent evil rises to the level of "high
crimes and misdemeanors" and act accordingly.
Obama Decides Which Laws To Enforce & Which
To Ignore
Curt asks, so what is one of the presidential
responsibilities given to him in our Constitution?
"he shall take care that the laws be
faithfully executed"
But in Obama’s America it’s only the ones he agrees
with.
His use of regulatory governing is well known, what with
his czars and all, but now he has decided to use the Department of
Justice (DoJ) once again and this time it involves gay marriage and
state rights:
President Obama has instructed the Justice
Department to stop defending the constitutionality of the Defense of
Marriage Act, which has since 1996 allowed states to refuse to
recognize same-sex partnerships legally recognized in other states.
~~~
President Obama believes that section -- Section 3 -- "is
unconstitutional" given the Due Process Clause of the Fifth
Amendment (including its equal protection component), Holder wrote,
and the president has instructed the Department of Justice to no
longer defend the law in those two lawsuits.
President Obama
"has made the determination," Holder wrote, that Section 3 "as
applied to same-sex couples who are legally married under state law,
violates the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment."
~~~
But now, "under heightened scrutiny" since the 2nd circuit
court asked for the administration to defend its position given lack
of precedent, Holder wrote, the government’s ability to defend the
law can no longer be made by "advancing hypothetical rationales,
independent of the legislative record, as it has done in circuits
where precedent mandates application of rational basis review.
Instead, the United States can defend Section 3 only by invoking
Congress' actual justifications for the law."
That
legislative record, Holder wrote, "contains discussion and debate
that undermines any defense under heightened scrutiny. The
record contains numerous expressions reflecting moral disapproval of
gays and lesbians and their intimate and family relationships --
precisely the kind of stereotype-based thinking and animus the Equal
Protection Clause is designed to guard against."
~~~
Instead of allowing the judicial branch to decide
whether a certain group met the 14th Amendment scrutiny, Obama has
decided all by his lonesome that sexual orientation should be included.
This was a statute that was voted in by a 85-14 majority in the Senate
and a 342-67 majority in the House. Then it was signed by
President Clinton. To order the DoJ to stop defending a federal
statute, voted into law by overwhelming majorities and signed into law
by the President of the United States is a MAJOR power grab and one
which may come back to bite him in the ass.
The Attorney General Of The United States
Is A Racist
Josh Gerstein
says Attorney General Eric Holder
finally got fed uplost it Tuesday with claims that the Justice Department went
easy in a voting rights case against members of the New Black Panther
Party because they are African American.
Yup! That's Eric.
He's correct. Holder's
Justice department didn't go "easy" on the Black Panthers.
Justice Department political
appointees overruled career lawyers and ended a civil complaint
accusing three members of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense
of wielding a nightstick and intimidating voters at a Philadelphia
polling place last Election Day (2008), according to documents and interviews.
Career lawyers pursued the case for months, including obtaining an
affidavit from a prominent 1960s civil rights activist who witnessed the
confrontation and described it as "the most blatant form of voter
intimidation" that he had seen, even during the voting rights crisis in
Mississippi a half-century ago.
The
career Justice lawyers were on the verge of securing sanctions against
the men earlier this month when their superiors ordered them to reverse
course. The court had
already entered a default judgment against the men on April 20, 2009.
Holder's frustration
over the criticism became evident during a House Appropriations
subcommittee hearing as Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas) accused the
Justice Department of failing to cooperate with a Civil Rights
Commission investigation into the handling of the 2008 incident in which
Black Panthers in intimidating outfits and wielding a club stood outside
a polling place in Philadelphia.
The Attorney General seemed to
take personal offense at a comment Culberson read in which former
Democratic activist Bartle Bull called the incident the most serious act
of voter intimidation he had witnessed in his career.
In his statement, Holder stated,
"This Department of Justice does not enforce the law on the basis of
race." Now, he intended this as a denial, but it seems more like a
Freudian admission.
After all, it is precisely what Holder’s
Justice Department stands accused of, "not enforcing the law on the
basis of race."
Also, in Holder's rant, he says, "I would
disagree very vehemently with the notion that there’s overwhelming
evidence that that is in fact true," clearly indicating that Holder
knows there's evidence of racial bias in Holder's Justice Department.
He's just arguing how much evidence -- a little evidence, a lot of
evidence, or overwhelming evidence.
Holder's statement clearly
indicates a definite bias (in likely violation of ethics rules) in
choosing who he will/won’t prosecute. This represents a conflict of
interest that makes him unable to function in the role of the nation's
chief law enforcement officer.
Holder needs to answer a few
questions. Is he an American first and foremost, or an
African-American first and foremost? Does he represent all
Americans, or just the ones that share his skin color?
Holder,
needs to be reminded that when he took the job, every American citizen
became his people. It's clear he either forgot, or rejects the
notion out of hand.
The irony here is that Holder can say and use
the term "my people," but if you or I uttered the term "you people,"
that would be racist. What do you think the reaction in the
ObamaMedia would be if Sarah Palin referred to "my people?"
Related:AG Holder Admits To
Racist Interpretation Of The Law
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms
(BATF) Senior Special Agent John Dodson says what he was asked to do was
beyond belief. Assigned to the Phoenix office in 2010, Dodson's
job was to stop gun trafficking across the border. Instead, he
says he was ordered to sit by and watch it happen. Investigators
call the tactic letting guns "walk." In this case, walking into
the hands of criminals who would use them in Mexico and the United
States. Dodson's bosses say that never happened. Now, he's
risking his job to go public. Agent Dodson and other sources say
the gun walking strategy was approved all the way up to the Justice
Department. The idea was to see where the guns ended up, build a
big case and take down a cartel. And it was all kept secret from
Mexico.
Justice Department head Eric Holder said the
inspector general is investigating. "The aim of the ATF is to try to
stop the flow of guns. I think they do a good job in that regard.
Questions have been raised by ATF agents about the way in which some of
these operations have been conducted. I think those questions have to be
taken seriously, and on that basis, I've asked the inspector general to
look at it."
Holder Ignores Demands
Bob Unruh says a lawsuit has been filed against
Obama's Justice Department for refusing to release details about how
agency officials decided to abandon a
voter intimidation case that
staff members had brought -- and won -- against members of the New Black
Panther Party.
The lawsuit was filed by
Judicial Watch, the public
interest organization that investigates and prosecutes government
corruption, over a refusal by the federal agency to provide information
about the decision.
At issue in the case is whether the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People "improperly
influenced" the Justice Department, the nation's highest law enforcement
agency, "to drop a lawsuit against members of the Black Panthers who
allegedly threatened and intimidated white voters outside a polling
station during the 2008 election."
Because Kristen Clark, of the
NAACP Legal Defense Fund, reportedly met with Justice Department
officials to discuss the case just before the agency announced plans to
dismiss the action, questions arose about the influence that may have
been exerted.
Judicial Watch in November 2010 filed a Freedom of
Information Act request seeking records of communications between the
agency's Civil Rights Division and the NAACP. Under federal
requirements, Attorney General Eric Holder's agency was supposed to have
responded by Dec. 3, 2010.
"However, to date, no documents have
been produced," the Judicial Watch announcement said.
"Who is
running the Justice Department? That is what we're trying to find
out with this lawsuit. I find it outrageous that leftist special
interest groups seem to be directing the activities of the nation's top
law enforcement agency," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a
prepared statement about the case:
"The Obama Justice Department has made a
mess of the Black Panther lawsuit. We already know the Justice
Department's decision to drop the case was tainted by politics and
racism. There is something amiss in the Holder Justice
Department. And its casual violations of the freedom of
information law highlight this administration's contempt for
transparency and the rule of law."
According to the lawsuit, "As of the date of this
complaint, defendant has failed to produce any records responsive to the
request or demonstrate that responsive records are exempt from
production. Nor has it indicated whether or when any responsive
records will be produced. In fact, defendant has failed to respond to
the request in any manner."
DOJ Probe Concludes Panthers Case Handled
Appropriately
Pete Yost reports on a case that has drawn
strong criticism from Republican conservatives, the Justice Department's
Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) has found no evidence that
politics played a role when department attorneys dismissed three
defendants from a voting rights
lawsuit against the New Black Panther Party.
OPR, which
investigates allegations of attorney misconduct, concluded that the
government lawyers' work on the lawsuit in 2009 was based on a
good-faith assessment of the law and the facts and had a reasonable
basis.
"We found no evidence of improper political interference
or influence from within or outside the department" and the government
attorneys acted appropriately in the exercise of their supervisory
duties, OPR said in a letter Tuesday to the chairman of the House
Judiciary Committee, Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas.
"We found no
evidence to support allegations -- which were raised during the course
of our investigation -- that the decision-makers, either in bringing or
dismissing the claims, were influenced by the race of the defendants,"
OPR's letter added.
"We found no evidence of improper political
interference or influence from within or outside the department."
According to the Washington Times,
Congressional testimony has revealed that the NAACP
spoke regularlyabout the Black Panther voter
intimidation case to the Justice Department and lobbied for the case to
be dismissed.
A federal commission
had to
postpone a voteon a report that criticizes
the Justice Department's handling of a voter-intimidation lawsuit Friday
after a Democratic panelist walked out of the meeting in protest.
The draft of the U.S.
Commission on Civil Rights report says that Justice tried to hide the
extensive involvement of high-level political officials in the dismissal
of the suit against members of the New Black Panther Party. The move,
the report says, indicates that Justice's Civil Rights Division is
failing to protect white voters and is "at war with its core mission of
guaranteeing equal protection (under) the laws for all Americans.'
Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and
prosecutes government corruption,
announcedtoday that it has
obtaineddocuments from the Obama Department of Justice (DOJ) that
provide new evidence that top political appointees at the DOJ were
intimately involved in the decision to dismiss the voter intimidation
case against the New Black Panther Party for Self Defense (NBPP).
These new documents, which include internal DOJ email correspondence,
directly contradict sworn testimony by Thomas Perez, Assistant Attorney
General for the Civil Rights Division, who testified before the U.S.
Commission on Civil Rights that no political leadership was involved in
the decision. The new documents were obtained last week by
Judicial Watch pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit (Judicial
Watch v. Department of Justice(No.10-851)).
The new documents include a series of emails between two political
appointees: former Democratic election lawyer and current Deputy
Associate Attorney General Sam Hirsch and Associate Attorney General
Thomas Perrelli. Both DOJ officials were involved in detailed
discussions regarding the NBPP decision.
And that's just a taste.
There's a ton of evidence "of improper political interference or
influence from within or outside the department."
Top 10 Reasons Eric Holder Should Not Be
Attorney General
Human Events recently editorialized that Eric
Holder should have never been confirmed as attorney general and that his
priorities are dangerous. Here are the Top 10 Reasons (in addition
to the one above) Eric Holder Should Not Be Attorney General:
1. Wants special rights for Muslims.
2. Hostile to Second Amendment.
3. Weak on terror.
4.
Arizona immigration suit.
5. Refusal to enforce the Defense
of Marriage Act.
Charlie Savage
says Obama had the constitutional power to lawfully launch military
strikes in Libya without permission from Congress because he "could
reasonably determine that such use of force was in the national
interest," the Justice Department concluded in an internal memorandum
released on Thursday.
The
14-page document, addressed to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.,
was signed by Caroline D. Krass, the principal deputy assistant attorney
general for the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which
advises the executive branch about whether proposed actions are lawful.
The memorandum laid out in detail the thinking of the
administration’s legal team about the scope of Obama’s power to initiate
hostilities unilaterally under his authority as commander in
chief -- confirming, as The New York Times has reported, that the
administration’s argument centers on the idea that hostilities of
limited nature, scope and duration do not rise to the level of a "war"
that would trigger Congress’s powers under the Constitution.
The
War Powers Resolution is found as 50 USC S.1541-1548, passed in
1973 over the veto of President Nixon. It's supposed to be the
mechanism by which the President may use US Armed Forces. It
spells out the situations under which the president may deploy
American forces with and without a Congressional declaration of war.
The particularly relevant portion is S.1541(c), which reads:
(c) Presidential Executive Power as Commander-in-Chief;
Limitation The constitutional powers of the President as
Commander-in-Chief to introduce United States Armed Forces into
hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in
hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, are exercised
only pursuant to (1) a declaration of war, (2) specific statutory
authorization, or (3) a national emergency created by attack upon
the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed
forces.
The arguments laid out in the memorandum are a
striking departure from Obama’s own interpretation of the president’s
constitutional powers before being elected.
As a United States
senator and presidential candidate, Obama in December 2007 expressed a
significantly more limited view of executive power to launch military
attacks on another country without Congressional authorization, absent
an imminent threat.
"The president does not have power under the
Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation
that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the
nation," Obama said in reply to a question about whether the president
could bomb suspected nuclear sites in Iran without Congressional
authorization.
I read the
entire War Powers Resolution. Nowhere in that document is the
president authorized to go to war because he "could reasonably determine
that such use of force was in the national interest."
There
was no declaration of war. There was no specific statutory
authorization. There was no national emergency created by attack
upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed
forces.
Obama's
actions in Libya are clearly illegal, no matter what Holder says.
Based on Holder's finding,
Obama can send the troops anywhere, at any time, and for any reason --
whenever Obama, acting alone, with no consultation with Congress, "could
reasonably determine that such use of force was in the national
interest."
That is
a power wielded only by kings and dictators.
Obama Justice Department Saves Muslim
Brotherhood Fronts
Ryan Mauro is reporting that investigative
journalist Patrick Poole has broken a blockbuster story about how the
Obama Administration’s Justice Department blocked plans to prosecute a
co-founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and others
labeled "unindicted co-conspirators" in the
Holy Land Foundation trial. Rep. Peter King, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee,
has written a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder and is requesting
answers by April 25.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations
(CAIR), the
Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the
North
American Islamic Trust (NAIT) were all designated by the federal
government as "unindicted co-conspirators" in the trial of the Holy Land
Foundation, a Muslim Brotherhood front found guilty of covertly
financing Hamas. A total of 246 organizations and individuals received
the label but have yet to face prosecution. Now, a high-level Justice
Department source has informed Patrick Poole that this is because of a
decision by the Obama Administration, in what the source called "a
political decision from the get-go." A second Justice Department source
substantiated the tip.
A March 31, 2010 report titled
"Declination of Prosecution of Omar Ahmad," referring to one of the
co-founders of CAIR, was sent from Assistant Attorney General David Kris
to Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler. The document claims
that Ahmad would not be prosecuted because of fears that jury
nullification would result. The source of the information rejects this
and says it is just an excuse to not move forward.
Rep. Peter
King has confirmed the story and is now putting Attorney General Eric
Holder in the hot seat. King writes that he has been "reliably informed"
that the decision to not prosecute the unindicted co-conspirators "was
usurped by high-ranking officials at Department of Justice headquarters
over the vehement and stated objections of special agents and
supervisors of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as the
prosecution at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Dallas, who had
investigated and successfully prosecuted the Holy Land Foundation case."
King requests a reply by April 25 but it is unclear what will follow
if the response is unsatisfactory. David Rusin, the director of Islamist
Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum, told FrontPage that "if
Congress subpoenas Justice Department files on the organizations,
incriminating details go public." Such an investigation would be "a
nightmare in the making for groups like CAIR and ISNA, whose very
lifeblood has been the ability to camouflage their radicalism with the
aid of gullible dupes in government and the press."
The
government has expressed certainty that these groups and individuals are
part of a Muslim Brotherhood network with the objective of assisting
Hamas. In December 2007, a federal court filing flatly stated, "From its
founding by Muslim Brotherhood leaders, CAIR conspired with other
affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood to support terrorists" and "the
conspirators agreed to use deception to conceal from the American public
their connections to terrorists."
Skookum
says the revolution eats its own children partially because so many
of them were nothing more than Useful Idiots and they no longer serve a
purpose. Eric Holder will be one of the first to be discarded.
The guy who wants to prosecute a SEAL for slapping a terrorist and
put Chaney and Bush in prison for the water boarding that provided the
intel for the killing of Bin Laden, says the raid was perfectly legal.
Obama can invade another country and kill a foreign national, steal the
body, and abduct family members. This has now been uncovered in
the Constitution and confirmed by our Attorney General Eric Holder.
Obama is granted special privileges with SEAL Team 6 and according
to Holder, he but not Bush, can do no wrong. Oh, for the record,
SEAL Team 6, was called Chaney’s Execution Squad during the Bush
Administration.
Attorney General Eric Holder defended as lawful
on Tuesday the U.S. operation to go into Pakistan that resulted in the
death of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and the taking of his body.
The acts taken were "lawful, legitimate and appropriate in every
way. The people who were responsible for that action, both in the
decision making and the effecting of that decision, handled themselves I
think quite well," Holder told the House of Representatives’ Judiciary
Committee.
Now don’t get me wrong, I like the SEAL guys and all
our troops in uniform, but I don’t like hypocritical political behavior.
The only way Obama has a chance of being elected is by following Bush
policies and the only way he managed to get elected was to
sanctimoniously criticize Bush’s policies. There is a serious
disconnect here. These Democrats are either stupid or extremely
biased and hypocritical in their opinions on war, torture, and
prisoners. All through history, war has been considered a serious
business that required tough hard men to fight hard enough to win.
The Democrats seem okay with that, if there is a Democrat in the White
house.
Now why is an AG determining our legal status in another
country’s sovereignty and declaring assassination as legal all of a
sudden, but don’t you dare water board them or you will go to prison.
Who needs the Sunday Funnies, we have the Holder Justice Department.
Eric Holder's Bin Laden Moment
The Wall Street Journal says the moment has
come for Eric Holder to end his investigation of the CIA's interrogators
of terrorist detainees.
As the whole of America takes a bin
Laden victory lap, let us pause to remember some of this celebrated
event's most forgotten men, the Central Intelligence Agency officers who
sit under the cloud of a criminal investigation begun in 2009 by
Attorney General Eric Holder into their interrogations of captured
terrorists.
That's right, the Americans whose interrogation of al
Qaeda operatives put in motion the death of this mass murderer may
themselves face prosecution by the country they were trying to protect.
It is time for the Holder CIA investigation to end. The
death of bin Laden 10 years after 9/11 makes the Holder investigation of
the CIA interrogators politically, emotionally and morally moot.
But it lives.
In August 2009, Attorney General Holder
announced that he was extending the mandate of Assistant U.S. Attorney
John Durham into the CIA's so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques"
of terrorist detainees. Former Bush Attorney General Michael
Mukasey had appointed Durham in 2008 as a special prosecutor to look
into the CIA's destruction of videotapes made during interrogations of
two al Qaeda operatives. That investigation ended without charges
last November.
Holder decided to push the Durham investigation
into a second phase. "I have concluded," he said "that the
information known to me warrants opening a preliminary review into
whether federal laws were violated in connection with the interrogation
of specific detainees at overseas locations." Holder wasn't
free-lancing; both he and Barack Obama had called waterboarding
"torture."
This week the Associated Press reported that the name
of bin Laden's courier came from CIA interrogations of Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed and Abu Faraj al-Libi, who received "harsh" interrogation at
CIA prisons in Poland and Romania. On Tuesday, Holder said the
information came from a "mosaic of sources."
On June 18 last
year, Holder said in a Washington speech that Durham was "close to the
end of the time that he needs and will be making recommendations to me."
But nothing has happened. Asked this week about the status of this
investigation, a Justice Department spokesman for Durham, whose office
is in Connecticut, said the project is "still ongoing."
Ironically, the CIA's contribution to bin Laden's end may ensure that
its people will remain under this cloud. With Obama elated over
the success of his call to take down bin Laden, his poll numbers rising
and his re-election campaign insulated from charges of Democratic
softness on national security, what are the chances that his attorney
general would wash away all that by announcing his intention to indict
the men whose work may have sent his boss into Abbottabad, guns blazing?
Holder should at least give our CIA guys the same consideration he gave
his "peeps" in the Black
Panthers.
Holder Files Murder Charges To Provide
Cover for the Obama Regime
Doug Book
says that in December of last year, Border Agent Brian Terry was
killed by Mexican gang members in an Arizona border shootout. Two
of the weapons recovered from the scene had been part of the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF)’s "Project
Gunrunner," a federal scheme whereby thousands of firearms were
deliberately sold to known straw purchasers for Mexican drug cartels,
then assisted across the border by the ATF itself.
On May 4th,
Obama regime Attorney General Eric Holder sat before the House Judiciary
Committee, evading California Representative Darrell Issa’s questions
about the Justice Department’s involvement in ATF’s ultimately deadly
Gunrunner scheme:
Issa: How about the head of the
Criminal Division, Lanny Breuer. Did he authorize it?
Holder: I’m not sure whether Mr. Breuer authorized it.
You have to understand the way in which the Department operates.
Although there are operations, this one has become -- has gotten a
great deal of publicity.
Issa: Yeah, there are
dead Americans as a result of this failed and reckless program.
So I would say that it hasn’t gotten enough attention, has it Mr.
Attorney General?
Later, after enduring all he could stomach of
Holder’s reverence for his own department’s phony investigation of the
ATF, Issa finally rebuked the self-important bureaucrat, saying:
"We’re not looking at straw buyers, Mr.
Attorney General. We’re looking at you. We’re looking at
your key people…who should have known about this…and whether or not
the Justice Department is basically guilty of allowing weapons to
kill Americans and Mexicans."
Of course, no one who learned his
arrogance at the knee of the Crown Prince of Conceit will allow himself
to be beaten down with subpoenas or contempt of Congress hearings.
So, Holder has chosen a new tack. After more than five months of
inaction, a 14 count indictment for murder has been filed against Manuel
Osorio-Arellanes, a Mexican illegal wounded during the shootout which
took the life of Agent Terry.
Is this a sudden act of contrition
or piety on the part of the Attorney General? A bone thrown to
Congress, the American people, or Brian Terry’s family? Hardly.
With the filing of murder charges -- two days after the Issa hearing
-- Holder can now claim that any and all Project Gunrunner information
subpoenaed by the Issa committee may be withheld as material to the
prosecution of Osorio-Arellanes. Although Holder had ignored
requests and demands for information all along, now there would be an
excuse.
By the way, two other names are included in the
indictment against Osorio-Arellanes, but they will not be made public.
These two were arrested along with the Mexican illegal on the night of
Terry’s murder, then deported in February after pleading guilty to minor
illegal entry infractions.
Is it possible they were the straw
purchasers of the AK-47 used to kill Terry? Does the regime prefer
they be out of the country, rather than spilling their guts on the
witness stand about how they were illegally sold weapons by the ATF?
After all, in February, Project Gunrunner had yet to attract the volume
of heat and attention focused on it today, so who would notice the
sudden "elimination" of two murder suspects, or rather, potential
witnesses against the Regime?
The outrage over Project Gunrunner
is not going away soon. It’s anyone’s guess who will be thrown
under the White House bus for this one.
Leftist Activists
Convince Eric Holder’s DOJ To Set Violent Marxist Free
J. Christian Adams says Attorney General Eric Holder has a peculiar
tendency to set loose militant black panthers. Everyone is already
familiar with the dismissal of the
voter intimidation case I brought as a Justice Department attorney.
There, the DOJ dropped claims against Malik Zulu Shabazz, national head
of the New Black Panther Party, and Jerry Jackson, a Philadelphia
panther and Democratic Party official. But Jackson and Shabazz aren’t
the only militants Holder has set loose.
Marilyn Buck was a Marxist terrorist who participated in conspiracies
that led to the deaths of multiple police officers. Buck helped the
Black Liberation Army, a violent Marxist offshoot of the black panthers,
acquire weapons and ammunition. She participated in the robbery of an
armored car where a guard was murdered. If that wasn’t enough, Buck was
also charged with the bombing of the U.S. Senate, Ft. McNair, the
Washington Navy Yard Officer’s Club and a New York City federal
building. In many states, Buck’s behavior might have led to a midnight
reservation in the electric chair.
Yet
Holder’s DOJ unlocked Buck’s jail cell and
set her free last summer. Justice concluded that Buck "expressed a
dramatic change from her previous political philosophy." Releasing Buck
reflects an alien attitude that has caused the Obama years to be
characterized by an
ideological disconnect with most Americans.
Portrait
Of The Attorney General As A Young Militant
Paul Mirengoff
says a while ago,
The Daily Caller reported that, as a student at Columbia University,
Eric Holder participated in an armed takeover of the University’s former
ROTC office.
John wrote about this at the time, but I want to expand.
According to the Daily Caller, Holder was among the leaders of the
Student Afro-American Society (SAAS), which demanded that the former
ROTC office be renamed the “Malcolm X Lounge.” The change, the group
insisted, was to be made “in honor of a man who recognized the
importance of territory as a basis for nationhood.”
This statement shows the separatist nature of the group Holder helped
lead. And, indeed, Stefan Bradley, professor of African-American studies
at Saint Louis University and author of the 2009 book
“Harlem vs. Columbia University,” has described the Columbia
organization as separatist.
The Daily Caller contacted the Justice Department before running the
story about Holder and the takeover. DOJ’s spokesperson spokeswoman has
not responded to the question of whether Holder himself was armed, and
if so, with what sort of weapon.
The Daily Caller’s information comes in part from statements by a
friend of Holder at Columbia and in part from Holder himself. The
friend, Steve Sims, told
GQ magazine that he, Holder, and others “took over the ROTC lounge
in Hartley Hall and created the Malcolm X Lounge.” GQ calls Sims “the
attorney general’s closest friend” and “a man Holder describes as his ‘consigliere.’”
Holder himself said in a 2009 speech that he and his fellow students
decided to “peacefully occupy one of the campus offices.” Presumably,
this was the ROTC office.
The information that the occupiers were armed comes from a
deleted Web page of the Black Students’ Organization (BSO) at
Columbia, a successor group to the SAAS. It states: “In 1970, a group of
armed black students seized the abandoned ROTC office on the first floor
of Hartley Hall.” If this account is correct, then Holder either has
forgotten about the arms, pretends there were no arms, or means that the
occupation was “peaceful” in the sense that no one was shot.
Student takeovers of college buildings were all too common on Ivy
League and others campuses during this period. Armed takeovers were not.
However, guns were not unheard of when Black students conducted the
building takeovers. The most notorious example occurred in 1969 at
Cornell. A picture of armed black Cornell students made it into
Newsweek Magazine.
It’s ironic that black protesters were the ones who bore arms, for
they were the protesters least in need of protection. Ivy League
administrators were softer on black protesters than on garden variety
anti-war protesters because they feared being accused of racism. This
fact is reflected in the Daily Caller article. It notes that Columbia
agreed to the demand of Holder and company and never prosecuted those
who took over the building and held it for the better part of a week.
White anti-war protesters who took over college buildings typically were
prosecuted. At Dartmouth, for example, we were sentenced to 30 days in
jail.
I always assumed that blacks brandished guns in order to promote a
certain image, including the notion that they were more serious than
bourgeois, white anti-war protesters. It worked. Throughout the Ivy
League, black protesters were at the top of the radical pecking order.
Forty years later, Holder still seems proud of his militant activity.
During a 2009 commencement speech at Columbia, he boasted: “I was among
a large group of students who felt strongly about the way we thought the
world should be, and we weren’t afraid to make our opinions heard.” He
didn’t add that they felt so strongly they violated the law and, it
would appear, armed themselves in the process.
Nor did Holder tell his audience what, specifically, he and his
comrades felt so strongly about. As noted, his outfit — SAAS –favored
racial separatism. Additionally, according to Professor Bradley, they
actively supported the Black Panthers, who were widely viewed by black
campus radicals as role models.
Indeed, the Daily Caller reports that in March 1970, the SAAS
released a statement supporting twenty-one Black Panthers charged with
plotting to blow up department stores, railroad tracks, a police station
and the New York Botanical Gardens (what the Botanical Gardens ever did
to the Black Panters, I don’t know). And they held a campus rally on
March 12, 1970 featuring Afeni Shakur -- one of the Panthers out on bail
and the future mother of rapper Tupac Shakur.
Among the black Columbia professors who publicly supported Holder and
the SAAS during this period was Black history teacher Hollis Lynch.
Holder says that Lynch is one of four professors who has “shaped my
worldview.”
As Attorney General, Holder presided over a Justice Department that
declined to prosecute members of the New Black Panther Party who
intimidated white voters (with a club, not guns) outside a Philadelphia
polling precinct in 2008. Does part of the “worldview” Holder formed at
Columbia consist of the notion that, when it comes to race, you have
break some eggs to make an omelet?
Finally, as
John asked, “did Holder ever abandon his radicalism? If so, when and
why? Many people hold goofy or extreme political opinions when they are
young, but most grow out of them. Has Holder? Or was the boy-radical who
took over campus buildings and offices–the father to the man–the
Attorney General who suppressed the voter intimidation prosecution of
the New Black Panthers?”
Holder Finally Goes Too Far
Click image to follow Holder's role in Operation Fast & Furious
