Black Panthers and the Justice Department

The Black Panthers and the Justice Department

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The New Black Panther Party

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Black Panthers Endorse Obama

Obama also has the endorsement of the New Black Panther Party.

"Barack Obama represents 'Positive Change' for all of America. Obama will stir the 'Melting Pot' into a better "Molten America.'"
Read The New Black Panther Party 10 Point Platform from the anti-white and virulently anti-Semitic black supremacist party that has endorsed Obama on the presidential candidate's own website.

Following criticism earlier this month of an online endorsement from the New Black Panther Party (NBPP), Obama's campaign removed the controversial organization from the presidential candidate's official website. The NBPP had been a registered team member and blogger on Obama's "MyObama" campaign site.

But the NBPP endorsement was reposted on Obama's official website today.

"Obama is capable of stirring the 'melting pot' into a better 'molten America,'" states the NBPP endorsement posted on Obama's site.

The NBPP is a controversial black extremist party whose leaders are notorious for their racist statements and for leading anti-white activism. Malik Zulu Shabazz, NBPP national chairman, who has given scores of speeches condemning "white men" and Jews, confirmed his organization's endorsement of Obama in a recent interview with WND.

"I think the way Obama responded to the attack on him and the attempt to sabotage his campaign shows true leadership and character. He had a chance to denounce his pastor and he didn't fall for the bait. He stood up and addressed real issues of racial discord," stated Shabazz.

Shabazz boasted he met Obama last March when the politician attended the 42nd anniversary of the voting rights marches in Selma, Ala.

"I have nothing but respect for Obama and for his pastor," said Shabazz, referring to Jeremiah Wright, Obama's pastor of nearly 20 years.

It is Wright's racially charged and anti-Israel remarks that were widely circulated this month, landing the presidential candidate in hot water and prompting Obama to deliver a major race speech in which he condemned Wright's comments but not the pastor himself.

Speaking to WND, Shabazz referred to Obama as a man with a "Muslim background, a man of color."

Shabazz's NBPP's official platform states "white man has kept us deaf, dumb and blind," refers to the "white racist government of America," demands black people be exempt from military service and uses the word "Jew" repeatedly in quotation marks.

Shabazz has led racially divisive protests and conferences, such as the 1998 Million Youth March in which a few thousand Harlem youths reportedly were called upon to scuffle with police officers and speakers demanded the extermination of whites in South Africa.

The NBPP chairman was quoted at a May 2007 protest against the 400-year celebration of the settlement of Jamestown, Va., stating, "When the white man came here, you should have left him to die."

He claimed Jews engaged in an "African holocaust," and he has promoted the anti-Semitic urban legend that 4,000 Israelis fled the World Trade Center just prior to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

When Shabazz was denied entry to Canada last May while trying to speak at a black action event, he blamed Jewish groups and claimed Canada "is run from Israel."

Canadian officials justified the action stating he has an "anti-Semitic" and "anti-police" record, but some reports blamed what was termed a minor criminal history for the decision to deny him entry.

He similarly blamed Jews for then-New York Mayor Rudi Giuliani's initial decision, later rescinded, against granting a permit for the Million Youth March.

The NBPP's deceased chairman, Khallid Abdul Muhammad, a former Nation of Islam leader who was once considered Louis Farrakhan's most trusted adviser, gave speeches referring to the "white man" as the "devil" and claiming that "there is a little bit of Hitler in all white people."

In a 1993 speech condemned by the U.S. Congress and Senate, Muhammad, lionized on the NBPP site, referred to Jews as "bloodsuckers," labeled the pope a "no-good cracker" and advocated the murder of white South Africans who would not leave the nation subsequent to a 24-hour warning.

All NBPP members must memorize the group's rules, such as that no party member "can have a weapon in his possession while drunk or loaded off narcotics or weed," and no member "will commit any crimes against other party members or black people at all."

The NBPP endorses Obama on its own page of the presidential candidate's official site that allows registered users to post their own blogs.

The group labels itself on Obama's site as representing "Freedom, Justice, and Peace for all of Mankind." It links to the official NBPP website, which contains what can be arguably regarded as hate material.

The NBPP previously endorsed Obama on the presidential candidate's site, but following publicity of that endorsement, the Obama campaign removed the NBPP posting.

"It's our policy [to remove] any content generated by a group that advocates violence," explained Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor to FoxNews.com.

Before the campaign removed the party's page, Obama spokeswoman Tiffany Edwards told FoxNews.com the NBPP endorsement on Obama's website "has nothing to do with us."

"People can form their own groups," she said. "It's not something that the campaign -- it's not something that we've done."

While it appears anyone can initially sign up as a registered supporter on Obama's site, it isn't clear whether the campaign monitors the site or approves users. There is a link on each blog page for users to report any abusers, such as those who post controversial entries, to the administrator.

Shabbazz chalked up the Obama campaign's initial removal of his NBPP endorsement from the website to "the game of politics."

"The Obama camp's move to remove our blog doesn't mean much because I understand politics. We still completely support Obama as the best candidate."

Obama 'less biased' on Israel

Shabazz said that aside from promoting black rights, he also supports Obama because he may take what he called a "less biased" policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"I have hopes he will change the U.S. government's position toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because our position has been unwarranted bias. Time and time again the U.S. vetoed resolutions in the U.N. Security Council condemning [Israeli] human rights violations. ... I hope he shifts policy," Shabazz said.

But he added he doesn't believe Obama could change America's policy regarding Israel very much since, he said, "other, powerful lobbies" control U.S. foreign policy.

Let The Brothers Go

Obama's Justice Department is dropping charges against the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense and two of its members who were involved in voter intimidation on Election Day at a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania polling station.

A Justice spokesman said the department decided to take this action after winning an injunction earlier this month against a third member, Samir Shabazz, that prevents him from ever brandishing a weapon outside a polling place again as he was charged with doing last November.

BLACK PANTHERS at Polling Places in Philly
Shabazz was one of the three persons from the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, charged with voter intimidation last January in a lawsuit filed under the Voting Rights Act. Shabazz will not face any jail time or a fine.

"Claims were dismissed against the other defendants based on a careful assessment of the facts and the law," DOJ spokesman Alejandro Miyar said in a statement. "The Department is committed to the vigorous prosecution of those who intimidate, threaten or coerce anyone exercising his or her sacred right to vote." giggle!

On Election Day, two men in uniforms stood outside the polling station with one of them holding a police-style baton weapon and saying he was providing security there. Justice has alleged that person was Shabazz.

In January, Justice said in a criminal complaint that the chairman of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense confirmed its members were stationed at that location as part of a nationwide effort to deploy people at polling stations.

Combat boots, leather jackets, military-style berets and a billy club-- and notice how he's brandishing it -- no intimidation there. I can just see little old white ladies deciding that Obama was going to win anyway, so why bother.

Shabazz
That's one scary-looking guy. He would have given me a moments pause, swinging his police baton at the entrance to the polling station. I'd have gotten the message.

Obviously, Obama's Justice Department was just displaying some of the Obamamessiah's vaunted empathy -- "based on a careful assessment of the facts and the law" -- what a hoot! -- obviously, the biggest fact was the guy is a brother -- but Justice warned him not to do it again -- that's the ticket.

Obama and Holder would prefer to prosecute George Bush and Dick Cheney for war crimes.

Obama has replaced Justice's blindfold with shades.

An Official Watcher

When confronted by Philadelphia Police, Black Panther Jerry Jackson stated that he was "an official watcher" -- meaning that he had been appointed by a party or candidate to observe the election at the polling location. Only voters, election board workers, and watchers may enter a polling location. The New Black Panther Party isn’t an officially recognized political party in Philadelphia, so they couldn’t appoint him. So who gave this guy a credential?

We already reported here that Jackson is an elected member of the Philadelphia Democratic Committee. And a document obtained from the Philadelphia Board of Elections confirms he was "representing the Democratic Party" at the polls in November.

Here is a copy of the watcher certificate he was issued and below is some of his "official" activity.

Definitely looks like a case of Respondeat Superior by the Democratic Party.

You Are About To Be Ruled By A Black Man, Cracker

Excerpted from the affidavit of Bartle Bull, a civil rights attorney who served in the mid-60s as a lawyer with the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law in Mississippi. He worked closely with Charles Evers:

I served as an attorney poll observer at the polling place, 1221 Fairmount St, Philadelphia. There I observed two men wearing Black Panther party insignia, black boots and berets. They were positioned in front of the entrance to the polling place.

The shorter of the two men possessed a weapon in the form of a billy-club. I watched the man with the weapon point it at individuals and slap it in his hand.

I watched the two men confront and intimidate voters. They were positioned in a location that forced every voter to pass in close proximity to them. The weapon was brandished in plain sight of voters.

I watched the two men interfere with the work of other poll observers whom the uniformed men believed did not share their preferences politically.

In my opinion, the men created an intimidating presence at the entrance to a poll. In all of my experience in politics, in civil rights litigation...I have never encountered or heard of another instance where armed and uniformed men blocked the entrance to a polling location. Their clear purpose was to intimidate voters.

I heard the shorter man (Shabazz) make a statement towards white poll observers that "you are about to be ruled by a black man, cracker."

Political Appointees Overruled Career Lawyers

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, 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 lawyers also had ascertained that one of the three men had gained access to the polling place by securing a credential as a Democratic poll watcher, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The Washington Times.

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, according to interviews and documents. The court had already entered a default judgment against the men on April 20.

Black Panther Answers Overdue

Philadelphia's, The Bulletin, is reporting that the Chairman of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, Gerald A. Reynolds, has sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder seeking answers to their questions about a voter intimidation case in Philadelphia involving the New Black Panther Party (NBPP). It considers the responses "overdue."

The letter, dated September 30, 2009, is seemingly an unprecedented action. It asks for Mr. Holder to "instruct Department officials to fully cooperate" with the Commission's investigation, as required by federal law.

The correspondence noted that the Commission still has not received any of the documents they requested in their initial June inquiries. It has questions surrounding the "unusual decision" by the DOJ to dismiss the case against two of the three defendants and the equally unusual injunction obtained against the third defendant.

It needs this information 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 the 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."

The communication reminded Mr. Holder that Congress mandates that, "all Federal agencies shall fully cooperate with the Commission to the end that it may effectively carry out its functions and duties." It wants Mr. Holder to identify the person responsible for complying with the requests.

The Commission voted in September to make its review of the implications of the NBPP matter the subject of its annual enforcement report. The report focuses on a selected area of civil rights enforcement.

The letter concludes by cautioning Mr. Holder that if he does not respond by October 14, they will contact the DOJ personnel involved directly.

The DOJ filed a lawsuit in January under the Voting Rights Act against the NBP and three of its members alleging the defendants intimidated voters last election day. The complaint, filed in federal court in Philadelphia, alleged that NBP members Samir Shabazz and Jerry Jackson were standing at a polling location wearing a military-style NBP uniform while Mr. Shabazz repeatedly brandished a "police-style baton weapon."

The complaint said NBPP Chairman Malik Zulu Shabazz confirmed that the placement of Mr. Shabazz and Mr. Jackson was part of a nationwide effort to deploy members at polling locations. The Justice Department initially sought an injunction to prevent any similar future actions.

None of the defendants responded to the lawsuit. However, instead of immediately filing for a routine default judgment, the DOJ voluntarily dismissed the lawsuit for two of the defendants -- including Mr. Jackson, who was a Democratic Party poll watcher.

The DOJ only obtained an injunction against Samir Shabazz, which was granted on May 18. However, this has been criticized because it contained none of the usual conditions for such a case.

Is The Justice Department Against Civil Rights?

The dispute between the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the Justice Department is starting to look like the legal equivalent of World War II's Anzio campaign, which represented a major escalation late in the war. The battleground is the controversy about the department's decision to drop voter-intimidation cases against members of the New Black Panther Party. The commission is mounting a massive legal assault; Justice is refusing to be budged; and the casualties could be high.

The shame of it is that the department itself would be well-served if it would merely cooperate. That's what it would do if it were confident its decision was correct.

For six months, various members of Congress and the commission have been asking for cooperation from the Justice Department. The basic questions are simple enough: On what legal basis did Justice drop these cases, which it effectively already had won? Who were all the officials at Justice (and possibly the White House) who were involved in the decision? And does the decision represent a shift in enforcement policy concerning voting rights?

The Justice Department stonewalled at almost every turn or provided false information. For instance, department official Portia Robinson wrongly claimed that New Black Panther defendant Jerry Jackson "was a resident of the apartment building where the polling place was located" (and thus presumably had more of a right to loiter there). If the department can't even figure out that Mr. Jackson, a visibly fit age 53, doesn't live in a senior assisted-living facility, its overall reliability surely is questionable.

Frustrated by the lack of cooperation, the commission finally resorted to subpoenas to force information from the Justice Department. The commission has specific statutory power to issue subpoenas, and executive departments are required statutorily to comply. The Justice Department, however, claimed otherwise and ordered its lawyers to ignore the subpoenas.

That's when the commission went "Anzio" on Justice, with a letter Tuesday documenting the commission's legal authority and a legal-discovery request of breathtaking scope. The commission's letter notes that the department fully cooperated with a commission subpoena in 2004; the unuttered follow-up question is: So why not this time?

The commission bolstered its claims by citing court precedents and Congressional Research Service reports. It also said that by consulting on the matter with an outside group -- the NAACP Legal Defense Fund -- the department effectively waived its various claims of privilege.

The discovery request, meanwhile, is 26 pages long, with 49 interrogatories and 51 separate document demands. Among its key nuggets: The commission challenges the department to justify, at great length, any claim of legal privilege against disclosures; it hints that it suspects White House involvement in the decision; it asks for documentation that might show Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.'s involvement; it confidently asserts that the second-ranking member of the Justice Department, Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden, took part in the decision; it challenges the department's tacit contention that the New Black Panthers (one of whom carried a nightstick) were merely exercising First Amendment speech rights; and its subtext suggests that the commission suspects all sorts of other shenanigans. (Mr. Ogden suddenly announced on Dec. 3 that he would soon leave his position)

All of this means the commission has substantially raised the stakes of this battle. Others can best adjudge the legal arguments, and important larger issues of constitutional separation of powers could be involved. Yet a far simpler observation is appropriate and increasingly obvious: The Justice Department would not force the Civil Rights Commission to instigate such a huge legal battle if it had nothing to hide.

Wolf Presses For New Black Panther Probe

The Washington Times is reporting that a senior House Republican on Thursday introduced a "resolution of inquiry" that would require the House Judiciary Committee to seek answers on why the Justice Department dismissed a civil complaint against members of the New Black Panther Party who disrupted a Philadelphia polling place in last year's elections.

Rep. Frank R. Wolf of Virginia also said he had language inserted in the Justice Department's annual spending bill requiring that its Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) provide to the House Appropriations Committee the results of OPR's investigation surrounding the dismissal of the case.

Mr. Wolf, a senior member of the Appropriations Committee's commerce, justice and science subcommittee, and Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, requested an investigation into the case earlier this year.

Under House rules, committees must take action on resolutions of inquiry within 14 legislative days. Mr. Wolfs resolution directs Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to provide Congress with "all information" relating to the decision to dismiss the case. The committee must hold a straight yea-or-nay vote on the resolution.

Mr. Wolf said he has written the attorney general six times seeking answers concerning the handling of the New Black Panther case and has yet to receive an answer.

"I regret that Congress must resort to oversight resolutions as a means to receive information about the dismissal of this case, but the Congress and the American people have a right to know why this case was not prosecuted," he said.

Continue reading here . . .

DOJ Issues Gag Order In Black Panther Probe

The Justice Department has ordered government lawyers who filed a complaint against the New Black Panther Party for intimidating voters in last year’s presidential election not to cooperate with a nonpartisan civil rights commission investigating how the Obama Administration handled the case.

Federal prosecutors filed a civil complaint in Philadelphia against members of the radical black revolutionary group for bullying voters with racial insults, profanity and weapons. Clad in military attire, the Black Panther thugs were captured on video in front of precincts during the 2008 presidential election.

But the case was abruptly killed by a top Justice Department official just as a federal judge was preparing to punish the Black Panthers for ignoring the charges and refusing to appear in court. The order came from Loretta King, who at the time was Obama’s acting assistant Attorney General for the civil rights division. No explanation was offered for the sudden dismissal and outrage ensued among federal prosecutors handling the case.

Now the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, a fact-finding nonpartisan agency with subpoena power to investigate discrimination complaints -- including allegations that citizens are deprived of their right to vote -- is digging into the matter.

Continue reading here . . .

Hearing Set For New Black Panther Case

Michael P. Tremoglie is reporting that the United States Commission on Civil Rights (CRC) announced that it will hold a public hearing on February 12, 2010, regarding the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case. Its purpose is to collect information within the jurisdiction of the Commission related particularly to the Department of Justice's actions in the New Black Panther Party (NBPP) and enforcement of Section 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act.

The CRC wants to know the reason the Department of Justice (DOJ) dismissed voter intimidation charges in May against members of the New Black Panther Party after they had already won a default judgment in the civil suit filed in January.

One of the witnesses will be Chris Hill, a Republican poll watcher. He told The Bulletin that one of the Republican poll watchers felt intimidated. "He was inside the building and he refused to stand outside with the two New Black Panthers," he said.

There will be other witnesses who can testify to the facts of the case. Also a video of the incident will be shown.

One person’s testimony which has been sought is that of J. Christian Adams the career Civil Rights Division prosecutor who compiled the voter intimidation case against the NBPP will testify. It is not known if Mr. Adams will testify. Allegations have been made that there were political motivations in dismissing the case. It is felt Mr. Adams could verify or disprove this.

The DOJ has taken the unusual step of instructing its people not comply with subpoenas issued by the Commission. A memo by DOJ to CRC General Counsel David Blackwood said it objects to the questions asked.

The DOJ has repeatedly refused to provide information requested about this case not only by the CRC, but by Congressman Frank Wolf ( R-Va.), as well as, Congressman Lamar Smith (R-Tx.). Mr. Wolf sent a letter January 26 to Glenn Fine the DOJ Inspector General.

He said, "I have been disappointed by your reluctance to investigate the unfounded dismissal of an important voter intimidation case, U.S. v. New Black Panther Party. As you may recall, this case was inexplicably dismissed last year -- over the ardent objections of the career attorneys overseeing the case as well as the division’s own appeal office. Despite repeated requests for information by members of Congress, the press, and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, the DOJ continues to stonewall all efforts to obtain information regarding the case’s abrupt dismissal. This obstruction should be of great concern to you and merit an immediate investigation."

Mr. Wolf will appear at the hearing, which will be held at 624 9th St., N.W. Room 540, Washington, DC 20425. It is open to the public and the media.

Obama's Black Panther Pander

Ashley Taylor says, at last, an explanation for the decision to drop the Black Panthers voter intimidation case.

At the U.S. Civil Rights Commission's upcoming hearing on May 14, Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez will attempt to explain why the Obama administration dropped federal voter intimidation charges against two New Black Panthers. Clad in paramilitary uniforms and armed with a nightstick, the Panthers had spent several hours on Election Day 2008 stalking the entrance of a voting place in Philadelphia -- hurling racial epithets at whites and blacks alike, taunting poll watchers, and intimidating voters who sought to cast their votes for president as well as other candidates on the ballot. These voting rights violations were captured, partially, on video and uploaded to YouTube.

Attempting to defend the Justice Department's decision to change course in this case, the Obama administration's apologists have tied themselves in knots and turned the Voting Rights Act on its head.

Their principal argument is that the Panthers were not scary enough. They contend that two men who dress up like soldiers and stand in the doorway of a voting place brandishing a billy club cannot be prosecuted for voter intimidation in the absence of testimony from a voter who was intimidated, or proof of someone who was turned away from voting. Without such evidence, they argue, it is impossible to prove what the Panthers intended by their actions.

This argument ignores several indisputable facts. First, the videos themselves are clear evidence of the intimidating nature of the Panthers' actions that day, which included one man thumping the nightstick against his open palm, and one shouting that voters should prepare themselves to be "ruled by the black man." Second, multiple witnesses have testified to seeing additional egregious behavior that was not captured on video, including one black Republican poll worker who the Panthers called a "race traitor" and promised there would be "hell to pay" when he emerged from the voting place. Another person has testified that the Panthers called him a "white devil" and a "cracker." Witnesses also have testified that they saw voters approach the entrance, stop upon sight of the uniformed, weapon-wielding Panthers in the doorway, and turn and leave without voting. All of this evidence and testimony was known and available to Justice when it dropped charges against three of the four Panther defendants.

Continue reading here . . .

Obama's Justice Department Sued Over Black Panther Documents

Jennifer Rubin says Obama's Justice Department has been stonewalling individual members of Congress and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in their efforts to get to the bottom of the Obama-Holder Justice Department’s decision to abandon a default judgment against the New Black Panther Party and multiple individual defendants in a case of blatant voter intimidation. Now the conservative legal watchdog Judicial Watch is going to court to pry the documents loose:

Judicial Watch filed its original FOIA request on May 29, 2009. The Justice Department acknowledged receiving the request on June 18, 2009, but then referred the request to the Office of Information Policy (OIP) and the Civil Rights Division. On January 15, 2010, the OIP notified Judicial Watch that it would be responding to the request on behalf of the Offices of the Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney General, Associate Attorney General, Public Affairs, Legislative Affairs, Legal Policy, and Intergovernmental and Public Liaison.

On January 15, the OIP also indicated that the Office of the Associate Attorney General found 135 pages of records responsive to Judicial Watch’s request, but that all records would be withheld in full. On January 26, the OIP advised Judicial Watch that the Office of Public Affairs and Office of Legal Policy completed their searches and found no responsive documents. On February 10, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division indicated that after an extensive search it had located "numerous responsive records" but determined that "access to the majority of the records" should be denied. On March 26, the OIP indicated that the Office of Legislative Affairs and the Office of Intergovernmental and Public Liaison completed searches and found no documents.

It’s about time the courts rule on the panoply of made-up defenses and fake privileges that Holder has cooked up to avoid turning over these documents. Let the courts decide if the Obama administration can have it both ways -- declining to invoke executive privilege but relying on the privilege under other names ("deliberative privilege").

A knowledgeable lawyer e-mails me: "Notice DOJ revealed nothing about the number of panther documents in the AG and deputy AG office. Even for the associate attorney general they revealed there were 135 but they weren’t going to turn them over. Failing to even name a number is extremely suspicious because those units can be searched quicker and easier for compliant documents. It leads one to conclude any number would be an embarrassment, and a high number would be a catastrophe. So, don’t reveal a number. Typical of this non-transparent operation."

And now we’re going to see the administration’s true colors played out in open court. As a Judicial Watch spokesman said: "If there is nothing to hide, then Eric Holder should release this information as the law requires. And this is just one more example of how Obama’s promises of transparency are a big lie."

But the Obama team may have a different problem: if either or both houses of Congress flip to Republican control, new chairmen will populate key committees and subpoenas will begin to fly. Congress is in an even better position to get access to the documents, as attorney-client privilege doesn’t work against a co-equal branch of government. In sum, Holder is running out of room to hide, finally.

Pro-Black Panther Prejudice

The Washington Times says Obama's Justice Department is implementing a racial double standard.

The foundation is crumbling from the Justice Department's stonewall on the New Black Panther voter-intimidation case. What's becoming visible is a serious corrosion in the whole edifice of the Civil Rights Division in the Obama-Holder Justice Department.

The edifice shook on Friday when a key lawyer in the case notified the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights that he is now available to testify. The lawyer, J. Christian Adams, had been ordered by his Justice Department superiors, quite improperly, to ignore a subpoena by the commission. Mr. Adams instead resigned from the department effective two weeks ago, largely in honorable protest over its handling of the Black Panther case. His attorney e-mailed the commission on Friday, "Mr. Adams wants to relieve any obligation he has under the subpoena." Mr. Adams' testimony surely will shed light on how the unreasonable decision was made.

Readers will remember that the case involved two New Black Panther Party members -- one a local Democratic Party official and poll watcher -- who used racial epithets and threats while standing at the entrance to a Philadelphia polling place on Election Day, 2008. One Panther brandished a nightstick like a weapon. After the case effectively had been won, political appointees of Obama's dismissed or reduced all charges or sanctions against the defendants, and then they stonewalled multiple inquiries about the case from Congress, the media and the Civil Rights Commission.

The stonewall's mortar further disintegrated when the June 21 issue of the Weekly Standard, published on Sunday, featured a lengthy, explosive expose on the Black Panther case by Commentary magazine contributing editor Jennifer Rubin. Confirming and expanding on months of reporting by The Washington Times, Ms. Rubin provides at least five nuggets of information that are damaging to the official story line peddled by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and the Obama White House.

First, Ms. Rubin reports that Steven H. Rosenbaum, the acting deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights, who spearheaded the decision to drop the case, was repeatedly unfamiliar with case details even as he ordered it to be dismissed. Second, Mr. Rosenbaum repeatedly based his arguments for dropping the case on the idea that First Amendment speech protections somehow excused the Black Panthers' threats. Yet during May 14 testimony to the Civil Rights Commission, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Thomas E. Perez repeatedly, exasperatingly, dodged questions about whether First Amendment concerns prompted the cases' dismissals, effectively suggesting that the position could not be defended.

Third, Ms. Rubin reports that Mr. Holder was briefed personally on the decision to drop the case, a fact that seemingly contradicts earlier Justice Department statements. Fourth, the Justice Department's own internal investigation into the strange handling of the case has itself been a sham. Even though the Office of Professional Responsibility was assigned to the case in July, it did not bother to interview the original trial team until a few days before Mr. Adams left the department.

Finally, Ms. Rubin's reporting confirms that much of Justice's Civil Rights Division rejects "the notion that any discrimination case should be filed against black defendants" for any reason. In short, a double standard exists in which only whites and Asians can be guilty of illegal discrimination but never be its victims, while blacks can only be victims but never charged as perpetrators.

This is a dangerous and un-American notion. If Americans of different races cannot receive equal justice from the Justice Department, there is no real justice.

The Black Panther Case -- Anger, Ignorance And Lies

J. Christian Adams says on the day Obama was elected, armed men wearing the black berets and jackboots of the New Black Panther Party were stationed at the entrance to a polling place in Philadelphia. They brandished a weapon and intimidated voters and poll watchers (video). After the election, the Justice Department brought a voter-intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party and those armed thugs. I and other Justice attorneys diligently pursued the case and obtained an entry of default after the defendants ignored the charges. Before a final judgment could be entered in May 2009, our superiors ordered us to dismiss the case.

The New Black Panther case was the simplest and most obvious violation of federal law I saw in my Justice Department career. Because of the corrupt nature of the dismissal, statements falsely characterizing the case and, most of all, indefensible orders for the career attorneys not to comply with lawful subpoenas investigating the dismissal, this month I resigned my position as a Department of Justice (DOJ) attorney.

The federal voter-intimidation statutes we used against the New Black Panthers were enacted because America never realized genuine racial equality in elections. Threats of violence characterized elections from the end of the Civil War until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. Before the Voting Rights Act, blacks seeking the right to vote, and those aiding them, were victims of violence and intimidation. But unlike the Southern legal system, Southern violence did not discriminate. Black voters were slain, as were the white champions of their cause. Some of the bodies were tossed into bogs and in one case in Philadelphia, Miss., they were buried together in an earthen dam.

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. The dismissal raises serious questions about the department's enforcement neutrality in upcoming midterm elections and the subsequent 2012 presidential election.

Continue reading this important case here . . .

Top Justice Dept. Official Lied Under Oath

FoxNews.com is reporting that a former Justice Department attorney who resigned last month in protest of the Obama administration's handling of a voter intimidation case involving the New Black Panther Party accused a top Justice official of lying under oath about the circumstances surrounding the decision to drop the case.

J. Christian Adams, now an attorney in Virginia and a blogger for Pajamas Media, told Fox News in an exclusive interview that aired Wednesday that Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez provided false testimony in May to the United States Commission on Civil Rights, which is investigating the department's decision to drop charges against three members of the radical group in a case that the government won.

Perez told the commission that the facts and the law didn't support the case against the group.

"I know about the truth…and I know what the truth is and I know to say the facts and law don't support the Black Panther case is not true," Adams said, adding that Perez ignored his warnings not to provide false testimony.

"We made it very clear that continuing to say that the facts and the law don't support this case would not be consistent with the truth," he said.

Continue reading here (with video) . . .

Scott Johnson adds, Adams is a protagonist in this story with first-hand knowledge of the Department of Justice's machinations in the case. His accounts of what transpired are credible and devastating. Did Eric Holder approve of the dismissal of the case against the NBPP? Adams provides ground for concluding that he did.

The department has responded by characterizing Adams as a conservative and a disgruntled employee. As Adams states in the interview with Kelly and as Roger Simon reports, Adams was disgruntled only about the department's disgusting treatment of the NBPP case. He was otherwise fully gruntled.

And Adams's senior Department of Justice colleague on the case (Christopher Coates) has been exiled to South Carolina. What was his offense?

A Google News search on "Washington Post Christian Adams" and "New York Times Christian Adams" turns up only my own posts noting the lack of interest in the case on the part of the Post and the Times. Yet the case has all the ingredients of a major scandal if a single standard were applied to these matters.

Rush Limbaugh turned his attention to the case yesterday. So word has gotten out. Even the Associated Press covered the story yesterday. AP reporter Jesse Washington quotes Jennifer Rubin on the case and he does a creditable job with the story.

If the mainstream media did not have an intolerably high threshold for embarrassment, professional pride among the AP's colleagues would dictate that they take an interest in it too.

Media Blackout For Black Panthers

The Washington Times says that explosive racial allegations are being ignored by the poodles in the press.

Where is the New York Times? Where is The Washington Post? Where are CBS and NBC? A whistleblower makes explosive allegations about the Department of Justice; his story is backed by at least two other witnesses; and the allegations involve the two hot-button issues of race and of blatant politicization of the justice system. A potential constitutional confrontation stemming from the scandal brews between the Justice Department and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. A congressman highly respected for thoughtfulness and bipartisanship has all but accused the department of serious impropriety. By every standard of objective journalism, this adds up to real news.

Or it would be real news if a Republican Justice Department stood accused. It would be real news if the liberal media weren't mostly in the tank for our celebrated but failing first black president.

Tomorrow, the Civil Rights Commission will hear long-awaited testimony from J. Christian Adams, who resigned from the Voting Section of the Justice Department after the department improperly ordered him to refuse compliance with the commission's lawful subpoena. Mr. Adams first told his story in public in these pages on June 28 and later did two major interviews with Fox News' Megyn Kelly. In those appearances, he flatly accused the Obama Justice Department of adopting an unlawful, immoral policy identified in previous Washington Times editorials -- namely, enforcing civil rights laws against white perpetrators who victimized minorities but never against black perpetrators who victimize whites or Asians. If this is indeed the policy, it makes a scandalous mockery of the cherished American principle of "equal justice under the law."

All these allegations stem from what should have been a slam-dunk voter-intimidation case against members of the New Black Panther Party videotaped in menacing behavior outside a Philadelphia polling place in 2008. The Obama Justice Department dropped or seriously reduced all the charges or penalties in the case after it already effectively had been won. Mr. Adams' former colleague, longtime award-winning civil rights lawyer Christopher Coates, has been reported on multiple occasions to have backed Mr. Adams' version of events and of the Obama team's openly discriminatory policy.

If the department's motives are not racial or racist, Justice officials surely appear political. One of the Black Panthers against whom the department declined to press charges was an official poll watcher for the Democratic Party and an elected local party official. The department dropped charges just four days before another election, allowing him again to serve as a poll watcher.

Mr. Adams says the official most directly involved in dropping the case, Steven H. Rosenbaum -- whose ethics have been subject to judicial sanction -- refused to read his own team's legal briefs before deciding to dismiss the case. Mr. Adams accuses Thomas E. Perez, head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, of providing false answers in testimony to the Civil Rights Commission.

On a parallel track, The Washington Times has reported strong circumstantial evidence suggesting that department officials may have consulted the White House before dismissing the case. That possibility, too, cries out for investigation.

These broad policy questions and suggestions of political chicanery are important. Do we have a nation of laws equally applied to all, or is justice being reduced to raw politics? Investigating such questions is the essence of the news business. Failure to look into such a scandal is evidence of the institutional corruption of the much-ballyhooed "fourth branch of government," a supposedly independent media.

Ex-Official Accuses Justice Department Of Racial Bias

Fox News is reporting In emotional and personal testimony, an ex-Justice official who quit over the handling of a voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party accused his former employer of instructing attorneys in the civil rights division to ignore cases that involve black defendants and white victims.

J. Christian Adams, testifying Tuesday before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, said that "over and over and over again," the department showed "hostility" toward those cases. He described the Black Panther case as one example of that -- he defended the legitimacy of the suit and said his "blood boiled" when he heard a Justice official claim the case wasn't solid.

"It is false," Adams said of the claim.

"We abetted wrongdoing and abandoned law-abiding citizens," he later testified.

The department abandoned the New Black Panther case last year. It stemmed from an incident on Election Day in 2008 in Philadelphia, where members of the party were videotaped in front of a polling place, dressed in military-style uniforms and allegedly hurling racial slurs while one brandished a night stick.

Continue reading here . . .

NAACP Helped Shut Down Black Panther Case

Robert Moon says its support for anti-white race quotas were already enough to demonstrate the NAACP's blatantly racist views (since they decided to bring up racism), we now learn that they were directly involved in protecting fanatical racist militants from prosecution.

According to the Washington Times, Congressional testimony has revealed that the NAACP spoke regularly about the Black Panther voter intimidation case to the Justice Department and lobbied for the case to be dismissed. Or, as Obama would put it, they "acted stupidly."

It's a stunning revelation considering the pot-kettle "racism" smears they've spent the last few days hurling at the Tea Party movement from their shiny glass house. Has the Tea Party movement intervened in any cases against armed Klansmen caught on tape intimidating voters at the polls? Does the Tea Party movement routinely fight for racist preferential treatment for white people?

No. That kind of flagrant racial bigotry comes from the NAACP -- the group accusing anyone who dares to disagree with Obama of hating black people.

As noted, contrary to everything we are told, the Tea Party movement is mainstream, more educated and best reflects the racial make-up of the country. As also noted, the only actual bigots here are our "post-racial" Marxist-in-chief and his black power allies at the New Black Panther Party and the NAACP.

Related: The Islamists at CAIR back the NAACP Resolution on Tea Party Racism.

Surprised?