Free Republic

This lunacy is mainstream thought at the Department of Justice. Vanita Gupta, head of the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, has told a lawyers group in Colorado that slavery and Jim Crow helped fuel the Ferguson and Baltimore riots. The last few days have seen a number of fanciful stories with the Obama administration seemingly questioning the authority of local police. I’ve long maintained that the administration is nakedly seeking to federalize policing standards — but get rid of local police? No way, that sounds like something broadcast from a shortwave station in Austin, Texas. But then up steps...

A lawyer who came to prominence for his full-throated defense of a subsequently convicted terrorist was quietly promoted to the No. 3 slot at the Department of Justice last month, a post that puts him in charge of the administration’s policy regarding Guantanamo Bay detainees. The move has raised red flags on Capitol Hill and elsewhere among national security stalwarts who argue that the promotion could imperil the country’s longstanding war on terrorism.

An alliance of free-market conservatives is building support for a bill that would thwart the Obama administration's bid to make foreign computers, servers and data farms subject to Justice Department search and seizure.The alliance stepped up its pressure on Capitol Hill with the release of its May 1 “coalition letter” to Sen. Charles “Chuck” Grassley (R-Iowa) and Rep. Robert W. Goodlatte (R.-Va.), the two men who chair the judiciary committees in their chamber. The letter calls on the chairmen to move forward on the Law Enforcement Access to Data Stored Abroad Act.To put things in perspective, in 1995 the email...

Hold your breath forever waiting for Obama’s Justice Department to take action or even make mention of this hate group urging to kill white babies. Can you fathom what would happen if the colors were reversed here?It’s easy to call these hateful ignoramus’ but I think the important factor here is that they’ve become emboldened by the fact that their racist and violent actions and words in the past have been met with no resistance from this White House. Our guy Joe Newby has the story: In a video posted at Breitbart.com on Tuesday, a New Black Panther Leader identified...

The latest example of cellphone video vindicating someone from false charges is a doozy. It comes from Washington Parish, La., and WWL TV. One of the worst days of Douglas Dendinger’s life began with him handing an envelope to a police officer. In order to help out his family and earn a quick $50, Dendinger agreed to act as a process server, giving a brutality lawsuit filed by his nephew to Chad Cassard as the former Bogalusa police officer exited the Washington Parish Courthouse. The handoff went smoothly, but Dendinger said the reaction from Cassard, and a group of officers...

WASHINGTON—The Senate Judiciary Committee voted Thursday to move Loretta Lynch, President Barack Obama ’s nominee for attorney general, to the Senate floor for a final confirmation vote. The committee approved the nomination of Ms. Lynch, currently Brooklyn’s U.S. Attorney, by a vote of 12 to 8. Republican Sens. Jeff Flake of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Orrin Hatch of Utah joined all of the committee’s Democrats in voting yes. Ms. Lynch has so far generated little animosity from Republican senators, even those who ended up voting against her. Many praised her work as a prosecutor and some said...

The Justice Department has been, to say no more, unhelpful regarding attempts to fully investigate and properly punish the politicization and corruption of the Internal Revenue Service. Given the department’s seeming complicity in the coverup, would it not be appropriate to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the IRS practice of suppressing the political activity of conservative groups? Civil forfeiture — the seizure of property suspected of being produced by, or involved with, crime — has become a lucrative business for lawless law enforcement. Civil forfeiture treats citizens worse than criminals, seizing the property of people neither convicted of nor...

Wickedness has darkened this season of lights in Brooklyn. It is no surprise or accident that a ghoul like Ismaaiyl Brinsley bathed himself in messages of hate, racial division and anger and then chose to destroy lives. But Brinsley wasn’t alone in his racially soaked hatred of the police. For starters, a mob has Brinsley’s back. This seemingly disconnected mob has been on the prowl in the months since America learned of Ferguson, Missouri. They’ve smashed up windows of banks in Berkeley, burned up bakeries in Ferguson, and looted, burned, shot, robbed and killed across the nation. But such mobs...

WASHINGTON — Opening the door for what could be a lucrative and controversial new industry on some Native American reservations, the Justice Department on Thursday will tell U.S. attorneys to not prevent tribes from growing or selling marijuana on the sovereign lands, even in states that ban the practice. The new guidance, released in a memorandum, will be implemented on a case-by-case basis and tribes must still follow federal guidelines, said Timothy Purdon, the U.S. attorney for North Dakota and the chairman of the Attorney General's Subcommittee on Native American Issues. It remains to be seen how many reservations will...

For decades, courts have been struggling to reconcile two conflicting theories of what constitutes unlawful discrimination. The first theory, often called “disparate treatment,” reflects the commonly understood meaning of “discrimination.” Under this theory, a government action discriminates—violates the principle of equal protection or equality under the law—if it explicitly or implicitly treats members of one race or other special group differently from others. Examples of disparate treatment include Jim Crow’s black codes, university admission caps and quotas, and policies excluding women from certain positions.The second theory, known as “disparate impact,” argues that the definition of discrimination should be much broader...

James O’Keefe has filed an ethics complaint with various bar associations against Department of Justice Civil Rights Attorney Karla Dobinski and three others arising out of a prosecution of police officers in New Orleans. PJ Media has covered Karla Dobinski’s ethical misconducthere and here. Dobinski was in charge of the taint team in the prosecution of New Orleans polices officers on civil rights charges in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The taint team was responsible for protecting the Constitutional rights of the accused police officers. It is responsible for ensuring that evidence obtained in the local internal affairs investigation did...

President Obama on Monday will focus on the relationship between local police and the communities they protect and serve in the wake of sometimes violent protests in Ferguson, Mo. Obama will meet with Cabinet members to discuss a review the president ordered in August of federal funding and programs that provide equipment to state and local law enforcement agencies, according to the White House. Law enforcement officials were criticized for their militarized response to protests in Ferguson after a police officer shot and killed an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown. A grand jury last week refused to indict Ferguson police...

Barack Obama's latest federal nomination, Loretta Lynch, is just as bad as her predecessor Eric Holder. In a video of Lynch speaking in Long Beach, New York nine months ago, she declared that Voter ID laws in the "Deep South" states are racist. Did she use those exact words? No, but the idea is most definitely there. "I serve at the pleasure of the first African-American president of the United States of America," she said to a round of applause.

With a grand jury decision looming on whether a white police officer should face charges in the killing of an unarmed black 18-year-old in Ferguson, Mo., the investigation has sprung a few leaks. New details from the inquiry into Michael Brown’s Aug. 9 death — all provided by unidentified sources and which seem to support Officer Darren Wilson’s story of what happened that day — have emerged in St. Louis and national news outlets in recent days. The U.S. Department of Justice condemned the leaks Wednesday as “irresponsible and highly troubling” and said, “There seems to be an inappropriate effort...

In perhaps the most stunning documentation yet of abuses by Eric Holder’s Justice Department, two former Assistant United States Attorneys spoke to defense attorneys and revealed appalling deceit and corruption of justice. This latest litigation time bomb has exploded from multi-million dollar litigation originally brought by the Department of Justice against Sierra Pacific based on allegations that the lumber company and related defendants were responsible for a wildfire that destroyed 65,000 acres in California. In what was dubbed the “Moonlight Fire” case, the tables are now turned. The defendants have discovered new evidence and filed a stunning motion. The new...

The Justice Department second-raking official is preparing to step down, completing an exodus of top brass from the agency, according to published reports. Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole would become the third member of the Justice Department’s brain trust to announce his departure in recent weeks. Attorney Gen. Eric Holder announced his departure in late September, though he has pledged to remain in office until his successor is in place. The White House has indicated that President Obama would not nominate anyone for the position untl after the November midterms. Associate Attorney General Tony West, the third-ranking DOJ official,...

Numerous publications close to the White House have reported that Labor Secretary Tom Perez has emerged as the leading candidate to replace Attorney General Eric Holder. That Perez has a documented and repeating history of dishonesty, racialism, and radicalism shows that this administration feels unrestrained by conventional political wisdom. That the White House is dropping his name before an election should demonstrate to every Republican that Obama is fundamentally transforming politics in corrosive ways that the GOP seems ill-equipped to contain. So who is Tom Perez? Perez ran for Maryland attorney general in 2006. But his campaign ended when he...

Attorney General Eric Holder announced his resignation yesterday. It doesn’t exactly come as a surprise, he’s been saying he would eventually resign since Obama won his second term. Nevertheless the media on both the left and right appeared shocked that Holder is leaving. Holder is one of the most politically charged Attorney General’s in American history. He came into office calling us a “nation of cowards” when it comes to race and then proceeded to use the Justice Department as his own racial gestapo. He sparred with Republicans in the House over his Fast and Furious program, refusing to provide...

Eric Holder has announced his resignation from his position as U.S. attorney general after almost six years of turning the Justice Department into a partisan political vehicle instead of a law enforcement institution. It's too early to tell as of this writing what prompted his resignation. One would like to think his legacy of scandals and corruption finally caught up to him, but we have no reasonable expectation that this is the case, given this administration's agility at escaping accountability for any and all wrongdoing. No, I doubt it's his malfeasance in connection with the Fast and Furious gunrunning scandal,...

Full title: Federal Court Denies DOJ Motion for Delay, Orders Release of Fast and Furious Documents List to Judicial Watch by October 22 “The government’s arguments for even more time are unconvincing.” – U.S. District Court Judge John D. Bates (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that on September 23, 2014, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that by October 22, the Department of Justice (DOJ) must submit a “Vaughn index” listing Fast and Furious materials Judicial Watch sought in its June 2012 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and subsequent September 2012 FOIA lawsuit...