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The Justice Department still hasn't explained its decision to drop most of its voter-intimidation case against violent Black Panthers 18 months ago. If the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights finally adopts its report on the controversy, the great lengths Justice officials have taken to avoid scrutiny will be exposed.As the draft comes up for a vote on Friday, new findings from a Judicial Watch lawsuit will further eviscerate the lame excuses Justice has offered. Even in heavily redacted form, department e-mails unearthed last week show top political appointees not just vaguely reviewing and approving the decision to drop most...

The Obama Department of Justice (DOJ) cannot shake the New Black Panther Party scandal. Every week new revelations emerge about the racism and political favoritism that are corrupting our nation’s top law enforcement agency.This week, we released to the public brand new documents from the Obama DOJ that provide further 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. And just like previous documents we’ve uncovered, this new evidence directly contradicts sworn testimony by Thomas Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil...

The Justice Department on Wednesday vowed to thwart any efforts to intimidate voters at the polls on Tuesday and to ensure that the ballots of military voters are counted, as activists on both sides of the political aisle reignite their regular election-time tango over the dangers of voter fraud versus voter suppression. Facing separate investigations in its handling of a voter-intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party and questions over the failure of absentee ballots to be sent to military personnel and their families by the legally required date, the Justice Department moved to assure voters that they will...

Complete title: Top DOJ Official Describes Recent Controversy As "He Said, She Said," Insists Actions Speak Louder Than WordsThe head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division on Wednesday strongly disputed accusations by a department colleague that the Obama administration avoids prosecuting minorities in civil rights cases, saying it all amounts to a "'he said, she said' thing" and that he "tends to judge people by their actions," not their words. It's the first time Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez has weighed in since Justice Department lawyer Christopher Coates accused Perez's office of being "hostile" toward "race-neutral enforcement" of voting...

Full article here.  Some parts (Washington Post portions indented): As to the administration’s mindset: Civil rights officials from the Bush administration have said that enforcement should be race-neutral. But some officials from the Obama administration, which took office vowing to reinvigorate civil rights enforcement, thought the agency should focus primarily on cases filed on behalf of minorities.“The Voting Rights Act was passed because people like Bull Connor were hitting people like John Lewis, not the other way around,” said one Justice Department official not authorized to speak publicly, referring to the white Alabama police commissioner who cracked down on civil...

Poor James Cole.  At least he won't have to take a pay cut anytime soon.  Cole doesn't get his DAG job, but what of the people responsible for it? The whirlwind cometh to DOJ regarding the failure to protect military voters in 2010.  The soon to be Chairmen strike. Letter from Congress. One of many zingers:  "What we find most troubling about this situation is that the Department of Justice, which has the sole and exclusive authority to enforce UOCAVA, not only failed to ensure compliance but apparently was not even aware when widespread noncompliance occurred." The letter also states a private...

When George W. Bush appointees at the Justice Department used political considerations in hiring career employees, official Washington exploded in outrage. Yet we hear barely a peep of protest now as the Obama Justice Department does the same thing for liberal ends.On Friday, Thomas E. Perez, chief of the Civil Rights Division at Justice, announced 16 hires and promotions for "career" - as opposed to "political" - slots. An apolitical hiring process would have included a few random attorneys somewhere to the right of the late Ted Kennedy - but not here.Among the new hires are: Sharyn Tejani comes...

Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez has an obligation to clean house at the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. That's clear after explosive new whistle-blower testimony under oath Friday in the New Black Panther Party voter-intimidation case, which triggers a pledge Mr. Perez made under oath on May 14. Failure to fire some officials and to radically revamp practices in the Civil Rights Division would represent clear dereliction of duty by Mr. Perez.Friday's testimony to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights came from much-decorated Justice Department veteran Christopher Coates, a hero of the civil rights legal community when he...

Click here or on the image below to read Mr. Coates’ testimony:

The news that Christopher Coates, former chief of the Justice Department’s Voting Section, is set to testify Friday before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is crucial to the panel’s investigation of allegations that the Obama administration has not enforced the nation’s civil rights laws in a race-neutral manner.The testimony by Coates, a career government lawyer, is expected to shed light on whether DOJ: • Discriminated against white voters in dismissing the voter-intimidation case against two members of the New Black Panther Party and the party itself that arose from incidents at a Philadelphia polling place on Election Day...

Complete title: Judicial Watch Sues DOJ for Documents Detailing White House Involvement in Black Panther Case Dismissal DOJ Claims No Records Exist; Press Reports Document Nine Meetings between Associate Attorney General Perrelli and White House between March 25 and May 27, 2009 Washington, DC -- September 22, 2010Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today announced that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit (Judicial Watch v. Department of Justice (CV 10-0160)) against the Obama Department of Justice (DOJ) to obtain records related to meetings between Associate Attorney General Thomas Perrelli and White...

Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general for civil rights, is in big trouble. The public-interest group Judicial Watch yesterday released a 62-page index of documents regarding the New Black Panther Party voter-intimidation case that undermines the credibility of Mr. Perez and of the Department of Justice under Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.For more than a year, The Washington Times has been reporting that Mr. Holder's top political appointees intervened to force the abandonment of serious sanctions against the Black Panther members who threatened voters at a Philadelphia polling place on Election Day 2008. The Justice Department denied the...

A FOIA request reveals contradictions in statements made to Congress, the Civil Rights Commission, and to the public. Some of these statements were made under oath. Judicial Watch made an explosive announcement today about the Justice Department’s stonewalling in the New Black Panther voter intimidation case dismissal. Forced to bring a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit after DOJ rebuffed its public records request (so much for transparency), Judicial Watch obtained a privilege log from the DOJ last week.It shows — in a rather dramatic way — that the DOJ has been untruthful about who was involved in the dismissal...

If you tried to help a "protected" Obama constituency, you had better hope that your best efforts didn't fail. The Gestapo will have you in its crosshairs. This is not the Gestapo of the thirties-Germany variety so vividly portrayed by Hollywood long after the bright shiny black uniforms and man-sized flashlights of the SS became extinct and irrelevant. Tom Perez — control freak Thomas Perez, Assistant Attorney General, heads the Justice Department's (DOJ) "Civil Rights" division. On September 3, the department filed a suit against "America's toughest sheriff" Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona. The reason? The sheriff is actually...

Abuse Of Power: Our misnamed Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit against an Arizona sheriff at the top of the administration's enemies list. Prosecute border sheriffs and sue states but protect the Black Panthers? Gotcha. The Justice Department has filed a lawsuit against the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, the county itself and outspoken Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The suit alleges that the sheriff's office is in violation of civil rights laws by refusing for 17 months to fully cooperate with an investigation into police practices and jail operations. The federal probe itself deals with alleged discrimination, unconstitutional searches and seizures,...

EDINBURG — Six people accused of a February drug-related slaying faced capital murder charges Thursday morning. The sextet of suspects are allegedly part of a local drug smuggling group that ordered a hit of one of their own after he allegedly stole a load of marijuana delivered to a customer in February, investigators said. Hidalgo County sheriff's deputies found Gilberto Aguilar beaten and shot to death on Feb. 6 in a remote field north of Palmview. Investigators believe Aguilar was kidnapped, beaten with brass knuckles and fatally shot after he stole a load of marijuana. Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Treviño...

Why are Americans enraged? As this moribund economy limps through the third year of doldrums, Americans are sick of having their hard-earned money swiped by Washington's Democrat-dominated political class, which is clueless, condescending and invariably costly. Could anything but cluelessness explain what happened when Harv's Metro Car Wash in Sacramento, Calif., owed the federal government precisely four pennies because of a mistaken tax return? Rather than shrug at a 4-cent error, the IRS dispatched two agents to deliver a letter by hand informing the owner of his tax debt. "They were deadly serious, very aggressive," Harv's proprietor, Aaron Zeff, told...

The editorial boards of The Washington Times and Washington Examiner have previously blasted the Justice Department for its handling of a controversial voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party.

The hypocrisy of the Obama Justice Department has reached staggering proportions on a host of issues stemming from the New Black Panther voter-intimidation case. Such systemic evasion of justice breeds lawlessness. The Justice Department's latest thumb in the eye of its critics came in an Aug. 11 letter from Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Mr. Perez told the commission that he will continue blocking testimony from veteran civil rights attorney Christopher Coates because Mr. Coates' stationing in South Carolina since mid-January means he is not "the appropriate witness to testify regarding current...

A federal investigation of a controversial Arizona sheriff known for tough immigration enforcement has intensified in recent days, escalating the conflict between the Obama administration and officials in the border state. Justice Department officials in Washington have issued a rare threat to sue Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio if he doesn't cooperate by Tuesday with their investigation into whether he discriminates against Hispanics. The civil rights probe is one of two targeting the man who calls himself "America's Toughest Sheriff" -- a federal grand jury in Phoenix is examining whether Arpaio has used his power to investigate and intimidate political...