Proof: New Records Show DOJ Lied About New Black Panther Dismissal

Pajamas Media ^ | September 20, 2010 | J. Christian Adams

[jazusamo]

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 of the case.

In July, I complied with a subpoena and provided testimony to the United States Commission on Civil Rights. I did so in part because inaccurate statements had been made about the case by DOJ officials. Some of these statements falsely claimed that ethical rules mandated the dismissal of the charges against the New Black Panthers. This was nonsense.

But the real whopper? DOJ’s claim — repeated over and over again — that career civil servants were wholly responsible for the spiking of the case.

Today we learn, from the Department’s own records, that this claim is demonstrably false.

The privilege log produced in the FOIA litigation contains stunning entries. They show regular discussions and deliberations between the highest political officials inside the DOJ, including the deputy attorney general and the associate attorney general, about what to do with the case. This contradicts numerous statements made to Congress, the Civil Rights Commission, and to the public.

Some of these statements were under oath.

For example: on May 10, 2009, the third highest-ranking official inside the DOJ — Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli — emailed Sam Hirsch, one of his deputies:

Where are we on the Black Panther case?

The description of the email contains a bombshell:

asking for update on the NBPP litigation between officials in the [Associate’s office] and noting the [deputy attorney general’s] current thoughts on the case.

The deputy attorney general is the second highest-ranking official in the Department. The use of the term “current thoughts” infers that there were prior thoughts and ongoing discussions with the second highest-ranking political official at DOJ about how to handle the case.

Further, the logs show dozens of communications between senior DOJ political officials in the two weeks prior to the dismissal of the case.

Congress and the public have been told — for over a year — that the dismissal of the New Black Panther case resulted from nothing more than a dispute between lowly career civil servants. Lapdog reporters have repeated this lie, if they even covered the case at all. The documents uncovered by Judicial Watch expose the ruse.

Rarely in our nation’s history have officials in the Department of Justice engaged in a dishonest misinformation campaign to Congress, the public, and other fact-finding tribunals. Thankfully, these few episodes have been confined to the darkest and most corrupt eras of the republic.

Sam Hirsch is a former Democratic Party operative, and one of the most partisan election law attorneys in the entire nation. He worked for the Democratic Party in numerous redistricting fights, trying to squeeze every last drop of partisan advantage from plans in places like Texas. He has led efforts to impose racial divisions on Hawaii by creating native classifications and powers — and he is proud of it. He was heavily involved in the Obama presidential campaign.

As deputy associate attorney general — a senior Obama political appointee — Hirsch emerges in the privilege logs as the fulcrum around which the New Black Panther case was dismissed. Throughout April and May 2009, Civil Rights Division political appointee Steve Rosenbaum engaged in extensive legal analysis with Hirsch. In turn, Hirsch had extensive communications with Associate Attorney General Perrelli about the case. The emails are sometimes described as “deliberations” between the senior political appointees. These are deliberations which the DOJ inferred never existed. Nothing more than a dispute between civil servants, they repeated without equivocation.

The privilege logs show at least thirteen communications between Hirsch and Perelli in the two weeks before the dismissal on May 15.

On April 30 alone, Hirsch and Rosenbaum communicated at least eight separate times about the case. This occurred the day before the Voting Section decided not to seek a final injunction, and instead asked the court for a two-week delay. Someone, somewhere, didn’t want the easily obtained victory by default. Perhaps it was now-resigned Deputy Attorney General David Ogden. After all, he had some “current thinking” he was eager to share. Perhaps it was someone else.

On May 8, the same day that the logs show the Voting Section provided its analysis supporting a full remedy against all four defendants, Rosenbaum immediately forwarded the Voting Section’s work to the associate attorney general’s office. It’s clear from the logs who was calling the shots — and it wasn’t the career civil servants. Rosenbaum looks like an errand boy, nothing more.

Continued at PJM

[Leftism is Mentally Deranged]

“under oath.”

That means something to normal people, not nihilistic self-absorbed narcissistic marxists.

[RavenATB]

Another “Watergate” the public will never hear about...

[phockthis]

sfl

[presently no screen name]

Well it’s out there, so if the public doesn’t hear about it - it because they don’t want to. Like they didn’t want to hear about the ‘real’ Barry before they elected him.

[SengirV]

It’s out there on a couple sites people are unfamiliar with. Being out there, and easily accessible are two different things. What about someone over 50 who doesn’t frequent the internet? It’s NOT out there for them.

[jazusamo]

 

Political Appointee Involved in Obama Justice Department Decision to Drop Black Panther Case According to Documents

Records Contradict Testimony by Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez

Washington, DC -- September 20, 2010

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has forced disclosure of the existence of documents from the Department of Justice (DOJ) indicating Democratic election lawyer Sam Hirsch was involved in the DOJ decision to dismiss its voting rights case against the New Black Panther Party for Self Defense. The records, described in a Vaughn index produced pursuant to a Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, contradict sworn testimony by Thomas Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, who testified before the U.S. Civil Rights Commission that no political leadership was involved in the decision (Judicial Watch v. Department of Justice (No. 10-851)).

The “Vaughn index” describes documents responsive to the lawsuit currently being withheld in their entirety by the Justice Department. The index details a series of emails between Assistant Deputy Attorney General Steve Rosenbaum and Deputy Associate Attorney General Sam Hirsch, who was described by Slate magazine as a “DC election lawyer who represents a lot of Democrats” prior to joining the Justice Department.

The index describes eight email exchanges between Rosenbaum and Hirsch, taking place on April 30, 2009, the day before the Justice Department reversed course and declined to pursue much of the Black Panther case. Listed among the email correspondence:

An “Email Chain with Attachments” from Rosenbaum to Hirsch dated April 30, 2009: The email chain includes “…a detailed response and analysis of the proposed draft filings in NBPP (New Black Panther Party) litigation…The response includes a candid assessment of legal research and raises questions about the case law and proposed relief….This document also contains attorney discussion, opinions, and analyses of the draft documents and case law.”

The records disclosed to Judicial Watch seemingly contradict testimony by Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez, before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights on May 14, 2010. The Commission, an independent, bipartisan unit of the federal government charged with investigating and reporting on civil rights issues, initiated a probe of the Justice Department’s decision to drop its lawsuit. During the hearing, Perez was asked directly regarding the involvement of political leaders in the decision to dismiss the Black Panther case.

COMMISSIONER KIRSANOW: Was there any political leadership involved in the decision not to pursue this particular case any further than it was?

ASST. ATTY. GEN. PEREZ: No. The decisions were made by Loretta King in consultation with Steve Rosenbaum, who is the Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General.

Perez also suggested that the dispute was merely “a case of career people disagreeing with career people.”

The Justice Department originally filed its lawsuit against the New Black Panther Party following an incident that took place outside of a Philadelphia polling station on November 4, 2008. A video of the incident, showing a member of the New Black Panther Party brandishing police-style baton weapon, was widely distributed on the Internet. According to multiple witnesses, members of the New Black Panthers blocked access to polling stations, harassed voters and hurled racial epithets. Nonetheless, the Justice Department ultimately overruled the recommendations of its own staff and dismissed the majority of its charges.

“These documents show the Obama Justice Department’s decision to drop the Black Panther case was certainly political and potentially corrupt,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The Black Panther decision is a scandal for the Obama administration and it merits serious attention by investigators. Assistant Attorney General Perez seems to have been less than candid in his sworn testimony when he said no political appointees were involved in the decision. This scandal has just gotten a whole lot worse for the Obama Justice Department.”

Judicial Watch article

[RavenATB]

A majority of the voters get their “news” from traditional sources. You can’t say that it’s their “choice” to not hear about this news, if they don’t have knowledge about the story at all, they don’t know what they don’t know.

It’s the responsibility of the news media to provide honest and unbiased coverage, and not ignore stores that may be damaging to one side of the political spectrum. The news media “knows” about these stories and chooses to ignore them. It’s the media doing the choosing.

Certainly, it would be nice if more Americans got their news from more credible sources. But even if 100 percent of the electorate were aware of the bias in the major media that doesn’t make that bias is okay.

The bias of the major news media is the actual problem. People’s ignroance about the bias is a side issue.

[presently no screen name]

easily accessible

On that point, I agree. However, If anyone still relies on the MSM for info they learned nothing. With the mindset, 'if it's important we will hear about it' is juvenile and shows ignorance and passivity. They have no desire to know but have a lazy mindset of 'tell me what I need to know'. And MSM has been taking on that invitation for years.

[Brilliant]

What did he know and when did he know it?

[SengirV]

I really believe that there is an age component to this. Older folks simply don’t know. Or they get their AARP newsletter and think the media is nothing more than a GOP plot to rip them off.

[presently no screen name]

The bias of the major news media is the actual problem. People’s ignroance about the bias is a side issue.

OF course it's the MSM that's the problem. Isn't that one reason why we have FR!

And the people's ignorance of turning to the MSM is not a side issue but a MAJOR issue. People's ignorance of NOT knowing the bias of the media - is, IMO, a choice to remain ignorant. How could anyone possibly not know that the media is bias?

[presently no screen name]

I really believe that there is an age component to this. Older folks simply don’t know.

I disagree. First, I'm one of the older folk and what about the college kids. It's the younger set that is/was for barry - that's a given!

I've read that many many gave up their AARP membership because they aligned themselves with ZEROCARE.

It's a mindset - not an 'age' problem.

[SusaninOhio]

I cancelled my AARP membership when they published totally untrue articles claiming that Pres. Bush was trying to take their SS when he TRIED to give us the opportunity to invest a tiny percentage of our own SS $$.

AARP with the help of the dems scared the crap out of elderly folks with their lies and they continue to do so.

[jazusamo]

New Black Panther Party Case Update: E-mails Call into Question the DOJ’s Story

September 20, 2010 1:03 P.M.

By Hans A. von Spakovsky

Stunning new developments in the New Black Panther Party (NBPP) voter-intimidation scandal indicate that high-level Justice Department officials have been misleading the public and Congress. Indeed, they may also have committed perjury before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

Judicial Watch recently filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit requesting documents related to the case, and today it released a log produced by the Justice Department of e-mail communications and other documents that Justice is withholding from disclosure on purported privilege grounds.

The log details numerous discussions and legal deliberations between the Civil Rights Division and political appointees in the highest reaches of the Justice Department, including former deputy attorney general David Ogden and Associate Attorney General Thomas Perrelli (the number-two and number-three officials under Eric Holder). Other documents show that Eric Holder was also briefed on how to respond to Hill inquiries.

These documents directly contradict statements from the Office of Public Affairs, whose spokesman, Tracy Schmaler, has repeatedly claimed that the decision to dismiss the case was made entirely by career lawyers in the Civil Rights Division. The political appointee at the head of the Division, Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez, made the same claim in testimony under oath before the Civil Rights Commission on May 14, an assertion that the Justice Department’s own log now shows to be highly suspect, if not flat wrong.

Contrary to the claims of Schmaler and Perez, the log shows extensive communications about the NBPP case between the top lawyers in the Civil Rights Division — especially Steven Rosenbaum, the acting deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights in charge of voting rights — and the Office of the Associate Attorney General, including Steve Hirsch, the deputy associate attorney general who serves as Perrelli’s right-hand man.

For those unfamiliar with Hirsch, he was one of the Democratic party’s main redistricting lawyers and was deeply embedded in the Obama presidential campaign before joining the Justice Department in February 2009. Indeed, Slate magazine has called him a “DC election lawyer who represents a lot of Democrats.”

The log reveals that on April 30, 2009, the day before the Justice Department was supposed to file its default judgment, and the same day that the trial lawyers in the case were suddenly told to seek a two-week delay instead, Rosenbaum and Hirsh sent each other eight e-mails about the lawsuit. The description of these emails states that they are privileged because they are “predecisional and contain[] deliberations between the CRT Front Office and his supervisor in OASG.” In other words, there were legal “deliberations” going on between Rosenbaum and his supervisor in the Office of the Associate Attorney General, Steve Hirsch. The log also shows a flurry of emails between Hirsch and Perrelli on April 30.

Just before the May 15 deadline, when the trial team was ordered to dismiss virtually the entire case, there are once again numerous emails (13 in May, to be exact) between Hirsch and Associate Attorney General Perrelli. Some of the subject lines were “Where are we on the Black Panther case” and “New Black Panther Party — your questions.” The privilege log description says the e-mails concern updates on the NBPP litigation and “not[e] ODAG’s current thoughts on the case.” ODAG is Justice-speak for the Office of the Deputy Attorney General — held then by David Ogden, who apparently had “thoughts” about how this case should be handled. The log further shows that all of the revised pleadings that were going to be filed to dismiss the case were sent to Hirsch for his (among others?) review.

Even the recommendation of the trial team to proceed with a full default judgment against all four defendants, sent by the Voting Section to Rosenbaum and other supervisors in the Civil Rights Division on May 8 (before they were ordered to dismiss the case), was immediately sent by Rosenbaum to Hirsch in the associate attorney general’s office. There are so many e-mails between Rosenbaum and Hirsch that it appears Hirsch was being kept apprised of every single development in the case. Indeed, it is no stretch to say that Hirsch appears to have been effectively functioning as the head of the Civil Rights Division for purposes of the NBPP litigation.

There are numerous unanswered questions in the log, particularly since there are undated items listed. These include “Talking Points” written by Karen Stevens, a former Clinton-era political appointee in the Civil Right Division, who burrowed into a career slot just before the Clintons left office. She was one of the main “witnesses” DOJ Inspector General Glenn Fine used in his biased and inaccurate report on the supposed “politicized” hiring during the Bush administration. According to the log’s content description, these talking points were prepared for Attorney General Holder, “identify selected aspects of the Department’s handling of the NBPP litigation, and serve to brief the AG on how he may prepare for potential inquiries during upcoming Hill testimony.”

Did these talking points mislead Holder and tell him there was no involvement by the political appointees who report to him directly (i.e., Ogden and Perrelli)? Or did it advise Holder to deliberately dissemble on the issue?

The privilege log released by Judicial Watch strongly suggests that political appointees were intimately involved in the decision-making that ultimately resulted in the outrageous gutting of the voter-intimidation case against the NBPP. After all, that is the basis of the asserted privilege: that these e-mails were about lawsuit “deliberations.” It is also clear from this log that the statements and testimony coming from senior Justice Department officials are misleading, if not outright lies, and have misrepresented what actually happened at Justice. It also shows an extraordinary degree of political involvement in a case at the district court level that I never saw when I was at Justice, despite all of the false claims to the contrary made by critics of the Bush administration.

The NBBP case has been virtually ignored by the mainstream media for almost two years. It has been dismissed as “small potatoes” by some who do not seem to understand its implications, particularly its underscoring of the bias of this administration against the race-neutral enforcement of our voting-rights laws. But this latest development shows that the political leadership of this Justice Department has been much more involved in the case that it has been willing to admit (and in fact has denied under oath). So far, these leaders have faced virtually no repercussions for their misbehavior. Let’s hope that soon will change.

[Tzimisce]

....you mean they’re liars spreading falsehoods?

I’m shocked.

[presently no screen name]

AARP with the help of the dems scared the crap out of elderly folks with their lies and they continue to do so.

Yep they did. Unfortunately, I never signed up to have the pleasure of canceling. ;)

[vox_freedom]

Yeah, and the Black Panther thugs were in front of the polling place as “non-partisan observers.”
Really. Yeah, that’s it.

[RavenATB]

The people have a personal responsibility to make themselves informed...especially when it comes to matters of governance and liberty.

But the media has a strongly implied constitutional responsilbity to provide the unfettered truth when covering the news. The founders entrusted the media with a special provision in the First Amendment that gives them a lot of power to shape the national debate, and in so doing saddled the media with the responsibility to report the news, rather than their personal bias.

Most Americans grew up trusting that the national media would provide them with unbiased news. Many people have caught on to the fraud that’s been perpetrated by many of the networks. But it’s hard to condem others for staying with what they were taught since childhood to trust.

When an American citizen is too lazy, or too ignorant to find the truth on story, that is a failure of personal responsibility. When the news media deliberately skews a story to favor a certain political point of view, that is an act of national betrayal that is a close cousin to the most sinister of all national betrayals.

Many of the American people deserve a good slap up side the head for their lack of attenion in this matter. But the liberal news media deserves a much greater level of punishment. Hopefully Americans will continue to abandon them to the point where their money and their “microphone” is eventually cut off.

But if conservatives ever regain control of this government before we completely collapse I hope we enjoy a few years of a White House that lashes out powerfully against the frauds at ABC, CBS, NBC, and the minor leaguers like MSNBC and CNN, and lays out the case clearly and with concrete examples.

[RavenATB]

The people have a personal responsibility to make themselves informed...especially when it comes to matters of governance and liberty.

But the media has a strongly implied constitutional responsilbity to provide the unfettered truth when covering the news. The founders entrusted the media with a special provision in the First Amendment that gives them a lot of power to shape the national debate, and in so doing saddled the media with the responsibility to report the news, rather than their personal bias.

Most Americans grew up trusting that the national media would provide them with unbiased news. Many people have caught on to the fraud that’s been perpetrated by many of the networks. But it’s hard to condem others for staying with what they were taught since childhood to trust.

When an American citizen is too lazy, or too ignorant to find the truth on story, that is a failure of personal responsibility. When the news media deliberately skews a story to favor a certain political point of view, that is an act of national betrayal that is a close cousin to the most sinister of all national betrayals.

Many of the American people deserve a good slap up side the head for their lack of attenion in this matter. But the liberal news media deserves a much greater level of punishment. Hopefully Americans will continue to abandon them to the point where their money and their “microphone” is eventually cut off.

But if conservatives ever regain control of this government before we completely collapse I hope we enjoy a few years of a White House that lashes out powerfully against the frauds at ABC, CBS, NBC, and the minor leaguers like MSNBC and CNN, and lays out the case clearly and with concrete examples.