Former DOJ Attorney Alleges "Lawlessness" in Civil Rights Division

[The Northerner]

ABC News' Jason Ryan reports: A former trial attorney in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division today blasted top officials at the Justice Department for dismissing a lawsuit against members of the New Black Panthers Party in an voter intimidation case from election day 2008. The attorney J. Christian Adams described the Justice Department’s voting right section as “lawless” before a hearing of the US Commission on Civil Rights, which is investigating the 2008 incident where two Black Panther members stood outside of a Philadelphia polling location allegedly yelling racial slurs while one of the men brandished a nightstick.

The Justice Department initially filed a lawsuit against the New Black Panther Party for violating the Voting Rights Act, which protects voters from acts of intimidation and coercion. A federal judge was set to award judgement to the Justice Department in the matter since the Black Panther members failed to respond to the legal action and the complaint filed against them. But in the final days of the case, the Justice Department headquarters ordered that the case be dismissed in May 2009.

Adams testified today before the Commission that “political appointees made the decision,” to drop the case. Adams cited a hostile work environment in the division and said that officials there had openly stated they did not have an interest in pursing race-neutral civil rights prosecutions. Adams' claims and testimony comes after the Division was found to be undercut during the tenure of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales when officials had improperly used political affiliations in the hiring process. Attorney General Holder and other top officials have vowed to return the Civil Rights Division to its previous stature.

Adams testified that his superiors had stated that they had little interest in bringing cases against black defendants. “The section doesn’t want to protect white voters.” Adams said. Adams, who has been labeled as a “conservative” by some media outlets stated his only interest was in protecting people’s rights to vote and ensuring equal constitutional protections. Adams referenced the Civil War and said that so many had fought for the right to vote that any case of voter intimidation should be followed, “It doesn’t matter if it’s one person with a stick or 5 people…so many people died to get us to this point.” Adams said before the commission.

The US Civil Rights Commission, made up of 4 Republican members, 2 Democrats and 2 Independents has been investigating the incident and the Justice Department’s dismissal of the lawsuit since June 2009. One of the Commission members, Michael Yaki, a Democrat, stated that the Commission’s investigation has been overly partisan and declined to attend today’s hearing.

Read more: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/07/former-doj-attorney-alleges-lawlessness-in-civil-rights-division.html

[EFerrari]

1. Let's see. A conservative all but claiming reverse discrimination

dating back to the Bush administration. What are the chances this story turns out to be a crock?

[pinboy3niner]

2. This smells like a partisan attack on Obama's DOJ

I wonder if Adams is another one of the B*sh Justice Department's Liberty University law grads?

[pinboy3niner]

3. Surprise, surprise: Adams was a conservative embed

From the first search result on his name:

Obama & the Embeds (J. Christian Adams edition)
by Gaius Publius on 7/06/2010 10:39:00 PM


I've written before about the problem of Movement Conservative embeds in the Executive branch — and not just political types, but career types as well, loyal to Bush goals and Movement Conservative dreams.

In a classic nipping at the pantlegs that out-of-power Movement Conservatism is famous for — and really good at — one of the lawyers Bradley Schlozman hired to muck up (er, fix) the Justice department's Civil Rights Division has emerged bearing tales of . . . well, you guess. HINT: It's a right-wing mash-up of very tall blacks (oh-oh), 60s radicals (oh no!), and voter fraud (of course)....
<snip>

So who is J. Christian Adams? (Man, what a great name — John Quincy Adams with a apocalyptic modernist twist.) Media Matters again (their emphasis for a change):

Adams is a longtime conservative activist reportedly hired by Bush appointee who politicized the Justice Department. A December 2, 2009, article on the legal news website Main Justice reported that Adams "was hired in 2005 by then-Civil Rights Division political appointee Bradley Schlozman, according to a person familiar with the situation" and that "Schlozman was found in this joint investigation of the Justice Department's Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility to have violated civil service rules by improperly taking political and ideological affiliations into account when making career attorney hires." The article also reported that Adams volunteered with a Republican group that "trains lawyers to fight on the front lines of often racially tinged battles over voting rights."

In the bunker days of the Bush administration, 2006–2008, Schlozman news was everywhere. .... Adams is Schlozman's man. What was Schlozman's specialty at the Bush DOJ Civil Rights voting section? Pervert civil rights enforcement so that only whites can be victims, of black injustice. Like I said, Movement operatives, and good ones.
<snip>

http://www.americablog.com/2010/07/obama-embeds-j-christian-adams-edition.html

[EFerrari]

4. Good catch. And you know, I remember this incident

with the New Black Panthers from reading the election news. Which means this story was covered and can be dug up. And I bet you it will turn out to be something else altogether, not voter intimidation.

This Adams person is someone to keep an eye on. He's a manipulator.

Eric Holder has his work cut out for him at DoJ, that's for sure. I was just remembering that the US Attorney who gave that televised press conference and lied through his teeth about the FBI's anthrax non-case was appointed by Alberto Gonzalez. Holder is going to need all eight years just to fumigate.

[pinboy3niner]

5. I remember seeing it on cable news

I even saw a little of Fox's outraged, racially-tinged commentary.

The article I cited goes on to criticize Obama for not cleaning house on Day One. The problem is, some conservatives had been hired into career Civil Service jobs, and others were embedded through "burrowing"--converting them from political appointees by transferring them into CS positions shortly before Bush left office. Unless the hiring was improper (i.e., someone not meeting the job's qualifications) the embed can't be removed without cause. As I recall, the Obama Admin. did pursue the improper hiring issue, and was able to remove some burrowed embeds that way.

You're right about Adams. I expect he'll probably wind up working (if he isn't already) as a political operative for some RW group focusing on his specialty--ginning up voting rights cases against dems.

[gratuitous]

9. And one guy with a modem and access to Google

Scoops ABC News, which apparently can't figure out whether Mr. J. Christian Adams might have some other agenda going on before it reports the "lawlessness" of the Obama Justice Department.

[blogslut]

6. I remember this

...and it was bullshit. One of the men was in fact, a designated poll watcher.

[cali]

7. This case is all about scaring white voters and herding them into the repuke camp

for the midterms.

It's a very obvious and loud dog whistle.

fuckers.

[Steve20]

8. re

The video shows voter intimidation.