U.S. Civil Rights Commission finds “open hostility” within Holder’s DOJ in cases where white people are the perceived victims

The Washington Times writes about an explosive report released over the weekend by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights that calls into serious question the neutrality of Eric Holder’s DOJ when it comes to racially tinged cases involving alleged offenses committed against white people by minorities (via Memeorandum):

The Justice Department stonewalled efforts by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights to investigate the dismissal of a civil complaint against the New Black Panther Party, leaving open the question of whether the department is willing to pursue civil rights cases “in which whites were the perceived victims and minorities the alleged wrongdoers.”

In a 144-page report completed in November and released over the weekend, the commission said its lengthy investigation had uncovered “numerous specific examples of open hostility and opposition” within the department’s Civil Rights Division to pursuing cases in which whites were the victims.

The report, posted on the commission’s web site, said testimony obtained by the panel during its investigation included allegations that some Justice Department lawyers refused to work on cases involving white victims; that lawyers who worked on such cases were harassed and ostracized; and that some employees, including supervisory attorneys and political appointees, openly opposed race-neutral enforcement of voting rights laws.

Noting that two high-ranking lawyers in the department’s Voting Rights Section testified that the hostility to race-neutral enforcement had influenced the decision-making process in the New Black Panther Party (NBPP) case, the report concluded that the Justice Department’s failure to cooperate in the commission’s investigation left unanswered “these serious accusations.”

“While the department has issued general statements that it enforces the laws without regard to race, these assurances do not confirm, deny or explain the specific allegations of misconduct,” the report said. “Unfortunately, the department has thus far refused to address many of these specific claims or to provide the type of information that would allow the commission to properly review the decision making relating to the NBPP lawsuit.”

[…]

Christopher Coates, chief of the department’s Voting Rights section when the New Back Panther case was brought, said he felt compelled to testify despite orders by Justice not to appear because of what he deemed inaccurate statements made to the commission and elsewhere by department officials defending the handling of the case.

Department officials consistently said they were following the law and evidence when they dismissed the case after they had won it by default judgment, but Mr. Coates posited a different explanation.

“Based upon my own personal knowledge of the events surrounding the division’s actions in the Panther case and the atmosphere that existed and continues to exist in the division and in the voting section against fair enforcement of certain federal voting laws, I do not believe these representations to this commission accurately reflect what occurred in the Panther case and do not reflect the hostile atmosphere that existed within the division for a long time against race-neutral enforcement of the Voting Rights Act,” he said.

Mr. Coates said this hostility became clear to him while pursuing a 2005 Mississippi case in which white voters were the victims of intimidation. He said some department employees refused to work on the case, which, according to Mr. Coates, also drew criticism from civil rights groups.

He said the election of President Obama allowed those most opposed to “race-neutral enforcement” to move into leadership positions at the Civil Rights Division. One of those officials, then-acting Assistant Attorney General Loretta King, ordered the dismissal of the New Black Panther case.

J. Christian Adams, lead prosecutor in the New Black Panther case, testified in July that Justice Department officials instructed Civil Rights Division attorneys to ignore cases that involved black defendants and white victims. He said that “over and over and over again” the department showed “hostility” toward those cases.

[…]

Mr. Coates has a long history in voting rights matters, formerly working for the ACLU in the 1970s and 1980s in Georgia, generally bringing cases on behalf of black voters. He received two prestigious awards from the department since he began work there in 1996. He said the only two voting rights cases he ever brought at Justice with white victims were the Mississippi case and the Black Panther case.

In other words, Coates is not some partisan gunslinger with his sights set on Holder and the DOJ because he’s hostile to a Democrat President.Β  Both Coates and Adams, in fact, have impeccable credentials that can’t be denied by this DOJ and administration, no matter how hard they try.

I don’t even have to tell you what the reaction would be if this were a situation in which the highest levels of the Bush DOJ were instructing their high-ranking attorneys to ignore cases where it was alleged that black voters were victims of voter intimidation by white people.

But here we are in the third year of the so-called β€œpost-racial” Obama presidency and there is little to no outrage amongst The Usual Suspects both inside and outside the beltway on this issue Β – nor is there widespread mainstream news coverage and media saturation over the findings from this report.Β  Some would say it’s because the report could draw no definitive conclusions … but it is indeed news in and of itself that an administration that promised β€œtransparency you can believe in” as well as a departure from what they called β€œBusiness as Usual” in Washington, DC has a DOJ that is at every turn stonewalling an investigation into very serious allegations that they don’t take cases where the alleged victim is white and the alleged perp is a minority seriously – if they are even willing to take them on at all. Β This news is huge, and we should be hearing much more about it and having a lot more discussion and debate, and President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder should be questioned relentlessly by the mainstream media on the reluctance of the DOJ to cooperate with the Commission’s investigation.Β Β And the same Democrats who screamed the loudest over the alleged politicization of the Bush DOJ should be screaming even louder about the Justice Department’s refusal to answer directly to the specific allegations of β€œreverse racism” within the Dept.

But let’s not hold our collective breath.Β  As far as the MSM is concerned, President Obama is still β€œtheir guy” even though he keeps letting liberals both inside and outside of the media down on multiple fronts (the Bush tax cuts, no quick withdrawal from Iraq, etc).Β  And as far as the liberal Democrats who yelledΒ at the top of their lungsΒ during the Bush years about how it was β€œessential to our democracy and legal system” that the DOJ be free from politicization and bias? Well, apparently that same rule doesn’t apply when the President is from their own party and the allegations have a lot more substance and merit.

Same BS, different day.Β 

Moving right along …

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