You probably don’t recognize the name J. Christian Adams Mr. Adams name, but you will very soon. Adams recently resigned from his position as Attorney in the Voter Rights Division of the Department of Justice to protest the racism, perjury, and obstruction of justice surrounding the DOJ’s dropping of the election day 2008 voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther party.
On election day 2008, members of the New Black Panther Party in Philadelphia, wearing black berets, black combat boots, black shirts and black jackets intimidated Caucasian voters with racial insults, slurs and nightsticks. They were arrested with another party member who was accused of managing, directing and endorsing their behavior. The entire event was captured on videotape.
Two months later the Justice Dept filed a civil complaint against the New Black Panther Party. When the court date arrived In April, a federal judge had ordered default judgments against the Panthers because they refused to respond to the charges or appear in court, basically a guaranteed win.
The Justice Department was in the final stages of of recommending a sentence when a delay in the proceedings was ordered by Loretta King, a brand new Obama political appointee who was the acting assistant attorney general.
King met with Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli, the department’s No. 3 political appointee, and another political appointee, Steve Rosenbaum, and decided to drop the case. Along with the dropping of the case Adams says the DOJ issued a directive that the Voting Rights division was no longer allowed to bring cases such as this against minorities.
For the past ten months the US Commission on Civil Rights, a federal agency, has been investigating the Justice Department, trying to get to the bottom of why the charges were dropped. But the Attorney General of the “most transparent administration in history” has decided not to cooperate.
The number one law-man in the country, who is charged with being the chief truth-seeker of the United States has been obstructing justice by telling members of his staff to ignore subpoenas.
The Washington Times reported back in December:
First, a Web site called “Main Justice” reported on Wednesday (and we have since confirmed) that the Justice Department has, for now, ordered two key career attorneys not to comply with a subpoena about the case issued by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. The commission, by law, has explicit power to issue subpoenas, and the law mandates that “all federal agencies shall cooperate fully with the commission.” The Justice Department, however, is citing internal regulations stemming from a 1951 case to support its order to ignore the subpoena.”
That same article spoke to Mr. Adams growing frustration with the handling of the case:
“One of the attorneys, J. Christian Adams, has been advised by his personal attorney, former South Carolina Secretary of State Jim Miles, that failure to comply with the subpoena could put him at risk of prosecution. “I can’t imagine,” Mr. Miles told The Washington Times, “that a statute that gives rise to the power of a subpoena would be subjugated to some internal procedural personnel rule being promulgated by DoJ.” In short, the department is stiffing the commission and unfairly putting its own employee in a legal bind.
In May, Adams resigned from the DOJ and since has gone public with the story of the “hows and whys” the Black Panther case was dropped. It shows a DOJ making decisions based on race and a top-level official not being truthful during testimony before Congress.
Based on my firsthand experiences, I believe the dismissal of the Black Panther case was motivated by a lawless hostility toward equal enforcement of the law. Others still within the department share my assessment. The department abetted wrongdoers and abandoned law-abiding citizens victimized by the New Black Panthers. The dismissal raises serious questions about the department’s enforcement neutrality in upcoming midterm elections and the subsequent 2012 presidential election,
The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has opened an investigation into the dismissal and the DOJ’s skewed enforcement priorities. Attorneys who brought the case are under subpoena to testify, but the department ordered us to ignore the subpoena, lawlessly placing us in an unacceptable legal limbo.
Adams says that this is the most open an shut case of voter intimidation that he had seen during his years of service at the DOJ Voting Rights Division. They had sworn testimony that the members of the Black Panther party blocked white voters from entering the polling place. But that wasn’t the testimony the DOJ gave before Congress:
The assistant attorney general for civil rights, Tom Perez, has testified repeatedly that the “facts and law” did not support this case. That claim is false. If the actions in Philadelphia do not constitute voter intimidation, it is hard to imagine what would, short of an actual outbreak of violence at the polls….
Most corrupt of all, the lawyers who ordered the dismissal – Loretta King, the Obama-appointed acting head of the Civil Rights Division, and Steve Rosenbaum – did not even read the internal Justice Department memorandums supporting the case and investigation. Just as Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. admitted that he did not read the Arizona immigration law before he condemned it, Mr. Rosenbaum admitted that he had not bothered to read the most important department documents detailing the investigative facts and applicable law in the New Black Panther case..
Not reading the file qualifies King and Rosenbaum to be members of Congress, but it is awful hard to make decisions about a legal case without reading the file. The head of the Voting Rights Section of the DOJ Christopher Coates got so angry at Rosenbaum for making the decision without first reading about it, he threw the file at him. For the file toss, Coates was stripped of his responsibility and transfered to South Carolina.
Mr. Perez also inaccurately testified to the House Judiciary Committee that federal “Rule 11” required the dismissal of the lawsuit. Lawyers know that Rule 11 is an ethical obligation to bring only meritorious claims, and such a charge by Mr. Perez effectively challenges the ethics and professionalism of the five attorneys who commenced the case. Yet the attorneys who brought the case were voting rights experts and would never pursue a frivolous matter. Their experience in election law far surpassed the experience of the officials who ordered the dismissal.
Adams places the blame for the dismissal of the case on racism.
..the dismissal is part of a creeping lawlessness infusing our government institutions. Citizens would be shocked to learn about the open and pervasive hostility within the Justice Department to bringing civil rights cases against nonwhite defendants on behalf of white victims. Equal enforcement of justice is not a priority of this administration. Open contempt is voiced for these types of cases.
Some of my co-workers argued that the law should not be used against black wrongdoers because of the long history of slavery and segregation. Less charitable individuals called it “payback time.” Incredibly, after the case was dismissed, instructions were given that no more cases against racial minorities like the Black Panther case would be brought by the Voting Section.
Is this the view of Justice under the administration of Barack Obama? Are only non-whites allowed to have their rights protected by the nation’s law enforcers? Is perjury and obstruction of justice from the DOJ now allowed?
These are very serious charges being brought forward by Mr. Adams. Charges that strike at the very heart of our American republic. He is reporting that equality before the law and freedom from racial discrimination is not offered to all Americans.
The Justice Department refuses to cooperate with the US Commission on Civil Rights investigation, so there needs to be an independent prosecutor appointed to get to the truth, and it must be done immediately to guarantee the integrity of the upcoming mid-term elections.