The man whose name is at the top of the federal lawsuit against Joe Arpaio and the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office is that of Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez. This is the same man whose testimony in front of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights appeared to be the last straw for former trial attorney J. Christian Adams, who resigned from his job in the voting rights section of the Department of Justice on May 14, 2010.
Though Adams did not say Perez lied under oath, the implication was certainly there during part 2 of an interview he gave to Megyn Kelly of the Fox News Channel that aired on July 1, 2010. During that interview, Adams relayed parts of a conversation he had with Perez before the latter testified under oath (fast forward to the 1:45 mark of part 2):
Adams: For Tom Perez to go under oath to tell the same (false) story to the Civil Rights Commission, we wanted to make perfectly clear that he knew before he did that about the potential of his inaccurate testimony. We told him that but he still testified.
Kelly: Did this guy lie under oath?
Adams: I’m not a perjury expert. I know about the truth but I don’t know perjury.
If Perez didn’t tell the truth under oath, there’s only one other option. Adams went on to say that he “resigned later that afternoon,” again clearly implying a cause and effect relationship between what Perez testified to under oath in front of the Civil Rights Commission and what Adams knew about that testimony.
Further bolstering Adams’ claims about Perez’s testimony has been the behavior of the Civil Rights division of the DOJ with respect to subpoenas issued for the testimony of both Adams and another attorney, Christopher Coates. Both were ordered not to cooperate with the commission nor honor the subpoenas. Subsequently, Coates was transferred outside the jurisdiction of the Commission and Adams’ testimony wasn’t given until he resigned.
A common theme in the federal lawsuit against Sheriff Joe is that he consistently failed to comply with the requests of the Justice Department for documents; such claims come down to the issue of transparency. In response to the lawsuit, Arpaio released a statement saying the feds admitted to receiving “thousands of pages of the requested documents,” and were given access to staff and detainees.
One thing that is indisputably quantifiable is that the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, which is headed by Thomas Perez was not transparent with the Commission on Civil Rights. Attorneys being ordered to ignore subpoenas proves that. Moreover, if there is enough evidence to show Perez may have committed perjury, not only should the lawsuit against Arpaio and the Maricopa County Sheriff’s office be suspect but Perez should become a defendant.
Ben Barrack is a talk show host on KTEM 1400 in Texas and maintains a website at www.benbarrack.com
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