Eric Holder Vs. Black Panthers

Civil Rights: The Justice Department explains that it dropped a Black Panther voter-intimidation case because of lack of evidence. Pay no attention to the thugs outside the polling place. Yet another reason Eric Holder must go.

On Election Day 2008, New Black Panther Party members King Samir Shabazz, Malik Zulu Sha-bazz and Jerry Jackson were charged in a civil complaint with civil violations by "allegedly" violating the Voting Rights Act through intimidation, threats and coercion as they stood outside a Philadelphia polling place.

It was what Bartle Bull, a former civil rights lawyer and publisher of the left-wing Village Voice, called "the most blatant form of voter intimidation I've ever seen" — Black Panthers dressed in paramilitary garb, one brandishing a nightstick and saying things like, "You are about to be ruled by the black man, cracker!"

In January 2009, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit charging violations of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. When none of the defendants filed a response or showed up at a subsequent hearing, we'd have thought DOJ would have won its suit by default.

Instead, in May 2009, it let two of the three walk and issued a weak injunction against Shabazz forbidding him from showing up at another Philadelphia polling place with another nightstick and intimidating other voters for the next three years, an action that was already illegal. He is presumably free to do the same thing in, say, New Jersey in 2012.

blog:

http://pajamasmedia.com/files/2010/07/Affidavit-of-Hans-von-Spakovsky.pdf

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/affidavit-of-former-fec-commissioner-hans-von-spakovsky/

“Former DOJ Colleagues Confirm Whistleblower Adams’ Accusations”

SNIPPET: “Sworn affidavits from Hans A. von Spakovsky and Karl Bowers, who worked with J. Christian Adams in the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, offer broad confirmation of the whistleblower’s accusations of bias in enforcing voting rights.”

July 15, 2010

Quote:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2605659/posts

EDITORIAL: No black hole for Black Panthers—Attorney General Holder can’t hide testimony forever
The Washington Times ^ | October 11, 2010 | Editorial
Posted on October 11, 2010 5:14:33 PM PDT by jazusamo

The Obama Justice Department can put an end to the scandal surrounding the New Black Panther voter-intimidation case. All Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. would have to do is allow members of his Voting Rights Section to answer a few simple questions under oath, without waiving a single legal privilege.

On Friday, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights approved two letters to Mr. Holder. Both ask, again, for more cooperation than the Justice Department has provided for 16 months. The commission is seeking information about an alleged “broad culture of hostility to race-neutral enforcement of the civil rights laws; a pattern of harassment and intimidation against those who work on suits in which the defendants are racial minorities; and instructions from a political appointee that basic voting rights laws will not be enforced against racial minorities during this administration.”

On the Black Panther case, the department has made stunningly expansive claims that a “deliberative process” privilege obviates the need for a transparent administration, but “instructions from a political appointee” carry no such privilege. They don’t involve discussions about how and whether to prosecute specific cases but instead pertain to broad policy pronouncements. No valid legal argument could claim such policy choices are exempt from disclosure to an independent commission, Congress or the public.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...

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