Obama’s DOJ: ‘I Believe There Was an Environment of Hostility Toward Race Neutral Enforcement’by Jeff Dunetz
On Friday, we received affirmation of the true nature of the Department of Justice in the Obama administration, and its incredibly disturbing. Christopher Coates, former chief of the Justice Department’s Voting Section, and still a DOJ employee defied his bosses orders and testified before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights to discuss the reasons why the New Black Panther Voter intimidation case (NBPP) was dropped even though the Judge had ruled that the DOJ had already won the case.
Coates’ testimony was a shocking indictment of Obama’s Department of Justice. His testimony accused the administration of using race to determine which cases are prosecuted. Corroborating the testimony of J. Christian Adams, Coates testimony illustrates that the issue goes way beyond the New Black Panther case, the real issue is the organization charged with protecting civil rights is now a tool for increasing discrimination in the country.
He stated that his reasons going for going against his superiors and talking to the panel was the inaccurate testimony given by Assistant AG Perez:
Based upon my own personal knowledge of the events surrounding the CRD’s [civil rights division of the DOJ] actions in the NBPP case and the atmosphere that has existed and continues to exist in the CRD and in 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 NBPP case and do not reflect the hostile atmosphere that has existed Within the CRD for a long time against race-neutral enforcement of the Voting Rights Act (VRA)
According to the Mr. Coates, this discrimination was also evident in the Bush Administration but his administration was fighting the bias within the DOJ. But things changed after the 2008 election:
The election of President Obama brought to positions of influence and power within the civil rights division many of the very people who had demonstrated hostility to the concept of equal enforcement of the Voting Rights Act.
Things got so bad that when he interviewed lawyers to join his department he first made sure they would be willing to work on all cases.
I began to ask applicants for trial attorney positions in their job interviews whether they would be willing to work on cases that involved claims of racial discrimination against white voters, as well as cases that involved claims of discrimination against minority voters. For obvious reasons, I did not want to hire people l who were politically or ideologically opposed to the equal enforcement of the voting statutes the Voting Section is charged with enforcing.
That was until his new boss Loretta King, promoted by President Obama ordered him to stop asking the question.
From Ms. King’s view, why should I ask that question when a response that an applicant would not be willing to work on a case against minority election officials would not in any way, in her opinion, weigh against hiring that applicant to work in the Voting Section.
In other words the days of equal protection under the law were over. And the dismissal of the case was clear proof
It is my opinion that this disposition of the NBPP case was ordered because the people calling the shots in May 2009 were angry at the ñling of the Ike Brown case [a discrimination case against an African American prosecuted during the Bush Administration] and angry at our filing of the NBPP case. That anger was the result of their deep-seated opposition to the equal enforcement ofthe VRA against racial minorities and for the protection of Whites who have been discriminated against……The final disposition of the NBPP case, even in the face of a default by the defendants, was caused by this incorrect view of civil rights enforcement, and it was intended to send a direct message to people inside and outside the CRD. That message is that the filing of voting cases like the Ike Brown and the NBPP cases would not continue in the Obama Administration.
Coates hoped for a change in attitude when Julie Fernandez was appointed by the President to become assistant AG for Civil Rights, but those hopes were dashed when Ms Fernandez held a staff luncheon for the Voting Rights Division and declared that the Obama Administration was only interested in bringing the “traditional” types of section 2 cases that would provide political equality for racial and language minority voters. That, she said, is what we are all about.
One of the most sacred rights and responsibilities of American citizenship is voting. We are supposed to be guaranteed that every person’s vote is worth as much as every other person’s vote. That guarantee has never been perfect, Blacks weren’t allowed to vote until the 15th amendment in 1870, and women until 1920’s 19th Amendment, but the tradition of the United States has been to aspire toward the concept of “one man, one vote.”
This past election we took a major step backwards, ACORN, perpetuated voter fraud in at least 14 states to the point where some districts had MORE than 100% of registered voters casting ballots. Ultimately this had little effect on the national results. But it was wide-spread enough to cause concern was enough to erode confidence in the system
Now with the testimony of Christopher Coates, on top of the testimony of J. Christian Adams we learn that under the administration of Barack Obama, the Department of Justice has little interest in enforcing voting rights for all, just those who are of a certain skin pigmentation and those for whom English is a second language.
The Obama administration has been criticized because many of its programs such as are designed to redistribute income. Frighteningly, the policy of the DOJ seems designed to redistribute voting rights by singling out one group whose rights are forbidden to be protected. If true, than this is the most racist presidential administration the United States has had in many decades.
No comments:
Post a Comment