Whistleblower Accuses Justice Department of Racial Bias

Former Justice Official Testifies Against DOJ

Raven Clabough
The New American
Tuesday, 06 July 2010

Former Department of Justice Official Christian Adams testified before the Civil Rights commission today “pursuant to a subpoena investigating the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation dismissal.” During his testimony, Adams claimed that the Obama administration has generally failed to prosecute “non-whites” in voter intimidation cases.

On November 4, 2008, members of the New Black Panthers stood outside of a Philadelphia polling facility bearing nightsticks and employing an intimidating stance. When questioned about their presence and their possession of weapons, the Panther members claimed that they were concerned citizens and “that’s why we’re here.”

It was not until a YouTube video (below) of the encounter with the Panthers circulated did the incident gain notoriety, prompting the Bush Justice Department to sue the men involved for violating the 1965 Voting Rights Act through the Panthers’ use of racial slurs, military-style uniforms, and possession of weaponry.



Following the lead of the Bush administration, the Obama administration launched an investigation, and the DOJ won a default judgment against several of the New Black Panther members when they failed to appear at their hearing in April 2009.

Since then, however, the Obama administration elected to dismiss the charges after compromising with the New Black Panther members, who agreed not to carry “a deadly weapon” within the vicinity of a polling place. Until 2012, that is.

Frustrated by the Department’s decision to pursue charges against the New Black Panthers, Adams resigned his position at the Justice Department last month.

In an explosive interview with Fox News, Adams claimed, “I don’t think the department or the fine people who work there are corrupt, but in this particular instance, to abandon law-abiding citizens and abet wrongdoers constitutes corruption”.

Adams claims that the Obama administration backed off the voter intimidation case because of race and politics.

He also accuses Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez of lying to the Civil Rights Committee in May when Perez contended that there were insufficient facts to support instances of voter intimidation.

Similar to claims made by Perez, the Justice Department defended its decision to drop the case by alleging that the facts and law did not line up and that the case should not be prosecuted.

Perez asserted, “The decision regarding the disposition of the case … ultimately was made by the career attorney then serving as the Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division … We assure you that the Department is committed to comprehensive and vigorous enforcement of both the civil and criminal provisions of federal law that prohibits voter intimidation.”

Adams begs to differ.

Fox News describes Adams’ testimony today as “emotional and personal.” He insisted that attorneys in the civil rights division were actually instructed to ignore cases involving black assailants and white victims, and that the Black Panther case exemplifies his claim.

Adams claims that the DOJ took a generally “hostile” attitude towards cases involving black defendants, particularly the Black Panther case. He contends that he overheard officials describing the case as “no big deal” and that its elevated significance was a product of the media, most notably, Fox News. (Yeah, blame FNC for reporting something that none of the other television media are reporting)

Adams also indicates that during his investigation of the Philadelphia incident, he discovered evidence that similar happenings took place during the Democratic primary season in 2008, where Hillary Clinton’s supporters faced similar encounters with the militant group. Adams encouraged the commission to hear testimony from those victims as well.

The Commission hopes to hear the testimony of Christopher Coates, former chief of the Justice Department’s voting section, but the Justice Department is preventing Coates from providing such testimony.

Likewise, the Justice Department issued a statement questioning Adams motives: “It is not uncommon for attorneys with the department to have good faith disagreements about the appropriate course of action in a particular case, although it is regrettable when a former department attorney distorts the facts and makes baseless allegations to promote his or her agenda.”

Adams denies the claims made by the Justice Department and asserts that he hopes to see proper justice distributed in this clear-cut instance of voter intimidation.

A Very Obama Scandal

The Black Panthers voter intimidation scandal plagues the Justice Department

John Fund
Wall Street Journal
July 6, 2010

J. Christian Adams, a former career Justice Department official who resigned over the Obama administration's failure to pursue a voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party, will finally get a chance to tell his story in public today when he testifies before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

Mr. Adams will make some explosive charges. He says the administration used a racial double standard in deciding last year to drop the prosecution of the New Black Panther Party after members were videotaped in front of a Philadelphia polling place on Election Day 2008 dressed in military-style uniforms, brandishing a billy club and using racial slurs against voters. Mr. Adams says the career prosecutors who pursued the case did their job but were stymied by Obama political appointees, for whom he has harsh words: "To abandon law-abiding citizens and abet wrongdoers constitutes corruption," he told Fox News last week.

President Obama's Justice Department continues to stonewall inquiries about why it dropped the voter intimidation case, which Bartle Bull, a former civil rights lawyer and former publisher of the left-wing Village Voice, calls "the most blatant form of voter intimidation I've ever seen." Mr. Bull and others witnessed one Black Panther pointing his billy club at voters and making racial threats. Mr. Bull says he heard one yell: "You are about to be ruled by the black man, cracker!"

Nonetheless, the Justice Department moved to dismiss most of the charges a month after winning a default judgment against the Black Panthers when the party failed to appear in federal court. The move came after Justice secured an agreement from one Black Panther member not to carry a "deadly weapon" near a polling place until 2012. In a written statement, the Justice Department now says it acted in good faith, adding: "It is regrettable when a former department attorney distorts the facts and makes baseless allegations to promote his or her agenda."

But the Washington Times has reported that six career lawyers at Justice, including Christopher Coates, former chief of the Justice Department's voting section, also favored pursuing the case. One of the career attorneys, Appellate Chief Diana Flynn, had urged in an internal memo that a judgment be pressed against the defendants to "prevent the paramilitary style intimidation of voters" in the future.

All of the career attorneys were overruled by Associate Attorney General Thomas Perrelli, an Obama appointee.

Rep. Frank Wolf, a Virginia Republican, says his efforts to require Justice to make the career attorneys available for questions have been rebuffed. Mr. Adams is able to testify today only because he voluntarily resigned his career position. It will be interesting to see if his public testimony finally stirs the broadcast networks to cover this outrage.