A coalition of experts on civil rights is asking Attorney General Jeff Sessions to clean up the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division by removing political activists from leadership, ridding the office of "ideological rot" and stopping its bureaucrats from abusing their authority.
The letter was initiated by J. Christian Adams, a former attorney in the DOJ's Civil Rights Division who now leads the nonprofit Public Interest Legal Foundation. Signatories include Hans von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation, William Pendley of the Mountain States Legal Foundation, Tim Wildmon of the American Family Association, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach and Joel Mandelman, a former counsel for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
The letter charges that the Civil Rights Division, during Barack Obama's administration, "served purely ideological ends with rigidity unmatched in other federal offices."
"Entrenched federal bureaucrats jettisoned precepts like equal enforcement in favor of political and racialized dogmas," it says.
Adams said the "most important position General Sessions will fill in the DOJ is the AAG for Civil Rights."
"For years, a radicalized Civil Rights Division heavy-handedly advanced leftists causes with respect to voting, law enforcement, immigration, and others while constitutional Rule of Law was considered a nuisance. General Sessions has an opportunity to begin the course correction necessary to protect all Americans from civil rights abuses."
It was that division, when Adams still was working with the DOJ, that the agency refused to finish the nearly completed prosecution of several New Black Panther Party members reported for voter intimidation in the 2008 election.
WND reported at the time, two party members were filmed standing in front of the entrance to a Philadelphia polling station in black uniforms, with one member wielding a club.
According to complaints, both men were pointing at voters and shouting racial slurs, using such phrases as "white devil" and, "You're about to be ruled by the black man, Cracker!"
But then-Attorney General Eric Holder ordered the cases dropped.
Shortly after, Adams resigned.
"I was told by voting section management that cases are not going to be brought against black defendants on [behalf] of white victims," Adams said in testimony before the Civil Rights commission.
Adams was backed up by Christopher Coates, the former head of the voting section for the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. Coates had led the original investigation of the New Black Panther Party.
Coates stated in testimony, "I had people who told me point-blank that [they] didn’t come to the voting rights section to sue African-American people."
'Purely ideological ends'
The new letter offers guidance to Sessions on how the problem should be addressed, including how the next assistant attorney general for civil rights should be chosen.
The letter states: "During the Obama administration, the division served purely ideological ends with rigidity unmatched in other federal offices. Entrenched federal bureaucrats jettisoned precepts like equal enforcement in favor of political and racialized dogmas.
"Together, we have witnessed longstanding conventions held from the mid-20th century prove outmoded in recent years and discovered new fronts in need of protection where civil rights are concerned – with particular respect to voting. Discrimination, dilution, and poor processes will always be constants, yet the victims can vary in our contemporary era."
The letter pleads for leadership in the division to be taken away from "political activists."
"Perhaps one of the greatest myths pushed by the Obama DOJ's apologists was the claim of being the driving force for voter protection. That administration's record paints an entirely different picture. In the eight year period, hardly any cases were filed under the Voting Rights and National Vote Registration Acts. At no time did the division bring a suit against voting discrimination or intimidation on its own. Yet, the public perception was that the previous attorneys general were somehow vigorous champions of civil rights."
Then there's the "ideological rot" that already has been "laid bare by the Office of Inspector General."
That office found, in a 250-page report, "the toxic manner in which the division placed preferences on voting rights victim cohorts and bullied employees from daring to enforce the law in a colorblind fashion."
Obama's picks, the letter charges, "did not believe civil rights laws should protect all Americans."
Further, division employees posted on public websites criticisms of workers "who were openly Christian."
Finally, the letters notes the millions of dollars taxpayers have paid out after division employees brought "faulty actions."
"Repeatedly, employees abused their former powers under the Voting Rights Act by mandating racial gerrymandering in states like Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and South Carolina to create partisan advantages. State and individual parties saw repeated success in overturning these matters."
The division could best move forward by adopting race-neutral Voting Rights Act enforcement, ending its political campaigns against state photo voter ID requirements and prosecuting voter intimidation cases, the letter advises.
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