Will There Be a Special Prosecutor in Voter Intimidation Case

Members of Congress and the US Civil Rights Commission say Justice is Stalling
By Michael P. Tremoglie
Tremoglie's Tea Time Blog

As I have reported since May,members of Congress and the US Civil Rights Commission have been asking for an explanation by the Holder Justice Department Civil Rights Division why they dropped a lawsuit for voter intimidation against the New Black Panther Party (NBPP).

http://thebulletin.us/articles/2009/05/29/top_stories/doc4a1f42b32c161287079901.txt
http://tremoglieteatime.blogspot.com/2009/09/civil-service-commission-demands.html
http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:_5uF9fMydAIJ:tremoglieteatime.blogspot.com/2009/11/is-holder-stonewalling-new-black.html+Tremoglie+new+black+panther+party+voter&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
http://thebulletin.us/articles/2009/11/15/top_stories/doc4b004bfa562e2430282949.txt

Despite repeated requests from Rep. Frank Wolf (R.-Va.) and Gerald A. Reynolds the Chairman of the US Civil Rights Commission, Justice has not provided the information they reuqested.

Recently an official of the NBPP said the requests were merely a "political witch hunt" by Republicans.

This was followed by a report in the New York Times that Democrats were going to release some GAO report on December 10 that the Bush administration did not enforce civil rights laws. I have not yet been able to get a copy of this report.

However, the fact that the New Black Panther Party and the New York Times are acting as defenders for the Holder Justice Department is strange. The New York Times in particular has a credibility problem because they chose to withhold relevant information they had about communications between the Obama campaign and ACORN, according to Congressional testimony.

Furthermore, Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at Heritage Foundation, wrote in the National Review Online that the DOJ attorneys who were investigating this case have been prohibited by DOJ's assistant attorney general for civil rights, Thomas Perez of complying with the US Civil Rights Commission subpoenas.

He wrote, "Perez has even ordered them not to comply with subpoenas from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, despite the fact that the authorizing statute for the Commission specifically directs all federal agencies to “cooperate fully with the Commission.”

This would be very disconcerting if true. It would lead one to conclude that an investigation of the investigators is in order.

Until now Congressional Republicans and the US Civil Rights Commission has been reluctant to call for a special prosecutor. If there is active resistance by the Justice Department commanders to resist lawful subpoenas then they have a duty to call for one.