Reversing the Obama DOJ's Politicization of Justice with Trump Pardon of D'Souza

In stark contrast to the current Department of Justice (DOJ), the Obama Justice Department was run more as a political shop with Eric Holder serving more as a DNC Counsel. As even NPR stated:

Justice Department traditionalists grimaced when former Attorney General Eric Holder called himself President Obama's "wingman."

A prime example of how this politicization was more than words and ran throughout the Obama DOJ was the treatment of Dinesh D’Souza.  As President Trump stated:

Will be giving a Full Pardon to Dinesh D’Souza today. He was treated very unfairly by our government!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 31, 2018

D’Souza illegally gave $20,000 to a college friend’s campaign for Senate, that she lost by 46 points.  He is 100% guilty.  He was also a major and financially successful critic of Obama and progressives.   He should have been punished, but the punishment was completely over the top by an Obama DOJ that was trying to silence an Adminstration critic.  Obama supporter Alan Dershowitz stated at the time:

The Justice Department's tactics remind Dershowitz of the words of Stalin's secret police chief, Lavrentiy Beria, who said, "Show me the man and I’ll find you the crime."

"This is an outrageous prosecution and is certainly a misuse of resources," charged Dershowitz. "It raises the question of why he is being selected for prosecution among the many, many people who commit similar crimes.

"This sounds to me like it is coming from higher places. It is hard for me to believe this did not come out of Washington or at least get the approval of those in Washington."

Former FEC Commissioner David Mason added at the time:

Law enforcement experts tell Newsmax that if the FBI or another federal agency received a tip about a fraudulent act involving just $20,000, the government would likely show little interest in investigating. Mason notes that a violation of $20,000 in contributions is trivial compared to most cases.

"The violation involves a pretty small amount for this type of case," said Mason, who was an FEC commissioner from 1998 to 2008. When small amounts of campaign financing regularities are uncovered the matter is usually resolved at a low level.

The unprecentedented arrest makes even more sense when you realize the U.S. Attorney in charge of the case was Preet Bharara.  The same U.S. Attorney who refused to leave his position after President Trump was elected:

A few days ahead of a resignation request from the Department of Justice — part of the routine housecleaning of political appointees that accompanies every administration changeover — Bharara set up a “personal” Twitter account, writing portentously: “Stay tuned . . . ” Then, on Saturday, he tweeted: “I did not resign. Moments ago I was fired. Being the US Attorney in SDNY will forever be the greatest honor of my professional life.”

Leave it to a Manhattanite to be a drama queen.

The replacement of the nation’s 93 U.S. attorneys is standard procedure when a president from a different party takes the White House. Bill Clinton asked for the resignation of all but one U.S. attorney in March 1993 (unlike, Bharara, they complied); George W. Bush had replaced nearly every U.S. attorney by the end of his first year in office; Barack Obama swapped out Bush-era U.S. attorneys for his own — among whom was Bharara. This is not a scandal. Since the executive branch is tasked with enforcing the laws, and since every administration has different (sometimes radically different) enforcement priorities, each administration wants lawyers who will carry out its priorities. . . . The Constitution provides for this. And when an at-will employee refuses to give up his post, the White House obviously has no alternative but to can him.

Bharara was out for retribution against a critic of Obama and progressives to score political points.  The political nature of Bharara's prosecution is clear from comparing similar cases.  Take the higher profile candidate case involving Democratic Presidential Candidate John Edwards:

D'Souza's conviction was clearly political retribution. Compare attorney Pierce O'Donnell, who gave $26,000 in illegal contributions to 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards and ended up facing only misdemeanor charges .

The judge rightly rejected Bharara’s efforts to get D’Souza a seven-year prision term but D’Souza was still confined to a halfway house.  As Andrew McCarthy concludes:

No matter what you think of D’Souza’s politics, his treatment was abusive.

President Trump’s pardon of Dinesh D’Souza is just.

D’Souza took it a step further to call it Karma:

KARMA IS A BITCH DEPT: @PreetBharara wanted to destroy a fellow Indian American to advance his career. Then he got fired & I got pardoned

— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) May 31, 2018

Sessions DOJ to Release Documents Related to Fast and Furious

Today, the Trump-Sessions Department of Justice announced that it will release documents related to the Obama-Holder DOJ's disastrous "Fast and Furious" program:

Today, the Department of Justice entered into a conditional settlement agreement with the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and will begin to produce additional documents related to Operation Fast and Furious. The conditional settlement agreement, filed in federal court in Washington D.C., would end six years of litigation arising out of the previous administration’s refusal to produce documents requested by the Committee. 

In announcing the settlement, Attorney General Sessions said: 

“The Department of Justice under my watch is committed to transparency and the rule of law. This settlement agreement is an important step to make sure that the public finally receives all the facts related to Operation Fast and Furious.”

Katie Pavlich reminds us of the unfortunate and tragic history of these documents:

The documents were previously withheld by Attorney General Eric Holder, who was voted in civil and criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to turn them over. President Obama invoked executive privilege in June 2012 to prevent their release just hours before the contempt vote was held. . . . 

Operation Fast and Furious was a secret ATF program, overseen heavily at the highest levels at the Department of Justice, which took place between September 2009 and December 2010. ATF agents repeatedly and knowingly allowed individuals working for Mexican cartels to traffic thousands of AK-47s, .50 caliber rifles and handguns into Mexico. The operation ended in 2010 when [Border Patrol] Agent [Brian] Terry was murdered and years of coverups surrounding his death and the extent of the operation ensued. Hundreds, if not thousands of Mexican citizens have been murdered as a result of the U.S. government putting guns into the hands of narco-terrorists and a number of firearms trafficked during the operation have been found at additional crime scenes in the United States.

Yet, according to former President Obama, his administration had no embarrassing scandals and was the "most transparent administration in history."  How refreshing it is to have an Attorney General and DOJ that are actually committed to transparency and respecting Congress' role of oversight over the Executive Branch, instead of only paying lip service to these values while trying to cover their misdeeds.

Why Did Former AG Lynch Use an Email Alias at the DOJ?

RNLA Executive Director Michael Thielen wrote today in the Daily Caller about the recent revelations about former Attorney General Loretta Lynch's use of an email alias account at the Department of Justice:

Compare this with former Attorney General Loretta Lynch and her tumultuous tenure. Lynch did not recuse herself from the investigation into Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s illegal use of a private email server that handled classified information.  Like her predecessor, Eric Holder, Lynch set up an alias DOJ email account under the name Elizabeth Carlisle to handle official business. 

She secretly met with Bill Clinton at a crucial moment in the investigation.  When a reporter discovered the clandestine meeting, the Lynch DOJ went into crisis mode — strategizing, preparing talking points, and working with the mainstream media to bury the story.  Lynch was involved in the response effort, but under her “Elizabeth Carlisle” alias. 

Why set up an alias email account?  The official version is the alias account avoided people guessing the Attorney General’s email address and flooding her inbox.  It is common practice for CEOs and other high profile leaders to have an email address that does not fit the organization’s customary formula. . . . What is not common practice is to use an entirely different name altogether.  Why would Lynch, and Holder before her, adopt such a strange practice?  One reason might be to avoid Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.  A person would request the Attorney General’s correspondence on a certain topic, but because the Attorney General had used her alias account, none of her emails would show up on a search for emails sent to or from Loretta Lynch.  As the email alias was unknown until last week, the Attorney General’s emails on sensitive subjects were largely kept from public release under FOIA.

This would be entirely in conformity with the Obama Administration’s practice of avoiding transparency whenever possible, despite claiming to be the “most transparent administration in history.”  Last July, the American Center for Law and Justice filed a FOIA request for documents relating to the Lynch-Clinton airplane meeting and the Obama FBI responded that no responsive documents existed.  After a lawsuit, over 400 pages of responsive documents were produced last week.  This is just one example of the Obama DOJ’s lack of transparency.

Mr. Thielen compared Lynch's actions with Attorney General Jeff Sessions' ethical behavior in recusing himself from the investigation into Russian interference with the 2016 election to avoid even an appearance of impropriety.  The Trump Department of Justice has important work to do to restore a culture of ethics, responsibility, and respect for the rule of law in the law firm for the American people.

New York Times Shows Its Political Bias in Ignoring Actual Voter Intimidation

Over the weekend, the New York Times editorialized the following:

Jeff Sessions, the new attorney general, is hardly likely to be as proactive as the Obama administration was in investigating complaints of voter suppression by the states. 

This claim is laughable if it were not a serious matter.  President Obama’s Department of Justice did little or nothing on actual voter intimidation while acting as partisans.  We will limit ourselves to two examples at the beginning and end of President Obama’s term.  

In 2009, the new Obama Department of Justice was handed a “slam dunk” case of violations of Voting Rights Act as the result of the intimidation in the infamous “New Black Panther Party” video outside a polling place.  Yet, Obama political appointees at the Department of Justice overruled career staff in a partisan decision and the case was largely dismissed.  (Jerry Jackson, one of the two in the video, was later rewarded with election to a seat on the Philadelphia Democratic City Committee.)

Late in 2016, Presidential Electors in the state of Michigan received death threats before they cast their ballots for President Thump in the Electoral College.  These crystal clear efforts at intimidation or worse did not merit a peep out of the Obama Justice Department. 

There are other examples.  However, the Obama Administration Department of Justice seemly ignored voter intimidation and many other voting matters and did their job on a partisan basis.  The New York Times' proclamations that the Trump Department of Justice will behave worse when Attorney General Sessions has been on the job only a few days, shows the Times’ political basis.  

Sessions as Attorney General Would End the Politicization of DOJ

Senator Sessions said in his opening statement in his hearing to be Attorney General yesterday:

I revere our Constitution and am committed to the rule of law. And you know that I believe in fairness, impartiality, and equal justice under the law

Compare this to President Obama’s first Attorney General Eric Holder.  Eric Holder often acted more like a counsel to the DNC than United States Attorney General.  He even called himself Obama’s “wingman.” As Senator Grassley stated during Lorretta Lynch’s hearing:

Grassley accused the department of becoming “deeply politicized” under Holder at the opening of the confirmation hearing.

“But that’s what happens when the attorney general of the United States views himself, in his own words, as the president’s 'wingman,’ ” Grassley said.

Unfortunately, that politicization did not end with Lynch replacing Holder.  Obama’s next Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, met with Bill Clinton while his wife and the Democrat nominee to take Obama's place, Hillary, was under Department of Justice investigation.  Even former Obama campaign manager David Axelrod said this was “foolish”.  Yet while some talked of her recusing over the Clinton email scandal, in the end Lynch refused:

Lynch has come under criticism after she met privately on board an aircraft in Phoenix with former President Bill Clinton. She described the encounter as a purely “social” occurrence that won’t “have a bearing” on the e-mail investigation and said: “I certainly would not do it again.” But she emphasized that she wouldn’t recuse herself from her role in reviewing and acting on prosecutors’ findings.

Compare this approach with Senator Sessions' answer on the Hillary Clinton investigation:

Attorney General nominee Jeff Sessions said at his confirmation hearing Tuesday that if confirmed he plans to recuse himself from all issues related to any investigation into Hillary Clinton. He said his rhetoric on the issue during the campaign could lead people to doubt he’d be fair in considering the matter. “I do believe that that could place my objectivity in question… I believe the proper thing for me to do would be for me to recuse myself from any questions regarding those kinds of investigations,” Sessions declared.

The contrast could not be greater.  After 8 years of Attorney Generals that acted like DNC Counsels and politicized the Department of Justice, Senator Sessions would represent a return to ethics and the rule of law.  Everyone should support Senator Sessions to be the next Attorney General.

Hillary Clinton Donor to Bring Fourth Lawsuit Challenging Alabama's Voter ID Law

Hillary Clinton’s cronies are banding together to challenge Alabama’s voter ID law.  This time, a lawyer who has donated thousands of dollars to Clinton and works alongside former attorney general Eric Holder is part of a new lawsuit challenging the state’s voter Id law.

The lawsuit, filed on Dec. 2, 2015 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, was submitted on behalf of the Greater Birmingham Ministries and the Alabama State Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The suit argues that the state’s voter identification laws are discriminatory in nature against minorities and have “immediately disenfranchised” 280,000 voters within the state.

Really this is the latest in a series of political stunts funded by convicted felon George Soros to fund liberal causes.  This lawsuit it is at least the fourth in a series of lawsuits challenging voter ID laws. 

The first in a series of lawsuits was filed in Ohio on May 8, 2015. Shortly after, on June 1, a second lawsuit was filed in Wisconsin. A third lawsuit was then filed on June 11 in Virginia.

The initial plans to launch a multi-state push challenging voter ID laws dates back to January 2014 when liberal billionaire George Soros got wind of Elias wanting to file numerous lawsuits across the United States. Soros threw his weight behind the effort, vowing to put at least $5 million into the campaign.

These suits are without merit and are instead efforts to "play the race card" and promote vote fraud.  As Alabama's Governor said:

"We will go to people's houses to have their picture made if they don't have a photo ID in the state of Alabama," said Bentley. "We're not ever going to do anything to keep people in the state of Alabama from voting. And for them to jump to a conclusion like that, that is politics at its worst."

Eric Holder's Legacy

A major reason that Loretta Lynch was confirmed as America’s newest Attorney General by only a vote of 56 to 43 was her inability to distance herself from the disgraceful legacy of Attorney General Eric Holder, who has served in the job since being appointed by President Obama in 2009.

In a a recent Op-Ed by Hans von Spakovsky and John Fund, Lynch made it clear throughout her confirmation hearings that she did not disagree with a single act of Mr. Holder or Mr. Obama. Accordingly, her tenure will probably just be Holder 2.0.

Holder’s legacy has been marred in several instances that have completely demoralized the Justice Department.

Attorneys general are obligated to enforce the law in an objective, unbiased and nonpolitical manner. They must demonstrate the highest regard for the best interests of the public and their sworn duty to uphold the Constitution and the laws of the United States. Prior attorneys general of both political parties, such as Benjamin Civiletti, Griffin Bell, Ed Meese and Michael Mukasey, have fulfilled that duty to the highest ethical and professional standards.

Eric Holder did not live up to the aforementioned obligations of an Attorney General.  Holder became Obama’s right-hand man when Obama needed enforcement on unconstitutional or otherwise illegal laws. 

Mr. Holder’s failure to enforce federal laws such as our immigration statutes on a wholesale basis is a particularly acute betrayal of the most basic standard that applies to the attorney general. Instead of acting as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer, Mr. Holder instead has acted as the political lawyer of an overly partisan president. Perhaps that’s why Mr. Holder’s has one of the lowest approval ratings of any public official.

J. Christian Adams explains in a recent Op-Ed that Holder’s foremost agenda during his tenure as Attorney General was race.

Mr. Holder’s opposition to election integrity demonstrates the confluence of race and politics. He conjured all of the morally sacred language of the civil rights movement in the 1960s and employed it recklessly against voter ID.

He compared voter ID to a poll tax, even though courts had specifically rejected such a false comparison.

Just before Christmas in 2011, black voters were unexcited about Mr. Obama. So Mr. Holder launched a government-driven campaign against voter ID in South Carolina and activated a moribund political base for the president’s re-election. Without a racially polarized and activated base, Mr. Obama could not have won in 2012.

It is unlikely that Loretta Lynch will be able to turn around Eric Holder’s legacy and become an Attorney General with the highest regard for the law. 

The 43 members of the Senate who have voted against her confirmation have shown great concern that she will continue Holder's ineffectiveness within the Department of Justice. Now that Lynch has been sworn in, we hope that during her tenure as the 83rd Attorney General she enforces the law in an objective, unbiased and nonpolitical manner unlike her predecessor. 

Will Lorreta Lynch Be the Next DNC AG?

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted today to report Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch out of committee and to the floor.

The vote was 12-8 with all Democrats voting in favor of Lynch and all Republicans voting against, except that Senators Hatch, Graham and Flake voted in favor of Lynch.  The Senators voting against were Chairman Grassley, and Senators Sessions, Cornyn, Lee, Cruz, Vitter, Perdue, and Tillis.

Chairman Grassley explained his vote in detail here.  Chairman Grassley is concerned that she will continue to politicize the Justice Department.  As he stated:

Now, I’m confident that if she had demonstrated a little more independence from the President, she would’ve garnered more support here today.  To illustrate why, we need to look no further than the recent confirmation of Secretary Carter to the Department of Defense.  When he testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Secretary Carter demonstrated the type of independent streak that many of us were hoping we’d see from Ms. Lynch.

Most of the media reporting on the two nominations seemed to agree.  Consider these headlines from several major news outlets regarding the Carter nomination:

•    “In Ashton Carter, Nominee for Defense Secretary, a Change in Direction,” The New York Times•    “New Defense Secretary airs differences with Obama over Ukraine, Gitmo,” Washington Times•    “Obama Pentagon pick Carter says he won’t bend to White House Pressure to release Gitmo prisoners,” Fox News•    “Defense nominee Carter casts himself as an independent voice,” The Washington Post

Compare those headlines to these regarding Ms. Lynch, from some of the very same news outlets:
•    “Lynch Defends Obama’s Immigration Action,” The New York Times•    “Loretta Lynch Defends Obama’s Immigration Actions,” Huffington Post•    “Loretta Lynch Defends Obama’s Executive Action, NSA Surveillance,” Newsweek•    “Attorney General Nominee Loretta Lynch defends Obama Immigration policies,” Washington Times

Secretary Carter was confirmed with 93 votes.  Only 5 Senators voted against his nomination.  That lopsided vote was a reflection of his testimony before the Senate, which demonstrated a willingness to be an independent voice within the administration.

I suspect Ms. Lynch will be confirmed, but I doubt she’ll garner 93 votes in support of her nomination.  And to the extent her support isn’t as broad as Secretary Carter’s, it will reflect a reluctance to take the department in a new direction, and her unwillingness to identify meaningful limitations on executive power.

Eric Holder was the DNC Attorney General, let’s hope Ms. Lynch is not as well.  

Is Senator Whitehouse Just a Hypocrite or Something Worse

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse attacked the second day of the Loretta Lynch hearings for examining the record of Eric Holder.  Holder’s Justice Department is one of the most political in history and we have only scratched the surface of what may be going on during his tenure.  It seems relevant to examine if Lynch has the ability and desire to address these many serious and deep problems.  As Chairman Grassley responded:

And the Department of Justice under its current leadership has failed – failed – to meet some of its most basic responsibilities. Every single one of these witnesses – every single one of them – speaks directly to Ms. Lynch’s nomination.  And the question is whether she takes these issues seriously.  Will she work to fix them?And I’d note that it wasn’t too long ago that Democrats agreed it was perfectly appropriate to call witnesses to address what they viewed as problems at the Department. I’d note to the naysayer on the other side, it wasn’t beneath the dignity of the Committee when they were in charge.  So why would it be now?

Chairman Grassley went on to cite one specific area. 

So, for instance, maybe it doesn’t bother you that the IRS targeted conservatives, and the Department doesn’t seem to have taken the issue seriously. But it bothers me a great deal.  And I want to know if Ms. Lynch is committed to tackling this problem, and a range of others. 

Ironically this is an area where Senator Whitehouse was involved.  Briefly:

[Disgraced former IRS Commissioner Lois] Lerner’s agenda was clear. Days after the meeting with Pilger, she addressed the Citizens United decision in a talk at Duke University. “They want the IRS to fix the problem,” Lerner said. “So everybody is screaming at us right now: ‘Fix it before the [2010 midterm] election. Can’t you see how much these people are spending?’”. . .
Three years later, [DOJ’s] Pilger and Lerner were still at it. In a May 2013 e-mail uncovered by Judicial Watch, Lerner discussed with a colleague a call from Pilger on the thoughts of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) about building “false-statement cases” against tax-exempt groups. Whitehouse’s “idea,” Lerner wrote, was “that DoJ could piece together false-statement cases about applicants who ‘lied’ on their [tax-exempt applications].” She added, “DoJ is feeling like it needs to respond.”

Senator Whitehouse’s complaints are seemingly at a minimum hypocritical considering past Democrat actions and may be efforts to protect himself from his own ties from one of DOJ’s scandals.

Lynch Must Answer Questions and Prove She Will not be Another DNC AG

Today at 10 a.m. eastern begins the hearings to replace arguably the most partisan Attorney General in History.  Loretta Lynch should be highly scrutinized to ensure she will not continue the shameful practices of Eric Holder.  A number of questions that she should answer.

Jonathan Keim of National Review has a list of questions for Lynch including:

4. Will you adopt changes to the principles of federal prosecution that would eliminate prosecutions based on political considerations?  The current Attorney General, Eric Holder, has been criticized for running a Department of Justice that is oriented toward partisan politics. Urgent action is needed to ensure that the Department of Justice will enforce the criminal laws against lawbreakers across the political spectrum, not just those who happen to be out of power.

As Hans Von Spakovsky and Christian Adams write:

Lynch has an obligation to answer questions about the decisions made by Eric Holder on a host of issues not only to provide guidance on how she would act as attorney general, but also because she has been a member of Holder’s advisory committee of U.S. Attorneys. It is entirely appropriate to ask her what advice she gave Holder on his many questionable decisions and whether she agrees with the legal positions and actions he has taken over the past six years. . . . .

Bias in Hiring

A devastating report by the Department of Justice inspector general in 2013 found deep polarization, mismanagement, and harassment of conservative employees as well as a litmus test imposed in hiring attorneys in the Civil Rights Division — namely, experience with liberal civil-rights organizations, which translates to experience working for the institutional Left. In short, only ideological allies need apply. As a result, the inspector general’s report found that the Civil Rights Division “passed over candidates who had stellar academic credentials and litigation experience with some of the best law firms in the country” and recommended that this litmus test be abolished.

Keim also asks a series of questions on the Constitution, one of which RNLA spent some time fighting.

 

6. Do you agree or disagree with the Obama Administration’s expansive view of its recess appointment powers? In NLRB v. Noel Canning, the Obama Administration expansively interpreted the recess appointments power to allow presidential recess appointments without Senate confirmation when the Senate was, by its own rules, not even in recess.  The administration argued that the power provided a “safety valve” in the face of Senate “intransigence.”But even Justices Kagan and Ginsburg, perhaps the two most liberal justices on the Supreme Court, criticized the government’s position and joined the Court’s opinion rejecting President Obama’s lawless recess appointments

.

These and many more questions are important in the hearing today.  Ms. Lynch needs not only to answer these questions but she needs to prove she will be the United States Attorney General and not the Democrat Party Attorney General as Holder was.  

The Need for a Vigorous Hearing on Loretta Lynch

All but partisan Democrats agree that Eric Holder has been a bad Attorney General. Many think that Holder is so bad that almost anyone with a license to practice law would be better. 

Regardless of how you feel about Holder, that does not mean that the current nominee Lorretta Lynch should go forgo scrutiny and questioning.  And some concerns are emerging.

First, it is alleged Ms. Lynch was part of secret deal that cost many crime victims a chance at restitution. 

More than a year before President Obama nominated federal prosecutor Loretta Lynch to be attorney general, a former federal judge quietly called on Congress to investigate her U.S. attorney’s office for trampling on victims’ rights.
Paul Cassell, a law professor at the University of Utah, said Ms. Lynch’s office, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, never told victims in a major stock fraud case that a culprit had been sentenced — denying them a chance to seek restitution of some $40 million in losses.

However now it looks like the case may be more than just a failure to notify: 

What is more, Ms. Lynch’s office—aided by judges in the Eastern District of New York—fought tooth and nail to preserve the secrecy of the case long after the sentencing, raising questions about whether the victims will ever be notified. One victim’s attorney argued that the office was evading federal forfeiture and restitution laws to reward the defendant for his assistance. Regardless of how helpful a particular defendant might have been to the government, though, the law does not allow the government to waive the restitution rights of victims simply because they are inconvenient.

Jonathan Keim concludes by writing three questions for Lynch:

1. Do you believe that the government can simply ignore victim rights to restitution whenever it is convenient? If not, why didn’t the scam victims get their day in court? 2. Did the defendant in this case forfeit property to the government, and if so, how much? Was the forfeited property used to pay back the victims? If not, why not? 3. If confirmed, how will you ensure that the Department of Justice adequately protects the restitution rights of crime victims in the future?

Lynch should have a vigorous hearing in which she is forced to answer these and other tough questions.  

North Carolina and the Myth of Voter Suppression

Judicial Watch’s Robert Popper has an excellent piece in today’s Wall Street Journal about the ongoing federal litigation challenging several changes to North Carolina’s election laws and how statistics from November’s election dispel the myth the changes suppressed the vote there. As we have seen in other states that have adopted voter integrity measures such as photo ID laws, North Carolina’s changes are proving to have zero impact on minority turnout, despite the hysterical claims made by the NAACP and Eric Holder’s Department of Justice (DOJ). In fact, African-American voter registration and turnout increased for the 2014 election.

Popper explains the various legislative changes at issue. For example, North Carolina moved to eliminate same day voter registration, a contentious policy that increases a state’s risk of Election Day fraud. North Carolina also tweaked its state law to require voters to vote in the precinct in which they are registered, hardly a novel or extreme measure. Another change challenged in the lawsuit is the reduction of days available for early voting from 17 to 10, although counties were required to offer the same number of early voting hours as they did before the changes kicked in. North Carolina also adopted a photo voter ID law in the legislative package although it does not take effect until 2016.

North Carolina was sued in two separate suits in August, 2013 by the NAACP, Common Cause, League of Women Voters and others. Later, a third suit was brought by Holder’s DOJ. (Click here for the pleadings and for other information on the case.) Among the extraordinary claims by DOJ as chronicled by Popper:

One expert in the Justice Department lawsuit claimed that more than 200,000 black voters, along with 700,000 white voters, would be “burdened” in an off-year election. Another expert concluded that particular provisions “will lower turnout overall” and “will have a disparate impact on African-American voters.”

Reality?

Those predictions were not borne out. The 2014 elections were the first test of the impact of North Carolina’s new laws, including a “soft rollout” of its voter-ID requirement—under which poll workers asked voters if they had ID and if not, to acknowledge the new requirement in writing. Board of Elections data showed that the percentage of age-eligible, non-Hispanic black residents who turned out to vote in North Carolina rose to 41.1% in November 2014 from 38.5% in November 2010.

The percentage of black registrants voting increased to 42.2% from 40.3% in the same period, and the black share of votes cast increased to 21.4% from 20.1%. The absolute number of black voters increased 16%, to 628,004 from 539,646.

As Popper notes, this is just “the latest example of allegedly “suppressive” laws that failed to suppress votes.” Plaintiffs and left-wing groups like the Brennan Center continue to cry wolf over these laws but the results are clear: common-sense voter integrity measures simply do not suppress the vote. As the Brennan Center and others continue to lose credibility based on their outrageous claims, they are only getting more desperate and it is showing. While some activist and sympathetic judges may continue to (at least temporarily) stop these laws from being implemented, the truth is finally emerging. Even Rick Hasen and other liberals have begun to question the Chicken Little “Sky is Falling” narrative being spun by plaintiffs in these suits and groups like the Brennan Center.

Would Loretta Lynch be an Extension of Eric Holder’s Tenure as AG?

Eric Holder has used his tenure as U.S. Attorney General to racially and politically divide our country. When the news of his resignation broke, one might have thought that since Eric Holder’s tenure required this administration to deal with one embarrassing mistake after the next, Obama would have selected someone more suited, and maybe even more versed in constitutional law, to lead our country’s Department of Justice (DOJ).

President Obama selected Loretta Lynch, a little-known U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York to replace Eric Holder as Attorney General. With each passing day, we learn more about Ms. Lynch and how her appointment to Attorney General might not be the solution our country needs to restore public confidence inthe DOJ.

Ms. Lynch has made it clear that she would continue the attempts to dismantle election integrity laws that this administration has started. At a speech in Long Beach, NY, Ms. Lynch opined:

Fifty years since the civil rights struggle we stand at a time when we see people trying to take back what Martin Luther King Jr. fought for. People try and take over the State House and reverse the gains made in voting in this country.

It’s not just voter ID laws that Ms. Lynch believes to be “racist,” either. She believes school discipline policies might be racist, stating,

The dream is still continuing not only in the courts but in our schools. And we all know, education is the key. And we understand that discipline is important. We understand that rules are important but we also know that when we sit and look at schools that have the zero tolerance programs, they are often used, and they take our babies, minority children, black children, Hispanic children, and they put them out of school before they have a chance to learn.

And so the Department of Justice, this past year, has gone into the South, although we’re looking further, and brought the first prison, school-to-prison pipeline cases against school districts in Alabama.

Ms. Lynch rounds out her ideas that certain policies are “racist” in being opposed to the death penalty: "Because you can be as fair as possible in a particular case, but the reality is that the federal death penalty is going to hit harder on certain groups."

It appears it isn’t just Eric Holder who views many longstanding reasonable and non-discriminatory policies as “racist,” but Loretta Lynch as well. We do not need an extension of Eric Holder’s divisive tenure as Attorney General.

We Need a Special Counsel to Investigate IRS Targeting of Conservatives

On May 7, 2014, a bipartisan House Resolution was passed, calling for Eric Holder to appoint a Special Counsel in the investigation of the IRS targeting of conservative groups.

On July 30, 2014, a hearing was held by the House Judiciary Committee entitled, “The IRS Targeting Scandal: the Need for a Special Counsel.” This hearing dealt with the question of whether United States Attorney General Eric Holder should appoint a Special Counsel to investigate the IRS targeting scandal, to discover how far it went, and to determine who exactly was involved in the cover-up of the scandal.

In August of 2014, Federal Judge Emmet Sullivan launched an independent inquiry into the recent issue of missing emails from Lois Lerner’s account.

As of today, we are still unsure of many things revolving around this disgusting abuse of power by Obama’s Administration. Even after the aforementioned resolution, hearing, and independent investigation launched by a federal judge, we still do not have an independent counsel investigating the IRS scandal and subsequent cover-up.

Chapman Law Professor Ronald D. Rotunda was a witness at the July 30 hearing, and wrote an article on this appointment of special counsel, stating:

There is no longer a special statute that provides for a Special Prosecutor or Independent Counsel. However, the Attorney General does not need a statute to appoint a Special Counsel. There was a Special Counsel in the Teapot Dome scandal despite a lack of statutory authorization. Similarly, there was no statutory authorization for the Special Counsel in the Watergate scandal.

What we have now, as in the case of Watergate, is a regulation. In Title 28 of Code of Federal Regulations, Section 600.1. It provides that the Attorney General “will appoint a Special Counsel” when he determines that “criminal investigation of a person or matter is warranted,” and the Department of Justice has a “conflict of interest” and “it would be in the public interest to appoint an outside Special Counsel to assume responsibility for the matter.”

Further substantiating the need for a special counsel to investigate this case is a letter signed by 47 out of 73 federal government Inspectors General (including many who were appointed by Obama!). This August 4, 2014 letter explains that the Obama administration is obstructing their investigations into government corruption and mismanagement.

Professor Rotunda offers further proof of the current extraordinary circumstances, stating

Emails disappear. IRS backup disks are destroyed, while the IRS is involved in litigation to turn over those backup disks. The IRS does not appear to keep the records that the law requires it to keep. The President assures us that there this is no hint, “not a smidgen of corruption,” before the DOJ completed its purported investigation. That prejudgment undermines the investigation. There is also the appearance of a conflict when Department of Justice lawyers who are political appointees of the President are in charge of the investigation that involves the national co-chair of President Obama’s Reelection Campaign. The Washington, D.C., Rules of Professional Conduct governing lawyers, Rule 1.7(b)(4), provides there is a conflict if a lawyer’s professional judgment “may be adversely affected” by his own “personal interests.”

Professor Rotunda ends his article by explaining that while the Special Counsel regulation is not a statute, it is still the law.

As the Supreme Court explained in United States v. Nixon, when referring to the regulations that governed the Attorney General’s appointment of a Special Counsel: “So long as this regulation is extant it has the force of law.” The Court went on to summarize the precedent as holding that “so long as the Attorney General’s regulations remained operative, he denied himself the authority to exercise the discretion delegated to the Board even though the original authority was his and he could reassert it by amending the regulations.”

This Administration should appoint a special counsel immediately so we can continue investigating in a non-partisan way.