Four Republican Lawmakers Accuse Justice Department of Inappropriate Quid Pro Quo

Just more race-based justice from the Obama Department of Injustice.

From WaPo:

Four Republican lawmakers have accused the Justice Department of inappropriately striking a deal with city officials in St. Paul, Minn., to drop an appeal in a Supreme Court civil rights case in exchange for the federal government abandoning its support for a separate lawsuit against the city.

In a letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., Sen. Charles E. Grassley (Iowa) and three House members said that Justice officials struck a quid pro quo in February with St. Paul officials to withdraw a housing discrimination case before the Supreme Court in exchange for Justice declining to intervene in an unrelated False Claims Act case against the city.

The lawmakers said they found out about the alleged deal during a private briefing with Justice officials.

“We were shocked to learn during this briefing and in subsequent document examination that Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez, over the objections of career Justice Department attorneys, enticed the city to drop its lawsuit that Mr. Perez did not want decided by the Supreme Court,” wrote Grassley and Reps. Darrell Issa (Calif.), Lamar Smith (Tex.) and Patrick T. McHenry (N.C.).

This is the same guy who dropped voter intimidation charges against the New Black Panthers Party.

Justice spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said in a statement that “the resolution reached in these cases was in the best interests of the United States and consistent with the Department’s practice in reaching global settlements.”

“The decision was appropriate and made following an examination of the relevant facts, law and policy considerations at issue,” she added.

St. Paul City Attorney Sara Grewing said that the primary reason that the city dismissed its petition to the Supreme Court in Magner v. Gallagher was “to preserve 40 years of civil rights law.”

Hmmm, it has to do with race. Whodathunkit?

But Grewing also said that the Justice Department’s decision not to intervene in two lawsuits against the city was a factor. “When the city dismissed the Magner petition, the Department of Justice declined to intervene — and thus not oppose the city — in those two lawsuits,” she said in a statement.

Grewing added that the secondary reason for dismissing the petition on the eve of oral arguments was “to avoid conflict with the federal government in two pending lawsuits against the city that the city considered to be without merit.”

Justice’s decision not to be involved did not end the two lawsuits. One of them was brought by a businessman charging that St. Paul had falsely certified that it was using federal money to create jobs for low-income workers of all races when it was focused only on employing minorities.

This has been a pattern for Eric Holder’s DOJ and the Obama administration. Everything is viewed through a race prism and all policies are to redistribute wealth from one group to another “disenfranchised” group.

In early October 2011, career lawyers from the Justice’s fraud section recommended that the federal government join the lawsuit, characterizing the city’s behavior as a “particularly egregious example” of false certifications, according to congressional investigators.

So the city was committing fraud against the US taxpayers but the DOJ drops the lawsuit to protect “40 years of civil right laws?”

But in the letter, the lawmakers charged that Perez “bargained away a valid case of fraud against American taxpayers” to persuade St. Paul to drop its appeal in the civil rights case.

So, why did Perez drop the fraud case against the city? It was because he didn’t want the Supreme Court to interfere:

Mr. Perez fretted that a decision in the City’s favor would dry up the massive mortgage lending settlements his Division was obtaining by suing banks for housing discrimination based on disparate effects rather than any proof of intent to discriminate.[5]  Accordingly, as documents reviewed by Committee staff show, he orchestrated a deal to induce the City to drop its Supreme Court challenge.  In exchange for St. Paul dropping its case before the high court, the Justice Department declined to intervene in an unrelated False Claims Act (FCA) case that had the potential to return over $180 million in damages to the U.S. treasury.

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Assistant Attorney General Can’t Commit to Protecting Free Speech…4 Times (Video)

These are the anti-constitutionalist Obama has appointed to run the corrupt DOJ. This question is important considering those on the left are attempting to stop free speech. Remember, the Obama regime wanted YouTube, owned by Google, to take down a video mocking the Islamic Prophet Muhammad.

Assistant AG Thomas Perez is the same one involved in the New Black Panthers voter intimidation case that was dropped.

Read more about this story over at HotAir

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Federal Judge Rules Obama Appointees Interfered With New Black Panther Prosecution

I lied!

Well, Obama is connected to the NBPP and so is his buddy, Charles Olgetree. Of course Team Obama interfered. It involved the civil rights of whites being violated.

From PatDollard.com:

A federal court in Washington, DC, held today that political appointees appointed by President Obama did interfere with the Department of Justice’s prosecution of the New Black Panther Party.

The ruling came as part of a motion by the conservative legal watch dog group Judicial Watch, who had sued the DOJ in federal court to enforce a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for documents pertaining to the the New Black Panthers case. Judicial Watch had secured many previously unavailable documents through their suit against DOJ and were now suing for attorneys’ fees.

Obama’s DOJ had claimed Judicial Watch was not entitled to attorney’s fees since “none of the records produced in this litigation evidenced any political interference whatsoever in” how the DOJ handled the New Black Panther Party case. But United States District Court Judge Reggie Walton disagreed. Citing a “series of emails” between Obama political appointees and career Justice lawyers, Walton writes:

The documents reveal that political appointees within DOJ were conferring about the status and resolution of the New Black Panther Party case in the days preceding the DOJ’s dismissal of claims in that case, which would appear to contradict Assistant Attorney General Perez’s testimony that political leadership was not involved in that decision. Surely the public has an interest in documents that cast doubt on the accuracy of government officials’ representations regarding the possible politicization of agency decision-making.

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Just as we figured: Justice Department clears Justice Department in handling of New Black Panther’s voter intimidation case

Would you ask Charlie Manson to investigate the crimes Charlie Manson committed? Well, this is exactly what the Justice Department did when it used one of their own to investigate the Justice Department. The DOJ used the DOJ’s own “Office of Professional Responsibility” to investigate the DOJ’s handling of the New Black Panther’s voter intimidation charges that the DOJ dropped.

The Washington Post reports:

The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) has concluded an investigation finding that politics played no role in the handling of the New Black Panther Party case, which sparked a racially charged political fight.

After reviewing thousands of pages of internal e-mails and notes and conducting 44 interviews with department staff members, the OPR reported that “department attorneys did not commit professional misconduct or exercise poor judgment” and that the voter-intimidation case against the Panthers was dismissed on “a good faith assessment of the law” and “not influenced by the race of the defendents.”

Well, thank you for clearing yourself DOJ.

The U.S. Civil Rights Commission has a different view of the Eric Holder-led DOJ handling of the New Black Panther Party case. The DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility says they reviewed e-mails, well I guess they didn’t review the e-mails that Judicial Watch obtained with a FOIA request. These e-mails show top Obama political appointees were involved in dismissing the charges against the NBPP.

I wonder why the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility failed to read those damaging e-mails? Could it be that it shows Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez lied under oath? The e-mails prove he, in fact, did lie under oath.

The DOJ even tried to silence the top attorney inside the civil rights division of the DOJ by ordering him not to testify. The DOJ did not want these attorneys to cooperate with the investigation by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. The civil rights division leader also stated that the dismissal of charges against the New Black Panther Party was a “travesty.”

You can totally trust the findings of the DOJ investigating the DOJ for wrongdoing or you can trust your lying eyes…

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Slay The Sacred CRA (Community Reinvestment Act)

You can thank Democrats for the Community Reinvestment Act, which was one of the stepping-stones that led to the housing market crash that contributed to the financial crisis. The CRA gave us the subprime mortgages, which started under the Clinton administration.

It’s time to end the lending program that rewards risky individuals with mortgages in the name of diversity.

Subprime Scandal: As part of financial reform, Republicans ought to defund, if not dismantle, the Community Reinvestment Act — before it strikes again.

The CRA compels banks to make mortgages to low-income and minority borrowers or face penalties including denial of expansion plans. Starting under President Clinton, the anti-redlining law became a quota-based system that pressured lenders to boost loan acceptance rates in urban areas.

As a result, banks extended credit to those who should never have been approved in the first place. HUD regulators also encouraged CRA “affordable” lending through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, injecting trillions of dollars of bad loans into the financial system.

“That requirement contributed to the large number of subprime and other risky loans that failed in the financial crisis,” said Peter Wallison, a member of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.

Even former Federal Reserve Board Gov. Lawrence Lindsey, a staunch CRA defender, acknowledges that the regulation “did contribute to a downgrading of credit standards.”

If Clinton added teeth to the CRA, Obama’s adding fangs. Top bank regulators have warned that they are on the “fair lending” warpath. They’ve toughened CRA exams and referred violators to the Justice Department for prosecution.

Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez recently stated that “lending discrimination is discrimination with a smile and must be stopped.” He warns that he’s dusting off fair-lending laws “to combat this problem” and suggests that lenders take a closer look at their minority lending programs.

They’re taking his advice seriously. At a recent CRA colloquium in Las Vegas, some 400 bank compliance officers from around the country nervously gathered to learn how best to protect themselves from the coming CRA crackdown. They were told to be more “proactive” in their approach to compliance. Translation: ease your credit standards — the very root of the financial crisis.

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Justice Department Emails Offer New Evidence Political Appointees at DOJ Ended Case against New Black Panther Party

The Black Panther scandal continues and Obama’s political appointees are deeply involved.

From Judicial Watch:

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has obtained documents from the Obama Department of Justice (DOJ) that provide new evidence that top political appointees at the DOJ were intimately involved in the decision to dismiss the voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party for Self Defense (NBPP). These new documents, which include internal DOJ email correspondence, directly contradict sworn testimony by Thomas Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, who testified before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights that no political leadership was involved in the decision. The new documents were obtained last week by Judicial Watch pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit (Judicial Watch v. Department of Justice (No.10-851)).

The new documents include a series of emails between two political appointees: former Democratic election lawyer and current Deputy Associate Attorney General Sam Hirsch and Associate Attorney General Thomas Perrelli. Both DOJ officials were involved in detailed discussions regarding the NBPP decision. For example, in one April 30, 2009, email from Hirsch to Perrelli, with the subject title “Fw: New Black Panther Party Update,” Hirsch writes:

Tom,

I need to discuss this with you tomorrow morning. I’ll send you another email on this shortly.

If you want to discuss it this evening, please let me know which number to call and when.

These emails were put in further context by an updated Vaughn index obtained by Judicial Watch, describing NBPP documents the Obama DOJ continues to withhold. These documents, which were attached to the DOJ’s Motion for Summary Judgment filing, include a description of a May 13 email chain that seems to suggest political appointee Sam Hirsch may have been orchestrating the NBPP decision.

Acting DAAG [Steven Rosenbaum] advising his supervising Acting AAG [Loretta King] of DASG’s [Hirsch’s] request for a memorandum by the Acting DAAG reviewing various options, legal strategies, and different proposals of relief as related to each separate defendant. Acting DAAG forwarding emails from Appellate Section Chief’s and Appellate Attorney’s with their detailed legal analyses including the application of constitutional provisions and judicial precedent to strategies and relief under consideration in the ongoing NBPP litigation, as well as an assessment of the strength of potential legal arguments, and presenting different possible scenarios in the litigation. [Emphasis added]

Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Thomas Perez testified before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights that no political appointees were involved in the NBPP decision. Perez suggested that the dispute was merely “a case of career people disagreeing with career people.”

In fact, political appointee Sam Hirsch sent an April 30, 2009, email to Steven Rosenbaum (then-Acting Assistant Deputy Attorney General in the Civil Rights) thanking Rosenbaum for “doing everything you’re doing to make sure that this case is properly resolved.” The next day, the DOJ began to reverse course on its NBPP voter intimidation lawsuit.

Judicial Watch also obtained two email reports sent by former Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Loretta King to Attorney General Eric Holder.

The first report, entitled “Weekly Report for the Week ending May 8, 2009,” and sent on May 12, 2009, notes: “On May 15, 2009, pursuant to court order, the Department will file a motion for default judgment against at least some of the defendants” in the NBPP lawsuit. The report further notes that the New Black Panther Party for Self Defense “has been identified as a racist hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Anti-Defamation League and the founders and members of the original Black Panther Party.”

The second report, entitled “Weekly Report for the Week ending May 15, 2009,” and sent on May 18, 2009, demonstrates that the DOJ did an abrupt reversal on the NBPP issue: “On May 15, 2009, the Department voluntarily dismissed its claims” against the NBPP and two of the defendants, the report noted. The DOJ moved for default judgment against only one defendant.

“It is now obvious to me why the Obama administration continues to be so secretive regarding the Justice Department’s decision to abandon its lawsuit against the New Black Panther Party. These documents show that not only was the Black Panther decision shamelessly politicized by the Obama administration but also that Obama officials lied to cover up the scandal. And these documents raise more questions about Attorney General Holder’s involvement. The American people need to know if racism and political favoritism are corrupting the nation’s highest law enforcement agency,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

The DOJ filed its lawsuit against the NBPP following an incident that took place outside of a Philadelphia polling station on November 4, 2008. A video of the incident, showing a member of the NBPP brandishing police-style baton weapon, was widely distributed on the Internet. According to multiple witnesses, members of the NBPP blocked access to polling stations, harassed voters and hurled racial epithets. Nonetheless, the DOJ ultimately overruled the recommendations of its own staff and dismissed the majority of its charges. Current and former DOJ attorneys have alleged in sworn testimony before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights that the Holder DOJ’s NBPP and other civil rights-related decisions are made on the basis of race and political affiliation.

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