Earlier today, I pointed to Patrick Poole’s report (at Pajamas) alleging, based on information from an anonymous DOJ official, that the Obama/Holder Justice Department has quashed investigations against Muslim Brotherhood-connected Islamist organizations — including a top CAIR official — designated as unindicted co-conspirators in a major Hamas financing prosecution. Alas, there’s more DOJ news to share — more of the same, that is.
At the Examiner, J. Christian Adams has a disturbing article on the Civil Rights Division that Attorney General Holder boasts of having “reinvigorated.” You may recall Chris as the DOJ lawyer who resigned after Holder aides attempted to prevent him from honoring a request by the Civil Rights Commission that he testify in the Commission’s investigation of DOJ’s dismissal of the Black Panthers voter intimidation case.
He recounts that, under Holder’s “reinvigorated” CivDiv, DOJ has prevented Amazon from debuting the Kindle because it was not in Braille; attacked South Carolina for providing special treatment to inmates infected with AIDS; and demanded that the city of Dayton hire black police officers who had failed the competency examination.
Moreover, remember the case we recently heard about in which DOJ decided to sue an Illinois school district on behalf of the rookie teacher — a Muslim — who demanded three weeks off at the end of the semester to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca? Turns out the lawyer DOJ tapped to lead the case, Varda Hussain, came to the CivDiv from the Venable law firm in Virginia, which permitted her to volunteer 500 hours of her time bringing wartime lawsuits against the United States on behalf of three Egyptian terrorists held as enemy combatants at Gitmo (a feat for which Venable gave her an award in 2006).
DOJ has also tapped Aaron Schuham of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a rabidly anti-religion organization, to take the helm at a CivDiv unit in charge of . . . protecting religious liberty.
Further, DOJ has tapped Jonathan Smith, formerly of Prisoners Legal Services and the D.C. Legal Aid Society — groups Adams describes as anti-police and anti-prison guard — to head the unit that brings civil-rights lawsuits against police departments and prisons.
Adams suspects that this is just the tip of the iceberg, but it’s hard to know for sure because — I know you’ll be shocked to hear this — Holder is stonewalling on a Freedom of Information Act request for the resumes of all new Obama hires in the CivDiv. The Bush Justice Department provided similar information about its hires to the Boston Globe within three weeks of the paper’s 2007 FOIA request. By contrast, Holder ignored Pajamas’ requests starting about 10 months ago — such that Pajamas finally sued in January (the suit is pending).
Over a year ago, I penned a Broadside for Encounter called How the Obama Administration Has Politicized Justice. Things have only gotten worse — as predicted before Mr. Holder’s confirmation.