On Election Day 2008, three members of the New Black Panther Party were captured on tape at a Philadelphia polling place attempting to intimidate voters. All three wore military attire and one wielded a nightstick. The Justice Department, in the last days of President George W. Bush’s presidency, brought a voter intimidation case against the trio, which the department won by default. Then President Obama’s political appointees in the Justice Department got involved. Without even reading the memoranda connected to the case, they forced its dismissal after it was already won. Justice dropped the case against two of the defendants and settled with the third, requiring him only to refrain from carrying a “deadly weapon” near a Philadelphia polling place until 2012.
The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has attempted to investigate the dismissal, only to meet resistance from Obama’s Department of Justice at every turn. J. Christian Adams, a career lawyer in Justice’s voting rights section, testified before the commission last month, but only after resigning his position because of “the corrupt nature of the dismissal, statements [by Obama appointees] falsely characterizing the case, and most of all, indefensible orders for the career attorneys not to comply with lawful subpoenas investigating the dismissal.”
