Attorney General Eric Holder put a lump of coal in South Carolina’s Christmas stocking on Dec. 23 when he objected to the state’s new voter ID law. By ignoring inconvenient facts and clear legal precedent, Holder showed once again that politics and ideology—not the rule of law—drive his law enforcement decisions. Given the power of the Justice Department and its potential for abuse, this should worry all Americans, particularly when that abuse has the potential to affect the outcome of next year’s election. South Carolina passed a voter ID law …
It’s rather remarkable, really, how willing federal bureaucrats are to block business deals that they speculate will cause price hikes and yet give nary a thought to foisting more than a trillion dollars annually in regulatory costs on the public. That’s one takeaway from the news that AT&T has scrapped its proposed $39 billion acquisition of struggling T-Mobile USA (from Deutsche Telekom AG) after a bruising nine-month battle with the U.S. Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission. Bureaucrats at both agencies concluded that the deal could (maybe, perhaps) hurt …
Justice Department memos obtained by CBS News show that Attorney General Eric Holder was aware of a controversial cross-border law enforcement operation in July 2010 – nearly a year earlier than he had previously acknowledged. Holder told congressional investigators in May that he had first heard of the operation only weeks before. Testifying before the House Judiciary Committee in May 2011, Holder said that he had “probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.” The Fast and Furious operation allowed “straw buyers” – …
The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) stole a march on the Obama Administration this morning by filing a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court appealing the 11th Circuit’s Obamacare decision. The Department of Justice (DOJ) had announced on Monday that it was not going to ask all 11 judges of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to review en banc the August 12 decision of a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit that found the individual mandate unconstitutional. This opened up a path to an appeal by DOJ to …
Catching you up on clips, commentary and news of the day. Sign up for the daily email update from Scribe The Great $16 Muffin Myth – Kevin Drum, Mother Jones Global Meltdown: Investors Are Dumping Nearly Everything – Patti Domm, CNBC US walks out as Iran delivers anti-US speech – Edith M. Lederer, Associated Press Boehner: ‘There’s no threat of a government shutdown’ – Nicholas Ballasy, The Daily Caller Bill Clinton: Obama’s Approach to the Deficit is ‘A Little Confusing’ – Real Clear Politics Census: Recession takes big toll on …
With the resignation this week of Dennis K. Burke, the Obama-appointed U.S. Attorney in Phoenix, we have the first high-level casualty in the burgeoning scandal known as Operation Fast and Furious. Assistant U.S. Attorney Emory Hurley is also being transferred from the criminal division to the civil division, although the Department of Justice (DOJ) claims that it was at Hurley’s own request. They join other key individuals—such as Kenneth E. Melson, who has been relieved as the Acting Director of the ATF and moved to the DOJ’s Office of Legal …
A U.S. government gun-trafficking investigation gone horribly wrong has resulted in the death of a U.S. Border Patrol officer, some 2,000 firearms in the hands of criminals, and the dismissal of a 24-year veteran law enforcement official. This is the story of Fast and Furious, and yesterday the latest chapter unfolded when two top officials associated with the operation were removed from their positions, while a third individual resigned. The story begins in the fall of 2009, when the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) office in Phoenix, Arizona, began selling …
The Corner‘s Marc Thiessen notes that on The Today Show this morning, while trying to defend Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to re-investigate allegations of detainee abuse by the CIA, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said: “I’m a former United States attorney. I’m a former [state] attorney general, a prosecutor. . . . I would never second-guess a prosecutor.” Watch: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmYvbItysPY[/youtube] The key fact that Napolitano is leaving out here is that second guessing a prosecutor is exactly what Holder is doing. Former-President Bill Clinton chief of staff …
Last Friday I had a post about the Justice Department’s dismissal of a public corruption case against New Mexico governor Bill Richardson. The AP reported that sources within Justice said the investigation had been killed in Washington. More evidence of that possibility comes from a letter sent by the U.S. Attorney in New Mexico, Gregory Fouratt, who is not an Obama political appointee, but a career lawyer appointed by the federal judges in his circuit to fill the vacancy in the U.S. Attorney’s office. The purpose of the letter was …
Heritage Senior Legal Fellow Hans von Spakovsky has been closely following the politicization of the Obama Justice department under Attorney General Eric Holder, most recently covering the decision by Obama political appointee Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli to dismiss a voter intimidation lawsuit against the New Black Panther Party. The left has been largely silent about the rank hypocrisy of this decision, but that is slowly changing. Professor of Political Science and Law at Vanderbilt University Carol Swain writes at The Huffington Post: In case you missed the story, …
