Attorney General Eric Holder used his testimony before a House committee on Thursday to tout the supposed need for new gun control laws to prevent “gun walking,” or the transportation of firearms across the Southern border. But he – and members of the committee – ignored existing laws that already accomplish Holder’s ostensible goals. “That is why we need a stronger gun trafficking law,” Holder said in response to questions about recourse against officials who signed off on the gun walking tactic. The tactic was integral to Operation Fast and …
Would you be outraged if the Department of Justice shut down The Foundry without any warning and blocked access for more than a year? That’s exactly what happened to a hip-hop blog called Dajaz1.com, which was falsely accused of criminal copyright infringement. The blog posted music from artists promoting their work. But federal authorities viewed it differently. They seized the domain name, then shared virtually no information with its owner for more than year. Only recently did they quietly drop the case. The government’s handling of this hip-hop blog is …
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 …
When Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) asked Attorney General Eric Holder to explain the letters concerning Fast and Furious that were withdrawn by DOJ because they were “inaccurate,” as well other misstatements by Holder’s Justice Department in the investigation of the gun-walking disaster, Holder was quick to his own defense, arguing that no one lied. “Tell me what’s the difference between lying and misleading Congress, in this context?” Sensenbrenner asked. “Well, if you want to have this legal conversation, it all has to do with your state of mind and whether …
In June 2010, J. Christian Adams resigned his post as a career attorney in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. Adams cited DOJ’s decision to abandon prosecution of two members of the New Black Panther Party who had brandished weapons outside of a Philadelphia polling station in 2008, shouting racial slurs at passers-by. Adams called it “the simplest and most obvious violation of federal law I saw in my Justice Department career.” The decision to drop the case – made by top officials at the Civil Rights Division – was …
Citing recent revelations in the investigation into a failed sting operation against Mexican drug cartels, the House’s lead investigator served Attorney General Eric Holder with a subpoena on Wednesday, requesting a range of documents related to the cross-border law enforcement effort. “Top Justice Department officials, including Attorney General Holder, know more about Operation Fast and Furious than they have publicly acknowledged,” Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said in a statement. Fast and Furious was an operation conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms …
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” – …
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 …
Since Eric Holder took the reins as Attorney General, the Justice Department has hired 15 career attorneys in the Civil Rights Division’s Employment Litigation Section. Every one of them boasts stellar left-wing ideological credentials. All have either associated themselves with prominent Democrats, worked for left-wing legal organizations, or staked out left-wing positions on controversial issues. The complete political uniformity of this section aligns with DOJ’s hiring in four other sections of the Civil Rights Division. The Heritage Foundation’s Hans von Spakovsky has been documenting the left-wing dominance of the division …
The resumes of the Obama administration’s hires at the Justice Department Civil Right Division’s Special Litigation Section read like a manual on professional advancement in the world of left wing legal practice. Every one of the 23 career civil service attorneys hired since Obama took office has stellar liberal credentials. That ideological uniformity, writes the Heritage Foundation’s Hans von Spakovsky, suggests that liberal politics are a “prerequisite for employment in the Division – there is no other explanation for this.” The Special Litigation Section enforces civil rights laws on the …
