In response to Ron Weitbrecht's letter "The truth behind voter intimidation case," I looked further into his statement that the Black Panther case was dismissed on Jan. 7, 2009. What I learned was that career attorneys in the Justice Department's Voting Rights Section decided as early as Dec. 22, 2008, to seek charges in the New Black Panther Party case.
On Jan. 7, 2009, "Bush's" Justice Department downgraded the violation from criminal to a civil action. However, the decision to dismiss the complaint came from then-Acting Assistant Attorney General Loretta King after an April 2009 meeting she had with Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli, the department's No. 3 political appointee, according to interviews with lawyers familiar with the case. On July 6, 2010, Mr. Adams, the DOJ Civil Rights attorney who resigned because of the corrupt nature of the dismissal, testified under oath at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. He would have no reason to perjure himself and risk losing his license and disbarment by the Bar Association.
Christopher Coates, the chief of the Voting Rights Section, was subpoenaed by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights many months ago, but Justice ordered him not to appear. He had earlier been quietly reassigned to the U.S. attorney's office in Charleston, S.C., during Christmas week in December, 2009. As of July 7, 2010, however, a bipartisan panel investigating the DOJ Black Panther case plans to issue a new round of subpoenas, especially to Coates, who fully corroborates Adams' testimony.
In researching the DOJ to respond to Weitbrecht's letter, I came across another problematic mandate by Julie Fernandez, Deputy Assistant Attorney General and political appointee. In the Motor Voter Law passed in the 1990s, Section 8 calls for enforcing the integrity of voting records so that dead people, illegals and felons are not committing voter fraud. Fernandez said to a full room of DOJ employees that DOJ has no intention of enforcing this provision because this violation did not prevent "access" to the polls. In other words, it would appear that Fernandez is turning a blind eye to voter fraud, effectively promoting lawlessness in the Voting Rights Section.
Susan Leeper, Scottsdale
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