Holder: Black Panther Case Focus Demeans 'My People'

Politico

March 1, 2011

Attorney General Eric Holder finally got fed up Tuesday with claims that the Justice Department went easy in a voting rights case against members of the New Black Panther Party because they are African American.

Holder's frustration over the criticism became evident during a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing as Rep. John Culberson (R-TX) accused the Justice Department of failing to cooperate with a Civil Rights Commission investigation into the handling of the 2008 incident in which Black Panthers in intimidating outfits and wielding a club stood outside a polling place in Philadelphia.

The Attorney General seemed to take personal offense at a comment Culberson read in which former Democratic activist Bartle Bull called the incident the most serious act of voter intimidation he had witnessed in his career.

"Think about that," Holder said. "When you compare what people endured in the South in the 60s to try to get the right to vote for African Americans, and to compare what people were subjected to there to what happened in Philadelphia—which was inappropriate, certainly that…to describe it in those terms I think does a great disservice to people who put their lives on the line, who risked all, for my people," said Holder, who is black...

In a series of questions and comments earlier in the hearing, Culberson insisted that race had infected the decision-making process. "There's clearly evidence, overwhelming evidence, that your Department of Justice refuses to protect the rights of anybody other than African Americans to vote," the Texas Republican said. "There's a pattern of a double standard here."

"I would disagree very vehemently with the notion that there's overwhelming evidence that that is in fact true," Holder replied. "This Department of Justice does not enforce the law in a race-conscious way."

Rep. Chaka Fattah, a Democrat from Philadelphia, said the Black Panthers "should not have been there." But he said the GOP was making too much out of a fleeting incident involving a couple of people.

Editor's Note: Yes, think about that, Mr. Holder. It is an appropriate comparison. In the 1960s South, people would wield sticks at Black people, threatening them should they show up at a polling place. Yet, in 2008, Black people are wielding sticks at White people, threatening them should they show up to vote. And your department -- the US Department of Justice -- refrained from following through on the prosecution of those who attempted to disenfranchise voters. Good thing past US Attorney General's had more ethical integrity than you, Mr. Holder. You, sir, are a disgrace, not only to the nation, but to your race. You, sir, are the "coward."

http://newmediajournal.us/indx.php/item/645

Affiliation with violent Black Panthers while in college may explain Attorney General’s anti-white bias

By Pat Shannan

October 16, 2012

Attorney General Eric Holder’s reluctance to prosecute criminal behavior on the part of the Black Panthers in Philadelphia during the 2008 presidential election apparently has its roots in his own affiliation with the group as far back as 1970. While a freshman at Columbia University that year, Holder participated in a five-day, armed protest and occupation of the university’s Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) building organized by the “Black Students’ Organization” (BSO).

It has not been ascertained whether the AG was ever a card-carrying member of the Black Panthers. However, he was an active member on campus of the Student Afro-American Society (SAAS) that released a statement supporting the efforts of 21 Black Panthers charged with plotting to blow up a police station, department stores, railroad tracks and the New York Botanical Gardens.

News stories from BSO’s defunct website show that it wasn’t the first time. Gloating over a 1968 confrontation with police the paper reported:

“Armed with guns, the students took over Hamilton Hall, and locked the building from the inside. After some time the black students told the white sympathizers, many of whom were members of Students for a Democratic Society, to leave and contribute by taking over other buildings on campus. They did, effectively shutting down the university. The president of the university ordered the NYPD to smother the protest by force, aided by white athletes and members of the ROTC. Ironically it was the white students in other buildings who bore the brunt of the police storming. Had the police broken into Hamilton, they may have suffered casualties at the hands of the sisters and brothers inside.”

Two years later, Holder was among the leaders of the SAAS that were demanding the former ROTC office be renamed the “Malcolm X Lounge” in honor of the early Black Muslim leader who was assassinated in 1965.

Speaking to the 2009 graduating class at Columbia, America’s top lawman mistakenly remembered it as his “senior year,” and boasted of his participation in the movement during his college days. However, he deceitfully tempered his remarks by calling it a protest to “peacefully occupy one of the campus offices.”

The Justice Department has not responded to a query of what kind of weapon Holder himself was carrying at the time, but his friend, Steve Sims, told a mainstream newspaper it all did happen.

This may explain why Holder refused to prosecute Black Panther thugs, who were accused of intimidating voters with truncheons at the polls in Philadelphia in 2008.

Pat Shannan is an AFP contributing editor and the author of several best-selling videos and books.

http://americanfreepress.net/?p=6588

Will Fast And Furious Justice Finally Befall Eric Holder?

By Larry Bell

October 6, 2013

Serial abuses of justice by America’s top law enforcement official should be enough to make just about any tinhorn banana republic dictator blush. Yet regarding any embarrassment evidenced by the leader of the free world… not so much. Despite the fact that our attorney general has been indicted for contempt of Congress on both felony and civil charges, has repeatedly lied under oath, and has routinely turned a blind eye to laws that he is duty-bound to enforce, Mr. Holder continues to serve at the behest of his presidential mentor. At least he has so far.

Apparently not so very much of that promised transparency after all:

On September 30, U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman turned down Holder’s Justice Department request to dismiss a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee lawsuit seeking “Operation Fast and Furious” gun-running scandal documents hidden by the self-proclaimed “most transparent administration in history”.

Up until now, Obama and company have refused to do so after the president asserted executive privilege. Their position argued that the oversight committee’s demand for information had been settled by a February 4, 2011 letter to Congress in which Assistant Attorney General Ron Welch stated that “the allegation that ATF ‘sanctioned’ or otherwise knowingly allowed the sale of weapons…is false”. DOJ pleaded that since their letter contended that they had done nothing wrong, and that there was nothing more to see following its issuance, the matter should be settled. Congress should just accept their word… get over it… move on.

Call them a disagreeable lot, but the House oversight committee chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) wasn’t sufficiently trusting to do that. After they sued to obtain the outstanding records, the administration filed for dismissal. They maintained that if the lawsuit were allowed to proceed, every new document request would be unjustifiably subject to litigation.

But then a pesky problem arose. It seems that that February 4 letter that was supposed to end the House committee inquiry was…gasp…untruthful after all. As Deputy Attorney General James Cole was compelled to admit in another letter to Congress: “Facts have come to light during the course of this investigation that indicate the Feb. 4 letter contains inaccuracies.”

“Inaccuracies”? That’s one way to put it. Welch had contended that The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives “makes every effort to interdict weapons that have been purchased illegally and prevent their transportation to Mexico.” Another document dump at the same time confirmed what agent testimony and other information had already shown… that the letter, and almost everything in it, was a complete fabrication. It was well known at the time that Fast and Furious was much more than simply a “botched” but well-intentioned operation in which the government simply “lost track” of thousands of weapons that eventually wound up in the hands of the Sinaloa cartel. Instead, it was actually intended to let guns be delivered to Mexican drug cartels.

As reported by Fox News at the time, ATF Agent John Dodson was provided with a letter allowing him to purchase semi-automatic weapons from federal firearms dealers without filling out required forms and was ordered to do so. Dodson then sold the guns to illegal buyers who took them to a stash house. Dodson’s request for 24-hour surveillance was disapproved, and he and his surveillance team were ordered to stand down. Violating those orders, Dodson stayed behind. A week later, when a vehicle showed up to transfer the weapons to their ultimate destination, he called for an interdiction team to move in, seize the weapons and arrest the traffickers. Again, his request was refused, and the guns disappeared without surveillance.

Appearing before Issa’s committee, Dodson testified: “Allowing loads of weapons that we knew to be destined for criminals — this was the plan. It was so mandated.”

On May 3, 2011, three months after the Feb. 4 letter, the attorney general was asked when he first heard of “Operation Fast and Furious”. In response, he falsely testified to Congress: “I’m not sure the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.” Yet the head of the National Drug Intelligence Center, Michael Walther, had clearly informed Holder about Fast and Furious in a July 2010 memo, and subsequent revelations show he knew all along. This being the case, he obviously did nothing to stop the illegal operation.

Tragically, two of the weapons linked to Fast and Furious were recovered from the murder scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December 2011 where he had been shot by illegal immigrants who were smuggling drugs. Two other of those weapons were found at the scene of the murder of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Jaime Zapata in Mexico on February 15, 2011. Three more turned up at a violent crime location in Mexico where a local police chief and his bodyguard were killed by cartel members.

In June 2012, following a 16-month investigation, the House of Representatives voted to hold Holder in Contempt of Congress for his continued refusal to produce requested documents about the scandal. He was the first-ever sitting Cabinet member to be held in contempt…including both criminal and civil violations.

Obama’s grant of the DOJ’s 11th -hour request to hide the sought-after documents was issued on the eve of that vote. Yet it was not made known to Congress until just before the scheduled hearing and vote Issa received a letter from Deputy AG Cole stating : “I write now to inform you that the president has asserted executive privilege over the relevant post-Feb. 4, 2011 documents.” Remarkably (or perhaps not), it reportedly wasn’t mentioned during a last-minute meeting between Issa and Holder on that evening before.

Judge Jackson’s recent finding rejected the White House argument that the House oversight committee lawsuit to obtain documents would somehow threaten the separation between branches of government and inundate the courts with litigation in subsequent disputes. While clarifying that she wasn’t ruling on the merits of the lawsuit, she disagreed with arguments offered for dismissal. Her decision stated: “The court rejects the notion that merely hearing this dispute between the branches would undermine the foundation of our government, or that it would lead to the abandonment of all negotiation and accommodation in the future, leaving the courts deluged with subpoena enforcement actions.”

On the other hand, some additional subpoenas are probably long overdue:

President Obama has steadfastly retained an individual in America’s top law enforcement role who has made other false statements under oath to Congress. Holder previously lied to Congress claiming “decisions made in the New Black Panther Party case were made by career attorneys in the department.” In reality, his Associate A.G. Thomas Perrelli, an Obama political appointee, had overruled a unanimous recommendation for prosecution by DOJ attorneys.

The president stood by Attorney General Holder after he was caught once again lying to Congress about knowing about his DOJ secretly subpoenaing personal phone records and emails in a trumped-up criminal co-conspirator information leak charge against Fox News reporter James Rosen. This action was in direct contravention of the First Amendment. The warrant also approved of tracking Rosen’s movements into and outside the State Department. As it turned out, Holder had personally signed off on that warrant. DOJ then unsuccessfully “shopped it around” to two judges before finding a third who would approve it without allowing Rosen to be notified as required.

The mainstream media finally began to show real signs of concern about DOJ’s breaches of constitutional rights when, during the same month, the AP learned that the DOJ had secretly collected phone records of some of its own reporters and editors. Here, the DOJ chose to avoid the court system altogether by serving subpoenas directly upon phone companies without telling the AP. They did so in exception to their own internal policy of notifying a media company in advance of a subpoena because doing so “would pose a substantial threat to the investigation.”

The attorney general has also failed to enforce legally mandated federal laws. Most recently, he directed federal prosecutors to conceal amounts of drugs seized during an arrest in order to circumvent mandatory minimum sentences set by Congress in 1986.

The AG has violated legally established voting rights and immigration policy decisions as well. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Shelby County v. Eric Holder that Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act is “unconstitutional”, and that “the formula can no longer be used as a basis for subjecting jurisdiction to preclearance”. But instead of complying with that ruling, Holder’s Justice Department filed suit ordering Texas to submit to preclearance in defiance of Congress’ authority to legislate. DOJ has ignored the Supreme Court’s authority to rule on the constitutionality of the law as well.

Undaunted by the Tenth Amendment which makes explicit the idea that the federal government is limited to only those powers granted in the Constitution, Holder’s DOJ is now once again suing Texas in an attempt to overturn state voter ID laws established to ensure election integrity. In response to Holder’s claim that such laws are racist, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott responded: “Voter IDs have nothing to do with race, and they are free to anyone who needs one.” Abbott also said: “Eric Holder’s outrageous claim that voter ID is a racist plot to disenfranchise minority voters is gutter politics and is offensive to the overwhelming majority of Texans of all races who support this ballot integrity measure.”

There can be no doubt that the Holder DOJ Texas suit to overturn state voting integrity safeguards is only the beginning of a national plan. About 20 states have photo-ID laws on the books or are in the process of implementing them. And by all appearances, DOJ is not alone in pursuing that agenda. The latest Texas litigation came on the heels of the harassment of True the Vote (TTV) founder Catherine Engelbrecht by the IRS, the BATF, and OSHA. As discussed in my May 30 article, this is in addition to separate IRS targeting of TTV and Engelbrecht’s other King Street Patriots non-profit for tax-exempt status interference.

Last year the Obama administration announced that it will stop deporting illegal immigrants under the age of 30 in a “deferred action” policy to circumvent immigration laws. That was after Congress rejected a similar measure about a year earlier. Since then, more than 500,000 illegals have received the deferment, while only 20,000 have been rejected. Meanwhile, law-abiding applicants must wait in line.

In July 2010, the Justice Department sued Arizona for a law requiring state officials to enforce federal immigration laws. Yet attacking a state for upholding federal law would again seem to violate the 10th Amendment which says “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”

Arizona didn’t add any new laws. It simply gave local authorities the power to enforce federal responsibilities that were being neglected; failures which were impacting the security and well-being of its citizens. Article 4.4 clearly states that the U.S. shall protect states from invasion. Nothing in the Constitution prohibits states from assisting in enforcing federal laws. Meanwhile, the Justice Department has openly violated federal laws it is supposed to enforce, including allowing municipalities to declare immunity from those laws as “sanctuary cities”. Protecting sovereign borders is a federal responsibility, not an option.

As presumed legal scholars, President Obama and Eric Holder must be aware that our nation’s founding document established three co-equal branches of government, an Executive Branch, a Congress with legislative responsibility, and a Supreme Court with top judicial authority. Article 2, Section 3, Clause 5 of that marvelous document requires that the president “…shall take care that the Laws be carefully executed.”

A central and sustaining purpose of our Constitution is to preserve individual liberties and restrain government from grabbing unlimited power. While the president has authority to check the Legislative Branch by recommending legislation to be passed by Congress, or through presidential veto, neither he/she or the attorney general are permitted to legislate through executive fiat or pick which parts of the law to comply with or decline. Above all, their roles in the highest legal offices in our land are to set lofty standards that exemplify the wisdom of our laws and the character of our system of justice.

Our ancestors, current citizens and future generations deserve far better examples. The families and friends of slain Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Jaime Zapata must certainly agree.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2013/10/06/will-fast-and-furious-justice-finally-befall-eric-holder/

Eric Holder’s pro-terrorist lawyers

By Michelle Malkin

October 13, 2012

Yesterday marked the 12th anniversary of the bombing of the USS Cole. The grim milestone comes as President Obama faces mounting questions about the murderous attack on our consulate in Benghazi, Libya. And it came just a day after resurgent al Qaeda thugs pulled off the drive-by assassination of a top Yemeni security official who worked at the US embassy in Sanaa.

These are not “bumps in the road.” These are gravesites on the blood-spattered path to surrender.

Seventeen US sailors died in the brutal suicide attack on the guided-missile destroyer Cole as it refueled at the Yemeni port of Aden in the fall of 2000. Then-President Bill Clinton vowed to track down the Muslim terrorist attackers: “We will find out who was responsible and hold them accountable.” But a dozen disgraceful years later, that promise has become a bitter punch line.

This White House only delayed and denied justice to the victims and their families.

Cole bombing suspect Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the former Persian Gulf operations chief for al Qaeda, has been in US custody since 2002 and at Gitmo since 2006.

In February 2009, Obama met with Cole families and promised them justice. Then, he stabbed them in the back by ordering the Justice Department to abandon the death-penalty case assembled against the al Qaeda mastermind under the Bush administration.

That’s right: The Osama bin Laden football-spikers deliberately dropped the ball on al-Nashiri’s military prosecution because of their opposition to the Guantanamo Bay detention system.

Jesse Nieto, father of murdered Cole sailor Marc Nieto, won’t forget it. “That really left a bitter, bad taste in my mouth,” he told the Newnan (Ga.) Times-Herald this year.

Last year, the administration reinstated the charges amid a widespread backlash against Attorney General Eric Holder’s plans to bestow US civilian trials in Manhattan to foreign Gitmo goons. But the trial has been plagued by yet more delays and left-wing lawyer antics painting Nashiri as a victim of American hegemony.

“This whole trial is a political football the politicians are playing with,” Nieto aptly noted. “If they left it to the military, it would be taken care of. And it would be fair.”

Team Obama’s initial withdrawal from the prosecution came out of left field — literally. But it is no surprise to those who paid attention to Holder’s allegiances.

As I reported in “Culture of Corruption,” Holder joined the prestigious Covington and Burling law firm after a quarter-century as a government lawyer. The stint boosted his net worth to nearly $6 million. Covington and Burling’s post-9/11 claim to fame? Representing 17 terror suspects held at Gitmo who hail from Yemen, long a safe haven for terrorists.

Holder’s law firm employed dozens of radical attorneys such as David Remes and Marc Falkoff to provide the enemy combatants with more than 3,000 hours of pro bono representation. Covington and Burling secured victories for several Gitmo enemy combatants in the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. Remes now represents Nashiri.

One of the class of Yemeni Gitmo detainees that Falkoff described as “gentle, thoughtful young men” was released in 2005 — only to blow himself up (gently and thoughtfully, of course) in a truck bombing in Mosul, Iraq, in 2008, killing 13 soldiers from the 2nd Iraqi Army division and seriously wounding 42 others.

In January 2010, The Times of London reported that “at least a dozen former Guantanamo Bay inmates [had] rejoined al Qaeda to fight in Yemen.” Another Yemeni Gitmo recidivist and top al Qaeda leader, Said al-Shihri, was freed after undergoing “rehabilitation” — and then promptly rejoined jihadi forces. He was reportedly killed in a US missile strike last month.

In February 2010, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) forced Holder to acknowledge that at least nine Justice Department attorneys officially represented or served as advocates for Gitmo detainees before joining the Obama administration.

Gitmo recidivists — a burgeoning demographic that includes suspected Benghazi jihad plotter Abu Sufian Ibrahim Ahmed Hamuda bin Qumu — certainly are better off than they were four years ago.

http://nypost.com/2012/10/13/eric-holders-pro-terrorist-lawyers/

Eric Holder. Lawyer For The Death Squad Terrorists’ Paymasters: Our Next Attorney General?

By Kirk Murphy

November 22, 2008

When high-powered attorney Eric Holder, partner in the high-power DC law firm Covington & Burling, chose to allow American Lawyer to profile him for a trial balloon about making him AG, he allowed American Lawyer to watch him work for Chiquita. While American lawyer watched, Eric Holder smooth-talked Chiquita’s CEO – the man in charge of a corporation which pled guilty to running terrorist death squads.

Chiquita funded terror to kill labor organizers in order to keep down labor costs. A very rational decision. It sends an interesting message to labor in the US to hire a man who’s worked for a corporation like that to be Attorney General. The change from the Bush Justice department is hard to see. Change we can believe in?

American Lawyer’s article seems to soft-pedal exactly what Holder helped Chiquita get off lightly on:

“[Eric Holder Jr.] is there to prep Fernando Aguirre, the CEO of Chiquita Brands International Inc., for an interview with "60 Minutes," which will be broadcasting a segment on the company’s past involvement with Colombian right-wing paramilitary forces. Last March, Holder helped Chiquita secure a slap-on-the-wrist plea deal to charges that it had paid off the terrorists.”

Of course, what American Lawyer describes as "charges" are actually the acts Chiquita admitted to in court. It’s odd that Obama, a man who wants to change Washington and clean up torture: a man with close union allies, would overlook torture and assassination of labor activists funded by the company his AG chose to work for:

“Earlier this year Chiquita admitted one of its subsidiaries paid about $1.7 million to the rightwing paramilitary group United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, which is also known as the AUC. The group is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department. Chiquita also agreed to pay the U.S. government a $25 million fine.”

When Eric Holder chose to take Chiquita’s money then, he chose to enrich himself by accepting fees from admitted paymasters for terrorist death squads.

Gosh, why would Chiquita pay $1.7 Million to fund terrorist death squads? Obama’s rumored AG pick Eric Holder chose to work for Chiquita and chose to take their money to say:

“This company was in a bad position dealing with bad guys,” says Eric Holder, a Washington attorney representing Chiquita. “There’s absolutely no suggestion of any personal gain here."

But Conde Nast reports something rather different—it wasn’t Chiquita being targeted, it was leftists making their costs higher:

“As a corporation, though, Chiquita stood to benefit greatly from the lethal cleansing that Castaño delivered. At the time, the Marxist guerrillas routinely kidnapped U.S. executives, blew up railroads, and sabotaged oil pipelines. Chiquita says it became increasingly difficult to protect its workers and their families. Castaño’s death squads, however, were squarely pro-business. They were not just ridding Urabá of guerrillas; they were killing leftists and eradicating unions.

“The payments Chiquita made to the paramilitaries were part of a project that the A.U.C. called Operation Genesis,” says Gloria Cuartas, who was the mayor of Apartadó from 1995 until 1997, when Castaño threatened her life and drove her out of the area. “It called for the elimination of the left and of all social groups that were supposedly contributing to instability for investors and the multinationals.” Francisco Ramirez, a leading labor lawyer with the United Confederation of Workers, the largest labor union in Colombia, says that money from Chiquita and other companies “created these paramilitary groups and helped destroy the unions.”

“The A.U.C.’s wave of terror was swift and brutal. Among the most savage of its many massacres was a 1998 attack on an Urabá village in which paramilitaries murdered 11 peasants after burning them with acid to force them to confess they were guerrillas.”

It is odd that the change at AG is a man who made money by representing the corporation funding the terrorists who systematically murdered left wingers to bring down business costs and effect political change. A man whose words well, spin Chiquita’s actions. (Spin being the polite word for something rather nastier.)

Is this really the best candidate?

The best is a man who took his money from Chiquita to profess "This company was in a bad position dealing with bad guys"? Colombia’s Attorney General refutes Holder’s spin:

“The attorney general, Mario Iguaran, said, "The relationship was not one of the extortionist and the extorted but a criminal relationship… When you pay a group like this you are conscious of what they are doing."

The odd thing is that Chiquita, supposedly in hard place with bad guys, chose to keep expanding its operations in the areas where those terrorists were killing union organizers. How strange:

“We believe that Chiquita is actually essentially engaged in a criminal conspiracy with the paramilitary organizations to control the banana-growing region of Colombia and that it was to Chiquita’s great benefit to use the paramilitaries to maintain a social and political stability within this region to allow them to conduct their extremely profitable banana-growing operations.

“What the Chiquita executives probably didn’t tell you is that during this period, when they claimed they were being extorted by the paramilitaries, their Colombian subsidiary was the most profitable arm of Chiquita’s global operations, and, in fact, they continued to buy land in Colombia in the area where they said it was so dangerous that they had to pay protection payments to the paramilitaries. They continued to buy land and expand their operations until 2004, when they abruptly sold their Colombian subsidiary at around the same time that the Justice Department began investigating their payments to the paramilitaries.”

When Ashcroft was AG he kept Justice hidden behind a curtain. Perhaps Holder should do the same. It might not be too much to suggest that he swear his oath on crossed machetes as well.

This is an odd choice if the goal at Justice is change and cleaning up.

You decide: is this change we can believe in?

http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/22/eric-holder-lawyer-for-the-death-squad-terrorists-paymasters-our-next-attorney-general/