Full Text of Christopher Coates’ Testimony to U.S. Commission on Civil Rights

http://pajamasmedia.com/files/2010/09/christopher_coates_testimony_9-24-10.pdf


The Wrongdoing, the Cover-Up, and Executive Privilege
Jennifer Rubin
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/rubin/364051

Like any administration snared in a Beltway scandal, the Obama team has two problems in the New Black Panther Party scandal: the wrongdoing and the cover-up.

The wrongdoing is not merely that the Obama administration dismissed a blatant case of voter intimidation. It is not merely that an NAACP attorney pressured the Obama team to dump the case. It is not merely that the Obama Justice Department explicitly told attorneys not to enforce Section 8 of the Voting Rights Act, which helps prevent voter fraud. It is that the Obama team believes that the civil rights laws run only one way and offer protection only to certain racial or ethnic groups. That’s not the law (or the Equal Protection Clause has no meaning), and it runs afoul of Americans’ basic sense of fairness. That is why the Obama administration denies that it holds such a view. They may be radicals, but they aren’t dumb.

The cover-up takes two forms. There are the false statements put out by the Justice Department and made under oath by the assistant attorney general for civil rights, Thomas Perez, first, denying that political appointees were involved in the case and, second, disclaiming the existence of hostility toward race-neutral enforcement of voting laws. But there is also the Nixonian abuse of executive privilege to prevent scrutiny of the Justice Department. It is this latter issue that has gotten too little attention.

The administration has refused to produce witnesses and documents, employing a spurious claim of “deliberative process” privilege. Case law and Justice Department memoranda make clear that this is an offshoot of the executive privilege that is applicable only when invoked by the president (or, some would say, a Cabinet-level official). But Obama hasn’t done this. After all, “executive privilege” sounds bad. It reeks of “cover-up.” But without a formal invocation of the privilege, it is lawlessness, pure and simple, to withhold documents and witnesses in response to lawful subpoenas, FOIA requests, and a federal statute (which obligates the DOJ to cooperate with the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights).

It was both inaccurate and nervy for the Justice Department’s spokesman to claim that Chris Coates’s testimony was short on facts. To begin with, Coates cited example after example to support the conclusion that the Obama team considers only racial, ethnic, and language minorities to be protected by civil rights laws. But more to the point, he was prevented from disclosing even more details because of the administration’s privilege claim. Again and again, Coates explained that he couldn’t answer questions out of respect for the DOJ’s position. Similarly, the log obtained by Judicial Watch lists dozens of e-mails and documents transmitted between political appointees and the voting section that would substantiate testimony by Coates. All that information remains hidden from view because the Justice Department is concealing it.

The mainstream media have just woken up to the extent and importance of the scandal, so perhaps they will get around to this aspect of the case. Yet I get the feeling that if it had been the Bush administration telling whistleblowers not to testify and withholding, absent any legal basis, key documents that could implicate high-ranking officials, the media would have already been all over this.


DOJ, the New Black Panther Party, and Integrity
This should be at the top of the agenda for the Senate and House Judiciary Committees in January
By Daniel Halper
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/doj-new-black-panther-party-and-integrity

In the wake of former voting rights attorney Chris Coates’s bombshell testimony on September 24, the New Black Panther Party scandal has reached the front pages of some mainstream press outlets and taken on fresh momentum.

Jen Rubin previously reported in The Weekly Standard that an April 2010 letter documented Coates’s key allegations. The Weekly Standard has learned that the letter came from Coates himself and was sent to Jody Hunt, director of federal programs. Hunt participated in the briefing of Civil Rights head Thomas Perez on May 13, 2010, which Coates and other members of the trial team attended. At that briefing, Coates’s concerns were related to Perez. Perez nevertheless testified under oath before the Commission that hostility toward race neutral enforcement of civil rights laws was news to him.

In addition, sources now tell The Weekly Standard that after 11 pm on September 23, the night before Coates was to testify before the Commission, the same individual, Jody Hunt, sent Coates a letter advising him again not to testify. Only 6 hours earlier Rep. Frank Wolf had sent Eric Holder a letter warning him that Coates was protected under federal whistleblower laws. Jen Rubin contacted the Justice Department for comment. Spokesman Tracy Schmaler’s only reply: “The letter speaks for itself.” She did not respond to a follow up question as to whether DOJ would take disciplinary action against Coates. Coates could not be reached for comment.

To sum up: Coates puts his explosive allegations about unequal enforcement of civil rights laws in writing. The same official who gets the letter sits in a briefing with Perez when the allegations are repeated. And then at literally the 11th hour before Coates testifies he sends out a letter which makes one last stab at keeping the story under wraps. Jen Rubin's sources tell us that it’s not remotely possible that all of this would have occurred without the express knowledge and direction of senior DOJ officials.

After listening to Coates’s testimony we know why the Justice Department wanted to muzzle him. As Commissioner Todd Gaziano told The Weekly Standard: "Coates was highly credible, and he provided convincing detail about a number of his supervisors who are hostile to the race-neutral enforcement of the civil rights laws. Anyone watching the replay on C-SPAN’s website can see that for themselves.”  Gaziano also noted: “The fact that Coates relayed these conclusions to [civil rights chief] Thomas Perez last May gives me even more reason to conclude that Perez was not forthcoming in his own sworn testimony to the Commission." Similarly Commissioner Gail Heriot explained, "If there was doubt before about the significance of our investigation, Mr. Coates removed it." She continued, "We're talking about the integrity of our Justice Department and the obligation to enforce federal laws in a race-neutral manner."

The integrity of the Obama-Holder Justice Department is very much at issue. This should be at the top of the agenda for the Senate and House Judiciary Committees in January.