MATT GERTZ Via Media Matters

The Justice Department keeps revealing damning details about the ongoing investigation into Donald Trump’s illicit possession of highly classified documents and his alleged effort to conceal and retain those materials. That has some commentators arguing against an indictment of the former president on the grounds that it might spur a backlash from conservatives who will argue that Democrats have weaponized the DOJ.

Trump’s “defenders would claim that every person ostensibly committed to the dispassionate upholding of the rule of law is in fact motivated by rank partisanship and a drive to self-aggrandizement,” Damon Linkler wrote last week in The New York Times. “This would be directed at the attorney general, the F.B.I., the Justice Department and other branches of the so-called deep state. The spectacle would be corrosive, in effect convincing most Republican voters that appeals to the rule of law are invariably a sham.”

But this smear of federal law enforcement cannot be staved off by declining to indict the former president, as Linkler suggests. It is true that a bloc of Republicans and right-wing media personalities have spent the weeks since the FBI’s August 6 search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort loudly arguing that the action was a partisan sham, and they would certainly continue to do so if he were indicted. Another faction, however, is now preparing to go after the Justice Department on the exact same grounds of Democratic partisanship if it decides not to indict the former president.

This damned-if-they-do, damned-if-they-don’t tendency runs through the columns of Andrew McCarthy, a Trump-skeptical legal commentator respected in higher-brow conservative circles. McCarthy is a former federal prosecutor whose columns run in National Review and The New York Post and who regularly provides legal commentary in his role as a Fox News contributor.  

McCarthy’s August 9 column, written in the immediate aftermath of the Mar-a-Lago search, provided a somewhat more sober version of the incendiary conspiracy theories of a justice system weaponized for Democratic benefit that were replete at the time on Fox. The National Review columnist argued that the Justice Department had “obviously” used concerns about classified information “as a pretext” to find evidence tying Trump to the January 6 insurrection. He warned against filing charges on such grounds, saying that such an indictment “would fuel the perception that Democrats are using the Justice Department as a political weapon.” 

“The Biden Justice Department is under enormous pressure from the Democratic base to indict Trump, and it is straining to deliver,” McCarthy concluded.

A couple weeks later, McCarthy was still telling readers that any Trump indictment would be politically motivated. After reviewing the redacted affidavit supporting the Mar-a-Lago search warrant, he concluded that the Justice Department would be unlikely to indict the former president unless it had strong evidence to prosecute an obstruction of justice charge or Trump talked himself into an indictment.

“I don’t think the Justice Department and FBI want to prosecute Donald Trump on classified-information or document-retention offenses in light of all the considerable downsides of doing so,” McCarthy explained. But he added: “Of course, the Biden Justice Department has shown itself to be very responsive to the demands of Democrats’ progressive base. As the midterms approach, if the left’s rabid insistence on a Trump indictment gets intense enough, all bets are off.”

After Tuesday’s damning DOJ filing, however, McCarthy concluded in his August 31 column that the DOJ possesses “formidable” evidence of obstruction on Trump’s part and that Attorney General Merrick Garland will likely approve charges. That evidence is so damning, in fact, that McCarthy wrote that the only explanation for not indicting Trump would be that the DOJ is in the service of the partisan interests of the Democratic Party.

This is a serious obstruction case that appears as if it would not be difficult to prove. The Justice Department is under immense pressure from the Democratic base to indict Trump, and the jury pool in Washington, DC, where the government would file any indictment, is intensely anti-Trump. It is thus hard to imagine that Attorney General Merrick Garland will decide against filing charges.

The best hope Trump has of avoiding an indictment is that Democrats would rather run against a wounded Trump in 2024 than indict him in 2022.

Note that McCarthy left himself room to accuse Garland of partisanship regardless of what the attorney general does: If he files charges, it will be because his department is “under immense pressure from the Democratic base to indict Trump,” while if he refrains, the only explanation is that he thinks it will help Democrats by keeping Trump on the 2024 presidential ballot.

To his credit, when the facts change, McCarthy’s stated view changes. To his detriment, the throughline is that if the Justice Department doesn’t do what he wants, it must be because it’s run by Democratic partisans.

It’s easy to imagine that this line of reasoning might spread amid the faction of the GOP that would prefer to see another candidate — perhaps Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — on the ballot in 2024 in Trump’s stead. It gives such individuals a talking point that suggests moving on from Trump without actually criticizing his behavior: It’s the Democrats who want Trump to be the 2024 Republican nominee! You can tell that’s true because the Justice Department isn’t indicting him!

The staunchly pro-Trump faction, of course, has a different view. 

The Justice Department would be wise to follow the facts wherever they may lead and make a decision about whether to indict Trump based on what it finds. Trying to avoid right-wing allegations of partisanship is futile — in that information ecosystem, such conspiracy theories are the coin of the realm.

DOJ worried Trump's 'criminal confederates' might flee or tamper with evidence in Mar-A-Lago case

 Travis Gettys via Raw Story

The Department of Justice wanted to keep the Mar-A-Lago affidavit sealed because investigators were concerned about tipping off additional suspects in the case.

A federal judge ordered the affidavit supporting the search warrant to be unsealed, with redactions of sensitive material, and the document showed that investigators were concerned about revealing the scope of their probe and their sources of evidence, arguing that witnesses could be threatened and their work could be obstructed.

"It is respectfully requested that this Court issue an order sealing, until further order of the Court, all papers submitted in support of this application, including the application and search warrant," said the FBI agent who signed the affidavit. "I believe that sealing this document is necessary because the items and information to be seized are relevant to an ongoing investigation and the FBI has not yet identified all potential criminal confederates nor located all evidence related to its investigation."

RELATED: Read the redacted FBI affidavit that resulted in Mar-a-Lago search warrant

They cited concerns about notifying those "potential criminal confederates" that their involvement was under investigation, which could give them a chance to interfere with the probe.

"Premature disclosure of the contents of this affidavit and related documents may have a significant and negative impact on the continuing investigation and may severely jeopardize its effectiveness by allowing criminal parties an opportunity to flee, destroy evidence (stored electronically and otherwise), change patterns of behavior, and notify criminal confederates," the affiant wrote.

DOJ releases unredacted Barr memo on Trump obstruction in Mueller probe

By Ryan J. Reilly and Dareh Gregorian via NBC News

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department on Wednesday released the unredacted version of a 2019 memo that made the case to then-Attorney General William Barr that President Donald Trump should not be charged with obstruction of justice in the Russia investigation.

The nine-page memo from Mar. 24, 2019, was written by then-Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel Steven Engel and Ed O’Callaghan, who served as the DOJ's principal associate deputy attorney general. Barr, a critic of then-special counsel Robert Mueller's probe, had announced that DOJ would not prosecute the case the same day the memo was sent to Barr.

Released in response to a lawsuit by a government watchdog group, the memo states that volume II of Mueller's report "is not, in our judgment, sufficient to support a conclusion beyond a reasonable doubt that the President violated the obstruction-of-justice statutes." It was made public following a ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Even if there weren't any constitutional barriers to charging a president, the memo argued, the DOJ should decline to charge Trump.

The Mueller probe did not establish any "underlying crime related to Russian interference" and it wasn't clear that Trump didn't want the investigation, the memo's authors wrote in their rationale against bringing charges.

"In the absence of an underlying offense, the most compelling inference in evaluating the President's conduct is that he reasonably believed that the Special Counsel's investigation was interfering with his governing agenda," the memo states. "Even if the President were objectively wrong about the intentions of the Special Counsel, many, if not all, of his actions could be viewed as lacking the intent element under the relevant statutes."

Barr cited the memo by the department’s Office of Legal Counsel as a reason for not pursuing the charges against Trump after he received Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The portion of the memo that Barr cited was released last year.

When the left-leaning watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) sought the memo under the Freedom of Information Act, the DOJ argued it wasn’t required to release the document under an exception covering materials intended to aid senior officials in making decision.

In a ruling last year, U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson criticized the government's position, saying the memo did not fit the exemption for “deliberative” documents. In an earlier ruling, she said Barr's mind had already been made up before the memo was written.

The Justice Department appealed the decision ordering the release of the full document, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled against DOJ last week. “Because the Department did not tie the memorandum to deliberations about the relevant decision, the Department failed to justify its reliance on the deliberative-process privilege,” the ruling said.

The Mueller report identified 10 episodes that could be considered potential obstruction of justice, but did not come to a conclusion on whether to charge the president for them.

After reading the Mueller report, many people had strongly disagreed with the analysis laid out in the memo. Hundreds of former federal prosecutors argued in an open letter that Trump would have been charged with obstruction were he not president.

In a statement Wednesday, CREW said the unsealed portions of the memo present "a breathtakingly generous view of the law and facts for Donald Trump. It significantly twists the facts and the law to benefit Donald Trump and does not comport with a serious reading of the law of obstruction of justice or the facts as found by Special Counsel Mueller."

Limbaugh Accuses DOJ "Peacemakers" Of Organizing Anti-Zimmerman Protests

JUSTIN BERRIER/Media Matters For America

Rush Limbaugh seized on a report that government officials attended rallies related to George Zimmerman to accuse the Department of Justice of "instigating race riots" when in fact, the officials acted as peacekeepers to "defuse community anger."

On his radio show, Limbaugh read from a Judicial Watch post which claimed that a DOJ unit called the Community Relations Service (CRS) "deployed to Sanford, FL to organize and manage rallies against Zimmerman." The post highlighted documents obtained via Freedom of Information Act requests which detailed spending on activities such as providing "technical assistance for the preparation of possible marches and rallies related to the fatal shooting of a 17 year old African American male."

Limbaugh claimed the documents proved that the DOJ was "organizing anti-Zimmerman rallies," going on to say that "the United States government has been converted by Obama and [Eric] Holder into a community organizing agitator bunch." Limbaugh concluded that "this regime saw an opportunity to turn something into a profoundly racial case for the express purpose of ripping the country apart":

But the documents do not show the CRS organizing rallies against Zimmerman, only providing support andtechnical assistance for them. In fact, as the Miami Herald reported, the unit worked to "defuse community anger hardening along the fault lines of race, color and national origin":

[I]n the weeks after the Feb. 26, 2012 shooting death of Trayvon Martin, a city representative picked up the phone and called Thomas Battles, a quiet force who has worked almost three decades mending racially damaged communities.

The federal mediator works for the U.S. Department of Justice Community Relations Service (CRS), a stealth federal operation that works to defuse community anger hardening along the fault lines of race, color and national origin.

The mediators are called the peacemakers.

The Orlando Sentinel reported that the unit "reached out to the city's spiritual and civic leaders to help cool headed emotions" and brokered "deals between the city officials and residents to help prevent violence and lay the groundwork for peace":

When racial tensions flared in Sanford, a league of secretive peacemakers reached out to the city's spiritual and civic leaders to help cool heated emotions after 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot and killed in February.

When civil-rights organizers wanted to demonstrate, these federal workers taught them how to peacefully manage crowds.

They even arranged a police escort for college students to ensure safe passage for their 40-mile march from Daytona Beach to Sanford to demand justice.

As national figures and sign-waving protesters grabbed the spotlight after Trayvon's death, federal workers from a little-known branch of the Department of Justice labored away behind the scenes, quietly brokering deals between the city officials and residents to help prevent violence and lay the groundwork for peace.

According to the CRS website, the services they performed in Sanford are precisely what the unit is intended to do, and officials are only deployed "when requested or accepted by the parties":

The Community Relations Service is the Department's "peacemaker" for community conflicts and tensions arising from differences of race, color, and national origin. Created by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, CRS is the only Federal agency dedicated to assist State and local units of government, private and public organizations, and community groups with preventing and resolving racial and ethnic tensions, incidents, and civil disorders, and in restoring racial stability and harmony.

[...]

For more than 45 years, CRS has been asked to provide its experienced mediators to help local communities resolve conflicts and disturbances relating to race, color, or national origin. Each year CRS' highly skilled conciliators bring hundreds of community-wide conflicts to peaceful closure across America and its territories.

U.S. Department of Justice, FBI and FDLE to probe Trayvon Martin killing

BY FRANCES ROBLES/Miami herald 

The U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division and the FBI will step in to investigate the killing of Miami Gardens teenager Trayvon Martin, the U.S. Department of Justice announced late Monday.

The announcement coincided with a statement from Florida Gov. Rick Scott asking the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to offer “appropriate resources” in the case.

The federal and state agencies are intervening in what attorneys call a botched investigation into the killing of the Michael Krop Senior High School student, who was killed Feb. 26 in Sanford, a town of 55,000 just north of Orlando. The teen, on suspension from school, was staying at his father’s girlfriend’s house when he stepped out to 7-Eleven to buy candy and iced tea.

A neighborhood watch volunteer with a long history of calling in everything from open garage doors to “suspicious characters” called police to say he spotted someone who looked drugged, was walking too slowly in the rain, and appeared to be looking at people’s houses. Zimmerman sounded alarmed, because the stranger had his hand in his waistband and had something in his other hand.

The unarmed teen carried Skittles and Arizona iced tea.

Volunteer George Zimmerman, 28, told police he had stepped out of his truck to check the name of the street he was on when Trayvon jumped him from behind and attacked him, police said. He said he feared for his life and fired a semiautomatic handgun he was licensed to carry, because he feared for his life.

“The department will conduct a thorough and independent review of all of the evidence and take appropriate action at the conclusion of the investigation,” the Department said in a statement. “The department also is providing assistance to and cooperating with the state officials in their investigation into the incident. With all federal civil rights crimes, the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a person acted intentionally and with the specific intent to do something which the law forbids – the highest level of intent in criminal law.

“Negligence, recklessness, mistakes and accidents are not prosecutable under the federal criminal civil rights laws.”

From the start, Trayvon’s family accused Sanford Police of molding the investigation to fit Zimmerman’s account. Several witnesses said they heard cries that sounded like a boy wailing -- howling silenced by the crack of gunfire -- and were shocked to hear the police later portray the cries as Zimmerman’s. One witness said police ignored her repeated phone calls.

The police chief was accused of telling lies big and small in ways that shielded Zimmerman. The family hired attorneys who helped devise a national campaign to demand a federal investigation.

Members of Congress and prominent black clergy joined the chorus for a federal probe.

Police Chief Bill Lee told The Miami Herald last week that he’s comfortable that his investigators were fair and thorough.

“I can say very confidently we would welcome any outside entity that wants to come look at what we did,” Lee said last week. “They are welcome to come here and look at it. We have not done anything but conduct a fair and complete investigation.”

He dismissed accusations of irregularities and insisted that investigators found no probable cause to arrest Zimmerman, because there was no evidence to disprove his version of events.

The U.S. Community Relations Service will be in Sanford this week to meet with civil rights leaders, community leaders, and local law enforcement to address tension in the community, the Department of Justice announcement said.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/19/2703029/us-department-of-justice-fbi-and.html#storylink=cpy

DOJ's Ethics Office: "No Evidence" To Support Right Wing's New Black Panthers Phony Scandal

by Matt Gertz

In a letter today to Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Robin Ashton of the Justice Departments Office of Professional Responsibility, wrote that her investigation found that in their handling of the voter intimidation case against members of the New Black Panther Party, senior career attorneys at DOJ "did not commit professional misconduct or exercise poor judgment, but rather acted appropriately." The investigation also found "no evidence" that their decisions were improperly affected by political considerations or by the race of the defendants.

For nearly two years, the right wing has been obsessed with the decision by those senior career attorneys to drop civil charges against three defendants affiliated with the New Black Panther Party who allegedly intimidated voters at a Philadelphia polling place in 2008. This fixation became stronger last year, when two DOJ attorneys on the trial team who are linked the Bush administration's politicization of the DOJ claimed in media appearances and in testimony that the DOJ's actions were part of a pattern of racially-charged corruption at the department, in which lawyers there refused to protect white voters from intimidation by minorities.

These allegations received a ready airing on Fox News, but they simply never added up: There was simply no evidence that this was anything more than a disagreement between career attorneys on how to apply a rarely-used provision of the Voting Rights Act; the Obama DOJ did get obtain an injunction against one of the defendants in the case; it also took action in another case to protect white voters from intimidation by black political leaders; and the Bush administration had failed to take action in a similar case in which Latino voters were allegedly intimidated by whites.

As the story dissolved, a broad and bipartisan group of media and political figures dismissed the supposed scandal, with the Republican vice-chair of the U. S. Civil Rights Commission condemning that partisan group's investigationas an attempt "to topple the administration."

Nonetheless, there is little hope that the right-wing bitter-enders who have been pushing this story will accept the conclusions of OPR. Last week, the foremost proponents of the New Black Panthers conspiracy, J. Christian Adams and Hans Von Spakovsky, began claiming that the "fix is in" because Adams' sources at DOJ had said that OPR would find no wrongdoing on the part of the attorneys who overruled Adams and his trial team. The pair also began what will likely become a right-wing drumbeat intended to undermine Ashton and OPR.

It's worth pointing out that every new revelation in this case has only served to diminish their own credibility and highlight their partisan motives.

From the OPR letter to Rep. Smith:

Based on the results of our investigation, we concluded that Department attorneys did not commit professional misconduct or exercise poor judgment, but rather acted appropriately, in the exercise of their supervisory duties in connection with the dismissal of the three defendants in the NBPP case. We found no evidence that the decision to dismiss the case against three of the four defendants was predicated on political considerations. We found that the decision by the Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, a career Department employee, was made following appropriate consultations with, or notification to, career attorneys and supervisors, and Department leadership. We found no evidence of improper political interference or influence from within or outside the Department in connection with the decision in the case. In sum, we concluded that the decision to dismiss three of the four defendants and to seek more narrowly-tailored injunctive relief against King Samir Shabazz was predicated on a good faith assessment of the law and the facts of the case and had a reasonable basis. We found no evidence that political considerations were a motivating factor in reaching the decision.

We also concluded that the decision to initiate the NBPP case was based upon a good faith assessment of the facts and the law. We found no evidence that political considerations were a motivating factor in authorizing the civil action against the four defendants.

Finally, we found no evidence to support allegations (which were raised during the course of our investigation) that the decision makers, either in bringing or dismissing the claims, were influence by the race of the defendants, or any considerations other than an assessment of the evidence and the applicable law.

Obama DOJ Announces It Will Not Defend The Constitutionality Of DOMA

By Igor Volsky

Moments ago, in a sharp reversal of policy, the Obama administration announced that it believes that Section 3 of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) — which prohibits the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages — is unconstitutional and will ask the Justice Department to stop defending the law. In a press release announcing the change, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder also argues that laws regarding sexual orientation should be subject to a higher level of review:

Section 3 of DOMA has now been challenged in the Second Circuit, however, which has no established or binding standard for how laws concerning sexual orientation should be treated. In these cases, the Administration faces for the first time the question of whether laws regarding sexual orientation are subject to the more permissive standard of review or whether a more rigorous standard, under which laws targeting minority groups with a history of discrimination are viewed with suspicion by the courts, should apply.

After careful consideration, including a review of my recommendation, the President has concluded that given a number of factors, including a documented history of discrimination, classifications based on sexual orientation should be subject to a more heightened standard of scrutiny. The President has also concluded that Section 3 of DOMA, as applied to legally married same-sex couples, fails to meet that standard and is therefore unconstitutional. Given that conclusion, the President has instructed the Department not to defend the statute in such cases. I fully concur with the President’s determination.

Consequently, the Department will not defend the constitutionality of Section 3 of DOMA as applied to same-sex married couples in the two cases filed in the Second Circuit. We will, however, remain parties to the cases and continue to represent the interests of the United States throughout the litigation.

Back in July, a Federal District Court in Boston ruled that Section 3 of DOMA isunconstitutional because it interferes with the traditional state right to define marriage and forces the state to “violate the equal protection rights of its citizens.” The decision was composed of two separate challenges, one brought by the state of Massachusetts and the other by Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) “on behalf of eight married couples and three surviving spouses from Massachusetts” who have been denied federal benefits available to heterosexual married couples. In November 2010, plaintiffs also filed two “new lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of Section 3 of DOMA in jurisdictions without precedent on whether sexual-orientation classifications are subject to rational basis review or whether they must satisfy some form of heightened scrutiny.”

The Obama administration announced its intention to defend DOMA in October of 2010 and in January filed a brief arguing that “DOMA is rationally related to legitimate governmental interests.” The government maintained that Congress enacted the law during an era of upheaval to maintain “uniformity on the federal level” and allow states the flexibility to expand the definition of marriage as they see fit.

Today’s decision is consistent with President Obama’s opposition to DOMA during the presidential campaign. “I support the full and unqualified repeal of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. While some say we should repeal only part of the law, I believe we should get rid of that statute altogether,” Obama said in November of 2007.

UPDATEPress Secretary Jay Carney stressed that the two lawsuits filed in November of 2010 pushed the administration to reach its decision. He is why:

Unlike previous challenges, the new lawsuits were filed in districts covered by the appeals court in New York — one of the only circuits with no modern precedent saying how to evaluate claims that a law discriminates against gay people. That means that the administration, for the first time, may be required to take a clear stand on politically explosive questions like whether gay men and lesbians have been unfairly stigmatized, are politically powerful, and can choose to change their sexual orientation.

Fox News' increasingly dishonest promotion of Adams' accusations

by Jeremy Holden

In aggressively promoting GOP activist J. Christian Adams' unsubstantiated allegations that the Department of Justice and Attorney General Eric Holder engaged in racially motivated corruption by not pursuing additional voter intimidation charges against members of the New Black Panther Party, Fox News has routinely omitted key facts that completely undermine Adams' claims. Now Fox News is misidentifying a McCain campaign volunteer in order to lend Adams credibility.

Adams is scheduled to testify before the Civil Rights Commission tomorrow. In advance of his testimony, Fox News has hyped Adams' assertion that the Obama administration has a "hostility in the voting section and in the civil rights division to bringing cases on behalf of white victims for the benefit of national racial minorities." Despite the fact that Adams himself acknowledged during his Fox interview that his claims are based on hearsay, Fox continues to treat them as credible. Increasingly, Fox News is misrepresenting the record to advance the story.

Fox, for example, has refused to report that the Bush-era Justice Department chose not to pursue voter intimidation charges against members of the Minutemen in Arizona, one of whom allegedly carried a handgun while harassing Hispanic voters in 2006. This fact effectively destroys the idea that the Obama DOJ engaged in racially charged corruption that is unprecedented. Quite simply, the Obama administration's Justice Department pursued voter intimidation charges against a black individual carrying a weapon outside a polling station -- they obtained default judgment in May against Minister King Samir Shabazz, who was carrying a nightstick outside a Philadelphia polling station -- whereas the Bush administration DOJ did not pursue voter intimidation charges against a member of the Minutemen who allegedly carried a pistol outside a polling station. Fox News simply refuses to disclose this key fact that -- again -- absolutely annihilates Adams' very accusation that the Justice Department is hostile to pursuing voter intimidation charges against black defendants.

But it seems now that withholding facts is insufficient.

Fox News has taken to selectively identifying the people it cites to purportedly corroborate Adams' story. Today, after once again promoting Adams' testimony, Fox News correspondent Eric Shawn turned to Bartle Bull, identified as "a noted New York Democrat" and "poll watcher" who "went to Mississippi in the 1960s." Shawn then aired footage of Bull echoing Adams' attacks against the Obama administration for its handling of the New Black Panther Party case:

BULL: Never have I seen a man standing in a militaristic uniform, holding a weapon -- in this case a large billy club -- blocking the entrance to a polling place. Even in Mississippi where I was in two towns in which they had nooses hanging off trees near the polling place, even there I never saw a weapon in the door of a polling place. This is the worst and this government is supporting it, is defending it.

But Bull is not simply "a noted New York Democrat" and "poll watcher." He is a poll watcher who went to Philadelphia in 2008 "troubleshooting on Election Day for the McCain Campaign." Bull said so himself when testifying before the Civil Rights Commission in April:

BULL: Well, I had been serving in New York State, my second Republican candidate, as Chairman of Democrats for McCain in New York State. I knew we were going to lose New York. I thought perhaps I could help in Philadelphia. So, I took the train down there at 5:00 in the morning, and spent a day there, troubleshooting on Election Day for the McCain Campaign.

This fact is critical to establishing Bull's credibility on the very issue Shawn is citing him to discuss. There is no reason whatsoever to inform viewers that Bull is a Democrat who "went to Mississippi in the 1960s" and served as a "poll watcher" without noting that Bull served as a poll watcher for John McCain, not for Democrats. Actually, there is a reason to withhold that information from viewers -- to further Adams' unsubstantiated accusations and to lend them credibility.

It should be noted that no voter in Philadelphia has come forward to complain about intimidation stemming from the Black Panthers' presence at the polling station. U.S. Civil Rights Commissioner Arlan Melendez noted this fact in criticizing the commission's continued investigation into the Justice Department:

MELENDEZ: My remarks are going to be brief because I think far too much of our time has been consumed on this seemingly unnecessary investigation. Citizens should be able to vote without intimidation, and it is our Commission's duty to investigate complaints from citizens that their voting rights have been infringed.

In this case, however, no citizen has even alleged that he or she was intimidated from voting at the Fairmount Avenue Polling Station in 2008. This absence of voter intimidation was clear to the Justice Department last spring, which is why they took the course of action that they did.

This absence of voter intimidation was clear to the members of this Commission as well, or at least it should've been. Our investigation has been going on now for the better part of a year. We have wasted a good deal of our staff's time, and the taxpayers' money.

UPDATE: This morning, Steve Doocy continued Fox News' pattern of dishonesty in promoting Adams' political activism. Doocy claimed that "the other problem is Eric Holder, the attorney general, still has not explained why they dropped the case." In fact, the Justice Department has "explained why they dropped the case." In May 14 testimony before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Thomas Perez, assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, directly addressed the decision not to pursue additional charges in the case:

ASST. ATTY. GEN. PEREZ: We have a continuing duty, whether it's in a default posture, whether it's a pro se defendant, whether it's the biggest white shoe law firm in town representing the defendant, our obligation stays the same, which is that we continue to have a legal and ethical obligation to ensure that we can present evidence that there is sufficient evidence to sustain the elements of the particular charge. In this case, the conclusion was made that, as to the defendant who had the nightstick, that there was indeed sufficient evidence to sustain the charge. And so the default judgment was sought and obtained as it related to him.

MR. BLACKWOOD: Okay. If I could --

ASST. ATTY. GEN. PEREZ: And as it related to the other defendants in the case, Ms. King and Mr. Rosenbaum concluded that the evidence did not support that. And that was the decision that they made.

Doocy also wondered how the media would have reacted "had something like this happened during the Bush years." It did happen during the Bush years. Steve Doocy just refuses to acknowledge it.

White House, DOJ Not Denying Clinton's Statement That AZ Lawsuit On The Way

BySam Stein

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's disclosure that the Department of Justice will be filing a suit against Arizona's tough new immigration law is not being denied by either the White House or the Department of Justice itself.

In what appeared to be an unscripted admission, Clinton told Ecuadoran television on Thursday that DoJ, under the direction of the president, "will be bringing a lawsuit against" the Arizona act, which has been sharply criticized in Latin America.

The statement, first reported by the site Right Scoop, was the first overt declaration on the Justice Department's course of action. In late April, President Obama first announced his support for an investigation into Arizona's law, which would grant local law enforcement officials broader powers to detain suspected illegal immigrants. Since then, there have been hearings involving Attorney General Eric Holder but little in the way of explicit action.

Asked about Clinton's remarks, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs urged the Huffington Post to send queries to the DoJ. The department's spokesman, Matt Miller, replied with the following: "The department continues to review the law."

The non-denials are not, of course, confirmations of Clinton's statement. But it's hard to imagine that the Secretary of State is operating off of a different script than the rest of the administration. A suit, of course, would ramp up the debate over immigration reform, suggesting that the White House believes that either the law represents an egregious legal overreach or just smart politics.