Capitol Hill Update: Cover-ups at Obama's Justice Department

Americans were outraged when they saw the New Black Panther Party intimidating voters in Philadelphia  --  of all places  --  into not voting for Senator John McCain on the presidential election day last year.  Unfortunately, Eric Holder who heads Barack Obama's Justice Department, did not see much wrong with such voter intimidation as long as these thugs benefited his patron.   

According to Sunday's "The Washington Times," editorial entitled "Justice thwarts Black Panther subpoenas," the "Obama team is covering up voter-intimidation evidence."  The case involves Black Panthers at a Philadelphia voting place last year intimidating and participating "in racially charged activities."  Career attorneys at the Justice Department prepared a case against the Black Panthers and a judge was ready to enter a default judgment against them.   

Yet Obama's Attorney General Holder all of a sudden made a decision to drop three of the four cases against the Black Panthers.  The fourth Black Panther basically got a slap on the wrist when he and the others could have received up to one year in jail and a fine.   

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights which has leaned very liberal over the past several decades issued subpoenas for Justice Department lawyers involved with the dropping of three of the four cases to appear before its commission.  The Obama Justice Department has now ordered two key career attorneys not to comply with a subpoena to appear and to testify before the Civil Rights Commission.   

The Obama Justice Department is obstructing justice because the Civil Rights Commission, by law, has the power to issue such subpoenas.  The "Times" editorial writes that the law mandates that "all federal agencies shall cooperate fully with the commission."  

Yet, there is an obvious cover-up going on in Attorney General's Justice Department. And this is occurring in an administration whose leader during his presidential campaigned promised "a clean break from business as usual" in Washington.  That sounds like the promise by one-term Democrat President, Jimmy Carter, that "I will never lie to you."   

Regarding the Obama administration's cover-up at the Justice Department, according to the "Times" editorial, two Republican Congressmen, Frank Wolf from Virginia and Lamar Smith from Texas, last Wednesday issued a joint statement calling Justice Department delays "a cover-up" and "a pretense to ignore inquiries from Congress and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights."   

Congressman Smith said last Thursday at a hearing:  "Continued silence by the Justice Department is an implied admission of guilt that the case was dropped for purely political reasons."  At the same hearing, Congressman Steve King, a Republican from Iowa, accused Justice Department Civil Rights Division chief Thomas Perez of not being "truthful" while under oath, to such an extent that "there are people who have gone to jail" for such a level of purported "dishonest [y]."  

The "Times" quotes Congressman Frank Wolf in its concluding paragraph in Sunday's lead editorial:  ""Holder and them have done a terrible job on this,' Mr. Wolf told The Washington Times. 'This has just been handled so poorly.... You can't hide these things. There is something wrong here. There is something very wrong. When it all comes out, I think it will be very bad.'"  

Thus far, it appears that the Obama administration is going to go the way of the Carter administration which was eventually overwhelmed by incompetence all across the board.  The corruption and cover-ups in his Justice Department is not helping Obama.  As "The Washington Times" says:  "Congressman (Wolf) is probably right" about the eventual outcome.