The Justice Department will not seek criminal contempt charges
against former IRS official Lois Lerner, the central figure in a scandal
that erupted over whether the tax agency improperly targeted
conservative political groups.
Ronald Machen, the
former U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, told House Speaker
John Boehner (R-Ohio) in a seven-page letter this week that he would not
bring a criminal case to a grand jury over Lerner’s refusal to testify
before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in March
2014. The House approved a criminal contempt resolution against Lerner
in May 2014, and Machen’s office has been reviewing the issue since
then.
An Egyptian-born imam who in 2007 said that Somali-born
activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali should receive the death penalty for her
criticism of Islam is now a Department of Justice contractor hired to
teach classes to Muslims who are in federal prison.
According to federal spending records, Fouad ElBayly, the imam at
Islamic Center of Johnstown in Pennsylvania, was contracted by the DOJ’s
Bureau of Prisons beginning last year to teach the classes to Muslim
inmates at Cumberland Federal Correctional Institution in Cumberland,
Md.
The records show that ElBayly has two contracts worth $12,900 to
teach the classes and to provide the inmates “leadership and guidance.”
One of the contracts is dated Feb. 20, 2014, and the other is dated Dec.
8, 2014.
It was April 2007 when ElBayly, the imam at the Islamic Center of
Johnston, protested Ali’s scheduled appearance at the University of
Pittsburgh-Johnstown. Keep on reading…
Investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson, whose coverage
of the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya, has earned
her both high praise and harsh criticism, has launched a lawsuit against
the Department of Justice, demanding access to FBI documents that
involve her personally.
The now-senior independent contributor to the Daily Signal, a
conservative online news outlet based at the Heritage Foundation,
alleges that during her final months as a correspondent for CBS News,
her personal and work computers were hacked as she continued to produce
often unfavorable reports on the Obama administration.
“I am hoping to get information that sheds light on a number of
problems I’ve been dealing with,” Attkisson told the Washington
Examiner’s media desk Friday evening. “One of the items the FBI is
withholding is information surrounding a case they opened on my computer
intrusions, which lists me as the victim.”
“Yet they never told me they opened the case, never interviewed me,
and won’t produce material relevant to the case or the case file. The
case has to progress through court and, historically, the government
drags it out (at taxpayer expense). So it’s unclear when, if ever, we
might receive the documents to which we are entitled,” she said. Keep on reading…
According to new IRS emails obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request from Judicial Watch, former head of tax exempt groups at the IRS Lois Lerner was in contact with the Department of Justice in May 2013 about whether tax exempt groups could be criminally prosecuted for "lying" about political activity.
The New York Times reports the Department of Justice investigated national security leaks given to Times reporter David
Sanger over his story last year about the Stuxnet virus by pulling all
the email and phone records of government officials who communicated
with the reporter. Last summer, Sanger reported the U.S. helped develop the Stuxnet virus and
used it to attack Iran, becoming the first country to carry out a
sustained cyber attack with the intent of destroying another country’s
infrastructure. The was some hoopla and a hullaballoo about leaks and DOJ investigations, the Associated Press case, and now a year later we’re finding out just how far things went.
The Times’ Ethan Bronner, Charlie Savage and Scott Shane report the
FBI requested for any phone and email logs from the White House, the
Defense Department and other “intelligence agencies” that showed any
contact between employees and Sanger. It does not appear they went so
far as to seize Sanger’s telephone records or emails, as they did with
the Associates Press and Fox News reporter James Rosen. They at least
got creative this time. Instead of looking at his communication records,
they looked at the communications between him and every government
employee by looking on their end.
The Times report does paint a very detailed picture of how far the
Justice Department goes with these investigations, even before they get
into the legally and morally questionable practice of subpoenaing a
reporters’ email and phone records. As a result of the intense scrutiny,
the Times says some sources are starting to clam up.
WASHINGTON (AP) —
The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone
records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the
news cooperative’s top executive called a “massive and unprecedented
intrusion” into how news organizations gather the news.
The records obtained by the Justice Department listed incoming and
outgoing calls, and the duration of each call, for the work and personal
phone numbers of individual reporters, general AP office numbers in New
York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and the main number for AP
reporters in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to
attorneys for the AP.
In all, the government seized those records for more than 20 separate
telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of
2012. The exact number of journalists who used the phone lines during
that period is unknown but more than 100 journalists work in the offices
whose phone records were targeted on a wide array of stories about
government and other matters.
On Monday afternoon, the Associated Press reported that
the U.S. Department of Justice had “secretly obtained two months of
telephone records” from 20 phone lines assigned to reporters and editors
from the global news organization. The shocking revelation comes on top
of news that the IRS targeted conservative
groups for special scrutiny. It will be harder for President Obama to
pin the DOJ’s action on lower level bureaucrats, however, because
requests to subpoena news organization records require the approval of
Attorney General Eric Holder.
(CNSNews.com) – The U.S. Justice Department says it has reached a settlement with the Sacramento (California) Public Library over a trial program the library was conducting that let patrons borrow Barnes and Noble NOOK e-book readers.
DOJ and the National Federation of the Blind objected to the program on grounds that blind people could not use the NOOK e-readers for technological reasons.[...]
A DOJ official told CNSNews.com it interviewed a woman who could not participate in the library's e-reader program due to her disability and concluded that the program had violated the ADA.
The Justice Department has told House leaders that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.’s decision to withhold certain documents about a flawed gun operation from Congress is not a crime and he will not be prosecuted for contempt of Congress.
Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole explained the decision, which was expected, in a letter to House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio). The letter was released publicly Friday, just over a week after President Obama invoked executive privilege to withhold the documents.
Washington (CNN) — The Justice Department Monday dispatched federal observers to Milwaukee to monitor the closely-watched recall election of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. The Voting Rights Section of the Civil Rights Division said Milwaukee is among specific voting locations required to provide assistance to Spanish speaking citizens. . . .
The Justice Department declined to say how many monitors have been sent to these locations, but from past practice the number is likely in the dozens. In prior general elections, the Justice Department has sent as many as one thousand federal observers and civil rights attorneys to coordinate federal activities and work with local elections officials.
Federal authorities said Wednesday that they plan to sue Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio and his office over allegations of civil rights violations, including the racial profiling of Latinos.
The U.S. Justice Department has been seeking an agreement requiring Arpaio's office to train officers in how to make constitutional traffic stops, collect data on people arrested in traffic stops and reach out to Latinos to assure them that the department is there to also protect them.
Arpaio has denied the racial profiling allegations and has claimed that allowing a court monitor would mean that every policy decision would have to be cleared through an observer and would nullify his authority.
If you want to know the real reason, watch the video posted below.
The DOJ and many liberal organizations claim requiring a photo ID to vote is discriminatory. They clam many people don't have them. These organizations are obviously much less concerned about that when it comes to their own properties.
Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio has rejected a U.S. Justice Department demand for an independent monitor to address allegations of rampant discrimination against Latinos in his office's police and jail operations.
The controversial Maricopa County sheriff and the DOJ had been preparing to negotiate ways to remedy alleged discrimination found in a three-year federal investigation of the sheriff's office, The Arizona Republic reports.
A top Justice Department attorney told Arpaio's lawyers this week that agreement on an independent monitor was critical for continuing negotiations and avoiding a lawsuit.
Arpaio, however, flatly rejected such a monitor Tuesday, calling it a political attempt by President Obama's administration to take control of daily operations in his office. Keep on reading...
The Justice Department is refusing to release some documents relating to the "Fast and Furious" gunrunning scandal. The ones that have been released show AG Eric Holder lied to Congress during his "Fast and Furious" testimony. Republicans are asking for a Special Prosecutor. The request letter is here. The latest document drop was by CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson. She told Conservative talk show host Laura Ingrham that WH spokesman Eric Schultz called her up cussing and screaming about her "Fast and Furious report.
Ingraham: So they were literally screaming at you? Attkisson: Yes. Well the DOJ woman was just yelling at me. The guy from the White House on Friday night literally screamed at me and cussed at me. [Laura: Who was the person? Who was the person at Justice screaming?] Eric Schultz. Oh, the person screaming was [DOJ spokeswoman] Tracy Schmaler, she was yelling not screaming. And the person who screamed at me was Eric Schultz at the White House."
Who is Eric Schultz? He is a hired gun the WH brought in for the "Fast and Furious" cover-up?
“Eric Schultz started Monday. He will be one of three associate communications directors, alongside Kate Bedingfield and Sandra Abrevaya," said a top administration official. "Eric’s portfolio of issues will focus mainly on DOJ and other oversight-related topics.”...
Schultz is no stranger to hostile political climates. Prior to taking over at the DSCC, he handled press for Al Franken’s 2008 Senate campaign in Minnesota, including the months-long recount against former Sen. Norm Coleman. Before that, he was national press secretary for John Edwards’ 2008 presidential bid, at one point tasked with handling press inquiries relating to Edwards' extramarital affair.
The Laura Ingraham Show - Investigative reporter says WH official cussed at her over ATF scandal
President Obama and Eric Holder's DOJ are getting ready to crackdown on bullying. Here is the not so shocking news. If you are white, male and heterosexual, you are out of luck.
Here is the catch. DOJ will only investigate bullying cases if the victim is considered protected under the 1964 Civil Rights legislation. In essence, only discrimination of the victim’s race, sex, national origin, disability, or religion will be considered by DOJ. The overweight straight white male who is verbally and/or physically harassed because of his size can consider himself invisible to the Justice Department.
Apparently, the Justice Department is going by George Orwell’s famous Animal Farm ending: “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.
The Obama administration remains committed to trying more terrorism suspects in civilian court even though a federal jury acquitted a Tanzanian of all but one charge in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings, senior Justice Department officials said Thursday.
Alleged Al Qaeda accomplice Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, the first Guantanamo Bay prisoner to be tried in civilian court, was convicted Wednesday of one count of conspiracy to damage or destroy U.S. property but cleared of 284 counts of murder and attempted murder.
Attorney General Eric Holder assured us "Failure is not an option" when it came to trials of al Qaeda terrorists on U.S. Soil. In the first test case, a man responsible for helping murder 224 people in bombings of U.S. African embassies in 1998, has been acquitted of 275 of the 276 charges. He was convicted of one relatively minor charge of conspiracy to destroy US property. In an attempt to put some lipstick on this pig, the DOJ claims they are pleased.
Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller said, "We respect the jury's verdict and are pleased that Ahmed Ghailani now faces a minimum of 20 years in prison and a potential life sentence for his role in the embassy bombings."
By any normal measure, the trial was an abject failure. Jake Tapper Tweeted this.
“I am disgusted at the total miscarriage of justice today in Manhattan’s federal civilian court. In a case where Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani was facing 285 criminal counts, including hundreds of murder charges, and where Attorney General Eric Holder assured us that ‘failure is not an option,’ the jury found him guilty on only one count and acquitted him of all other counts including every murder charge.
“This tragic verdict demonstrates the absolute insanity of the Obama Administration’s decision to try al-Qaeda terrorists in civilian courts.
The Department of Justice has spent tens of millions of dollars this year to compensate more than two dozen states, counties and cities for their costs of jailing illegal immigrants — even though those communities have adopted policies that obstruct immigration enforcement, according to a recently released report.
“Subsidizing Sanctuaries: The State Criminal Alien Assistance Program,” a report from the Center for Immigration Studies, found that the federal grant program commonly known as SCAAP allocated $62.2 million — more than 15 percent of its $400 million total — to 27 jurisdictions that are widely considered to be “sanctuary communities.”
The Washington Post has confirmed racial considerations play a large role at the DOJ when the issue is enforcing voter right. Kudos to WaPo for finally doing this investigation, but we have to wonder why it took them 17 months to get around to it. WaPo has confirmed there are many in Eric Holder's DOJ who don't want to enforce voting rights if it is a black on white crime.
Civil rights officials from the Bush administration have said that enforcement should be race-neutral. But some officials from the Obama administration, which took office vowing to reinvigorate civil rights enforcement, thought the agency should focus primarily on cases filed on behalf of minorities...
"There are career people who feel strongly that it is not the voting section's job to protect white voters," the lawyer said. "The environment is that you better toe the line of traditional civil rights ideas or you better keep quiet about it, because you will not advance, you will not receive awards and you will be ostracized."
Justice Department records turned over in a lawsuit to the conservative group Judicial Watch show a flurry of e-mails between the Civil Rights Division and the office of Associate Attorney General Thomas Perelli, a political appointee who supervises the division.
"Where are we on the Black Panther case?" read the subject line of a Perelli e-mail to his deputy the day before the case was dropped. Perelli, the department's No. 3 official, wrote that he was enclosing the "current thoughts" of the deputy attorney general's office, the No. 2 official.
Former DOJ Prosecutor, J. Christian Adams, testified to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, in July, that attorneys in the civil rights division were instructed to not prosecute black on white crime. A prime example was Holder's DOJ dismissal of the New Black Panther voter intimidation case. Now, Christopher Coates, former voting chief for the department’s Civil Rights Division, has confirmed Adams' allegations. He called the dismissal of New Black Panther case a “Travesty of Justice.”
Christopher Coates, former voting chief for the department’s Civil Rights Division, spoke under oath Friday morning before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, in a long-awaited appearance that had been stonewalled by the Justice Department for nearly a year.
Coates discussed in depth the DOJ’s decision to dismiss intimidation charges against New Black Panther members who were videotaped outside a Philadelphia polling place in 2008 dressed in military-style uniforms — one was brandishing a nightstick — and allegedly hurling racial slurs...
Nearly three months later, Coates backed up Adams’ claims. In lengthy and detailed testimony, he said the department cultivates a “hostile atmosphere” against “race-neutral enforcement” of the Voting Rights Act.
The Obama administration failed to prosecute the Black Panthers for voter intimidation. A whistle-blower has also claimed they have a policy of refusing to prosecute any minority for voter rights abuse.
Just obtained this letter from Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine to members of Congress informing them that he will open up a review of the Obama administration’s selective enforcement of civil rights laws by the Voting Section office of DOJ.
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