Justice Department Inspector General Pushes Holder on Misconduct

PJ Media

Department of Justice Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz has published a memorandum to Attorney General Eric Holder and Deputy Attorney General James Cole about “challenges” facing the Justice Department. Among the list of challenges: misconduct and malfeasance by DOJ employees and units which PJ Media has been reporting about for years.

That these instances of misconduct were included in Horowitz’s report infers that Holder’s Department has either taken inadequate action to address the behavior, or has taken no action at all. Based on what sources inside DOJ are saying, I suspect the latter.
The report provides material which senators on the Judiciary Committee — such as Jeff Sessions (R-AL), John Cornyn (R-TX), Mike Lee (R-UT), and Ted Cruz (R-TX) — may use to probe Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights nominee Debo Adegbile in his confirmation hearing. Below, three of the issues raised in the report:


1. Partisan Enforcement of Voting Laws
The IG report states:

The non-ideological, non-partisan enforcement of law is fundamental to the public’s trust in the Department. Yet in a recent report assessing how the enforcement priorities of the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division have changed over time and whether the voting rights laws have been enforced in a non-discriminatory fashion, the OIG identified issues in the handling of a small number of cases that the OIG believed risked undermining public confidence in the non-ideological enforcement of the voting rights laws.

PJ Media reported years ago that the Obama administration brings lawsuits attacking voter ID but brazenly refuses to enforce other voting laws, such as Section 8 of the National Voting Registration Act — which requires states to maintain clean voting rolls. This policy was announced in my presence when I was at the DOJ by then-Deputy Assistant Attorney General Julie Fernandes. (She now works for George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, doling out his billions to leftist groups to further undermine election integrity.)
Texas, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and North Carolina have felt the full weight of DOJ attacks on election integrity measures in those states. In the years that we have been reporting on this cherry-picking policy, not a single case has been brought by DOJ to clean up voting rolls. Indeed, sources report that DOJ Voting Section Chief Chris Herren rushed out letters to states asking questions about corrupted rolls after our reports were published. But this was window dressing, disguising the real policy of inaction. Not one single case has been brought by DOJ since Obama’s inauguration in 2009.
In the 2012 election, over four million ineligible voters were on state rolls.
Leftists defending this corrupt inaction called it “prosecutorial discretion.”  The inspector general — appointed by President Obama — apparently disagrees with their dismissal of the matter. Will Debo Adegbile finally bring a Section 8 case to clean up rolls?

2. Purge and Harassment of Conservative and Christian Employees at Civil Rights
The report states the IG found:

… numerous examples of harassment and marginalization of employees and managers due, at least in part, to their perceived ideological or political beliefs. These incidents received substantial public attention through congressional hearings and media reporting, thereby feeding the concern that the administration of justice had become politicized. The OIG will monitor the Department’s corrective actions taken in response to our report.

Monitoring ought to get awfully easy, because the remaining conservatives are exiting stage right from DOJ.
And let’s be clear: “conservative,” in DOJ Civil Rights parlance, means a lawyer who isn’t willing to bring a lawsuit of marginal merit to appease a left-wing racial interest group. Merely following the existing caselaw can brand a lawyer as an enemy of the regime inside the Civil Rights Division. Part of the express agenda inside Civil Rights is to push the frontiers of legal theory and to expand the number of claims a plaintiff alleging racial grievances can bring. Everything is about racial factions; they are the new “Hungry Constituency.” It’s redistribution time at DOJ, and the public litigation record proves it.

3. Lies and Perjury by DOJ Officials
It might be hard for regular Americans to believe that DOJ employees who committed perjury and lied to Congress are still employed by the taxpayers, and I’m not just talking about Eric Holder. Hans von Spakovsky and others have covered one such employee. Like so much about this administration, if you are among the ideologically correct, the law doesn’t apply to you the same way it applies to everyone else. It is lawlessness in its most ancient form. From the IG report:

The OIG has identified recent instances in which Department employees made inaccurate or incomplete statements to Congress or other government entities. These inaccurate and incomplete statements generated significant attention in both Congress and the national media and resulted in an erosion of trust in the Department.

Remember, this is the same DOJ that saw Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez conducting slimy DOJ business on his private email account. Perez wanted to preserve racial spoils in a case heading to the Supreme Court, so his secretive means were justified.
This is the same DOJ that has seen a parade of political appointees provide false testimony and statements to Congress, like a gang of mobsters or court partisans who will say anything to survive or advance.
Have there been prosecutions of the liars? Of course not. The DOJ would have to bring them, and this DOJ protects DOJ employees who sing from the administration’s songbook.

A nation built on the rule of law demands honesty in public affairs, else we begin to resemble eras in history rejected by America’s founding. Thankfully, the DOJ inspector general seems to recognizes the rot, despite his constraints. Our Constitution gives Congress the power to preserve the rule of law by holding government wrongdoers accountable, and by demanding answers and changes to DOJ policies. Whether our founding documents have the ability to slow down this gang of outlaws remains to be seen.