King: DOJ testimony confirms allegations of racism in Obama administration

Testimony by a former U.S. Department of Justice employee Tuesday regarding the federal government’s decision to scale down a voter-intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party is proof that President Barack Obama has a “default mechanism” that “favors the black person,” U.S. Rep. Steve King said.

U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Kiron

King drew fire last month over his statements on a national radio program that Obama has “demonstrated that he has a default mechanism in him that breaks down the side of race – on the side that favors the black person.” He was specifically talking about the actions of Obama’s Justice Department and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

On Tuesday, former DOJ Voting Rights Attorney Christian Adams accused the Obama administration of abandoning the voter intimidation case for racial reasons and instructing attorneys in the civil rights division to ignore cases that involve black defendants and white victims.

“DOJ whistleblower, Christian Adams, credibly alleges that the Department of Justice has adopted a default mechanism by which it is deciding how to handle voting rights cases based on the racial makeup of the parties involved,” King said in a statement. “This is an explosive allegation, and is just the latest evidence of a Department of Justice that is more interested in playing racial politics than in ensuring Americans receive equal protection of the law.”

Adams, who was appointed to the DOJ by former President George W. Bush, was testifying to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, which is investigating the case.

The case arose after two members of the New Black Panther Party stood outside a polling place in Philadelphia on Election Day in 2008. A video of the men showed them dressed in paramilitary clothing, with one carrying a billy club.

In January 2009, the civil rights division invoked a section of the Voting Rights Act to file a civil lawsuit alleging voter intimidation by both men, the party chairman and the party. However, a few months later the DOJ decided to reduce the scope of the case, dropping the charges against the party, its chairman and the man who was not carrying a club. It pressed forward with the lawsuit against the man with the club, obtaining an injunction that forbids him from carrying a weapon near an open polling place in Philadelphia through 2012.

In a statement,  a DOJ spokesman said her agency determined “the facts and the law did not support pursuing claims” against the two other defendants and denied Adams’ charges.

Democratic members of the Civil Rights Commission have called the case “incredibly shallow, expensive and partisan” and a “one-sided farce.” Even a conservative member of the commission called the New Black Panthers incident “small potatoes” in an editorial published in the National Review. However, the case has become widely discussed in the conservative media and by Republican politicians.

“The decision to dismiss the charges against the ‘New Black Panthers’ in the most open and shut case of voter intimidation in American history is a scandal that has now been revealed to go as far up as the Attorney General, and perhaps to the White House,” King said.