DOJ lacks transparency

1/11/2010 7:20:00  - A federal court has fined the Obama Justice Department for its lack of transparency.

The housing section of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division (CRD) had filed a discrimination lawsuit in Kansas, but a federal district court has imposed attorneys' fees on the individual DOJ lawyers in the case, including Steven Rosenbaum and Loretta King, because they refused to provide answers during discovery in the lawsuit. Rosenbaum heads the CRD's housing section and King was once acting assistant attorney general.

Hans von Spakovsky "It's very similar to what's going on in the New Black Panther case where the Justice Department is refusing to comply with subpoenas from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which is trying to get an explanation of why in the world they dismissed that voter-intimidation case," explains Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation.

He adds that the DOJ is not the only part of the Obama administration lacking transparency.

"They're basically hiding the compromise and conferencing that's been going on in that healthcare bill, despite the fact that the president eight different times during his campaign said that [process] would be completely transparent," von Spakovsky notes...

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EDITORIAL: Obama Justice Department sanctioned 

There needs to be a housecleaning at the very troubled Justice Department, and the top echelons of the Civil Rights Division is the right place to start. Its division chief - a presidential appointee - and its highly politicized senior career employees promote liberal ideology more than they enforce the law.

The latest imbroglio concerns two of the division's top career lawyers, the ones whom the Obama team chose to run the division until controversial nominees Thomas Perrelli and Thomas Perez could be confirmed. The two officials, Loretta King and Steven H. Rosenbaum, were heavily involved (along with Mr. Perrelli) in dropping an already-won voter-intimidation case against several members of the New Black Panther Party in Philadelphia, and both were responsible for other, questionable race-based decisions. On Dec. 30, a federal district court in Kansas sanctioned them for misconduct.

The misconduct involved a failure to be "fully responsive" to earlier court filings. Significantly, the judge - himself a liberal who formerly served as counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union - held the Justice Department attorneys personally and "solely responsible for paying the monetary sanctions." ...

Rep. Frank Wolf, the Northern Virginia Republican who has energetically questioned the Justice Department about the Black Panther case, responded to the report of the newest sanctions against department lawyers. "This revelation," he said, "further calls into question the judgment of those responsible for the inexplicable dismissal of U.S. vs. New Black Panther Party. The pattern of withholding information is troubling - especially in light of the office's refusal to cooperate with congressional inquiries and subpoenas from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights." ...