Meet J. Christian Adams

I wrote about the Justice Department’s dismissal of the charges against the New Black Panther Party for voter intimidation on election day 2008 here. I argued that the story was a scandal hiding in plain view. It features an outrageous violation of federal civil rights law, a default judgment against the perpetrators, a career Department of Justice attorney who has been exiled to South Carolina as a result of the case, another career Department of Justice attorney who has resigned in protest (J. Christian Adams), and a disgusting “some are more equal than others” rationale underlying the action of the powers-that-be in the Department of Justice.
Overlaid on this scandal is the related story of false testimony to the Civil Rights Commission by one of the Department of Justice political appointees involved in the dismissal of the case as well as the ongoing investigation conducted by the Civil Rights Commission. John Fund drew attention to the story in the Wall Street Journal last year; Jennifer Rubin updated the story in the Weekly Standard a few weeks ago. J.P. Freire covered Adams’s resignation in the Washington Examiner and posted Adams’s letter of resignation online.
All in all, it is the kind of scandal that, if committed by a Republican administration, would be an endless source of interest among the mainstream media. As it is, to take one example, a Google News search for “New York Times New Black Panther Party Philadelphia” turns up my own post and nothing else on point.
Yesterday on Fox News Megyn Kelly conducted an excellent interview with J. Christian Adams (video below), the Department of Justice attorney who resigned in protest of the department’s treatment of the case. The video is also posted here; the related Fox News story on Kelly’s interview is here. Part 2 of Kelly’s interview with Adams will air this afternoon.

If this were a Republican administration, Adams would be celebrated as a heroic whistleblower who put his career on the line over a matter of principle. In the Age of Obama, the crickets are chirping.

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