The Decline of Obama’s DOJ

Jennifer Rubin got Judge Michael Mukasey to talk about what has happened to the Department of Justice since he turned it over to Eric Holder. The result is explosive. Mukasey is a sober and distinguished judge and lawyer with first-hand knowledge of many of the relevant facts, so his characterizations should be given considerable weight. In a nutshell, he says that Eric Holder (presumably with the blessing of Barack Obama) has politicized the Department of Justice to a shocking extent. You should read it all, but here are a few excerpts:

In a far-ranging interview, he candidly asserts that Holder’s conduct in several key respects has been “amazing.” That’s not meant as a compliment. …
In August 2009, Holder authorized the reinvestigation of CIA operatives who had employed enhanced interrogation techniques on terrorist detainees. It had the feel of a witch hunt: Career prosecutors who investigated the interrogators under the previous administration had concluded there was no basis for a criminal prosecution. A year and a half later, the Holder reinvestigation is still dragging on. “I have to believe that the effect on people involved in national security is devastating,” says Mukasey, “in part because the cases were closed before.” … Mukasey, moreover, finds it “amazing” that Holder “conceded he didn’t read the [career] prosecutors’ memo” that recommended against prosecution.
With regard to the New Black Panther party controversy … Mukasey is flabbergasted that the attorney general would declare in a New York Times interview that in effect “there is nothing to see.” Mukasey says, “I can’t see how he would bring himself to say such a thing. There are investigations pending“–by the Justice Department’s inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility. The case against the New Black Panthers for intimidating voters at a Philadelphia precinct in 2008 was already won when Holder’s team ordered the charges dropped; famed civil rights attorney Bartle Bull deemed it “the most blatant form of voter intimidation I’ve ever seen.” Says Mukasey, with a measure of indignation, “It seems to me you don’t whitewash such a thing.”

But that’s how it goes at Eric Holder’s Department of Justice. If you threaten voters with a club at a polling place you are off the hook–depending on your race, of course. If you are a CIA agent loyally trying to protect your country, and have already been cleared of any wrongdoing, Holder reopens the investigation so he can harass you for a few more years. The politicizing of the Department by Obama and Holder is a major scandal, but one that has so far escaped any serious scrutiny.

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