House Panel Launches Probe: Did FBI Ignore Threats To Jail Black Voters?

Since the resignations of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and others involved in the U.S. Attorneys and Civil Rights Division scandals, you might expect that the Justice Department would come clean and show a new commitment to voting rights.

Think again. At recent hearings before a House Judiciary subcommittee, new revelations emerged about how the Justice Department failed to investigate illegal mailers sent to African-Americans in Dallas threatening criminal punishment if they registered to vote through a community reform group called ACORN.

The House Judiciary Committee is launching a preliminary inquiry into the questionable way that the FBI office in Dallas -- after consulting with the Justice Department -- decided not to investigate the intimidating flier targeting Democratic-leaning blacks in a 2006 legislative race, purportedly because no federal laws were violated.

"That's nonsense," says Gerry Hebert, director of the reform group Campaign Legal Center and a former 21-year veteran of the Civil Rights Division. "That intimidation is a violation of the Voting Rights Act," he notes, which authorizes both civil and criminal penalties for any threats that aim to deter voting.

Hebert testified about the Dallas incident to challenge claims by the Justice Department's top civil rights official at February's subcommittee hearing that the agency was taking vigorous legal action to protect minority voting rights.

Under intense grilling by skeptical Democrats about DOJ's alleged vote-suppressing activities, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Asheesh Agarwal told the panel, "The department takes very seriously any allegations that voters are being discriminated on the basis of their race. And we have an outstanding record of bringing lawsuits when necessary to protect the rights of minority voters."

Hebert countered by revealing the apparent Dallas voting rights violations. His voice rising, he declared, "Black voters in Dallas, Texas in 2006, after Mr. Agerwal joined the Justice Department, received a letter that said if you were registered by ACORN, they're a fraudulent organization, and if you try to vote, you'll be prosecuted and arrested at the polls." He testified that he had alerted the Justice Department, but no action was taken. Project Vote, ACORN's partner in managing voting registration drives, also contacted the Dallas FBI, which declined to investigate the intimidating mailers sent to thousands of African-Americans.

The FBI belatedly responded to Project Vote in late December 2006, asserting that "no factual predication of voter intimidation was established." The FBI's decision not to investigate, critics say, is the latest sign that politicization appears to have compromised the nominally non-partisan law enforcement agency.

Moreover, the Justice Department's response was part of a striking pattern of indifference to alleged intimidation violations. In fact, The Huffington Post has learned, President Bush's Justice Department hasn't brought a single prosecution or lawsuit in more than seven years on behalf of any African-American voters who faced direct voter intimidation threats and challenges -- despite receiving, by some estimates, roughly 12,000 criminal civil rights complaints of all kinds annually.

"The Justice Department hasn't handled these cases because they've had an unreasonable focus on voter fraud. They're more interested in disenfranchising voters," observes Tanya Clay House, the Public Policy Director of People for the American Way. (The Justice Department, and the local and national FBI, declined to answer questions about the Dallas incident and the broader lack of prosecutions aimed at voter intimidation.)

Indeed, part of what amounts to a wide-ranging GOP disenfranchisement strategy is attacking the non-partisan low-income advocacy group ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now). The organization has been a favorite target of Republicans promoting the myth of widespread voter fraud because of its success in registering Democratic-leaning minority voters since 2004, according to reports by McClatchy Newspapers, The American Prospect, and other outlets. The drumbeat of voter-fraud hype is then used to justify a host of GOP-backed laws and policies, from restrictive photo ID voting laws to the Justice Department' promotion of mass purges of registered voters. Yet voter fraud, in fact, is so rare that even an intensive, four-year anti-fraud initiative by the Justice Department couldn't even find one person in the country to charge with impersonating another voter -- out of nearly 215 million votes cast in federal elections.

The Dallas incident, it turns out, perfectly symbolizes the no-holds-barred Republican politics of voter fraud. The intimidating flier was part of a brazen vote-suppression and smear campaign designed to undermine a Democratic candidate, Harriet Miller, in a tight local race in 2006 to challenge Texas House Rep. Tony Goolsby in a racially mixed North Dallas district.

The frightening and deceptive mailer, highlighted with ACORN's trademark red and black colors, was sent to thousands of black residents a few days before the election: "Beware: A national political group suspected of voter fraud [i.e., ACORN] is currently working in your neighborhood to bring people to the polls on election day...Don't be a victim of voter fraud -- it could result in jail time for you."

The flier appeared to have its intended effect of intimidating some black voters. Lawrence Jones, a 63-year-old retiree and an active ACORN member, vividly recalls how it affected registered voters and other ACORN members. "They were dumbfounded and shocked," he says. It caused some members to doubt the group's integrity, while other residents, he says, "just feared to vote." He adds, "A lot of people said they don't think ACORN is powerful enough to protect them -- I'm not going to fool with the federal government."

That anonymous mailer followed a spate of public attacks, ads, and mailers by the Goolsby campaign -- and even a letter to the local district attorney by the county Republican chairman -- all accusing Miller of engaging in voter fraud during her first campaign against Goolsby in 2004. The Republican smears, now the subject of a pending defamation lawsuit aimed at Goolsby and other local Republicans, also claimed she had illegally "retained the services of ACORN," while tarring the organization with flimsy claims that it deliberately engaged in voter fraud.

The district attorney never responded to the Dallas GOP's allegations, but the local CBS affiliate, CBS 11 News, jumped on the story to ballyhoo the bogus charges filed by Republican County Chairman Kenn George with the D.A.

The real fraud involved George's inflammatory letter to the prosecutor, which blatantly misrepresented election returns from 2004 in order to file the false voter fraud complaint against Miller. The letter claimed that as a Democrat running for a state House seat, she suspiciously won more votes than the Democratic candidate for Congress in black districts, when, in fact, there was no Democratic congressional candidate opposing the Republican, just an obscure independent.

"Republicans then used the [CBS] news coverage as a prop for mail to Anglo voters alleging Harriet Miller was engaged in a criminal enterprise," says Matt Engle, director of the pro-Democratic legal advocacy group, the Lone Star Project, which supports Miller's lawsuit against local Republicans. "Another part of the Republican effort was sending the illegal fliers to black neighborhoods to convince African-American voters not to show up."

After the CBS 11 News story ran, the Republicans' specious claims of voter fraud became the basis of at least four pieces of direct mail and one doorhanger charging that Miller was "under investigation" for voter fraud. The mailers cited as a source the same CBS story that Kenn George himself had generated with his fake voter fraud claim to the D.A. All this, in turn, was followed by the menacing flier warning black voters who registered with ACORN that they'd be arrested at the polls.

"I was horrified," Miller says of the assorted attacked aimed at her and her potential black supporters. "I think the false allegations that were made about me concerning voter fraud had an impact when combined with the suppression of the vote. It's not a surprise that I lost." Despite spending five times as much in her 2006 campaign as in 2004, she lost by roughly the same amount as in her first race: a mere 1,553 votes short of unseating Goolsby.

None of the Republicans or their attorneys, including Goolsby and George, named in Miller's defamation lawsuit responded to requests for comment on her legal claims, although they denied her allegations in papers filed in response to her lawsuit. But the president of Goolsby's political consulting company, Allyn and Company, denied it had any role in printing or distributing the intimidation fliers targeting black voters (which isn't an issue in the lawsuit). "The only work we did was directly for the Goolsby campaign," says Mari Woodlies.

Harriet Miller and her district's black voters, though, are hardly the only people victimized by false voter fraud claims and intimidation schemes. For instance, as chronicled by leading civil rights groups in an "Election Protection" coalition, such threatening incidents include black-shirted, gun-toting thugs thwarting Latino voters in Tucson, Arizona in 2006, and fliers from a fake "Milwaukee Black Voters League" distributed during the 2004 election in Milwaukee inner-city neighborhoods warning people that if anyone in their family had been convicted of a crime, "you can get ten years in prison" if you dared to vote. Unfortunately, such cases don't seem to have been deemed worthy of serious investigation by DOJ, and certainly no prosecutions or lawsuits have resulted.

Even so, a Justice Department spokesman responded to questions about such failures by stating, "The Department is taking affirmative steps to ensure equal access to the polls for all citizens," citing in part the deployment of hundreds of federal election monitors in 2004 and 2006. But some critics so distrust the politicized Justice Department they see those monitors as reinforcing intimidation, rather than preventing it.

And now Justice itself is facing tough new monitoring from congressional oversight committees, including the House Judiciary Committee. "Protecting the voting rights of every citizen is a top priority for [House Judiciary chairman John Conyers (D-MI)]; members have serious concerns about DOJ's enforcement record and will be looking into the Dallas issue," a committee staffer told The Huffington Post. Elections have consequences, as Sen. Barbara Boxer famously said at a hearing last year, and one of them is that Conyer's committee will be asking asking Asheesh Agarwal to explain why nothing was done about the voter intimidation in Dallas.

Art Levine, a contributing editor of The Washington Monthly, wrote "The Republican War on Voting" in the April issue of The American Prospect.

Comments

[Ramirez]

ACORN and voter fraud
From the Seattle Times:
*****

Three plead guilty in fake voter scheme
By Keith Ervin
Seattle Times staff reporter

Three of seven defendants in the biggest voter-registration fraud scheme in Washington history have pleaded guilty and one has been sentenced, prosecutors said Monday.

The defendants were all temporary employees of ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, when they allegedly filled out and submitted more than 1,800 fictitious voter-registration cards during a 2006 registration drive in King and Pierce counties.
******

Read more at:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003982533_acorn30m.html?syndication=rss

[GrainOSand]

Tennis is a relaxing game.

http://www.votefraud.org

[TomR]

----
No votes were cast in the names of the phony voters. Prosecutors said the defendants committed fraud in order to keep their jobs without actually registering voters.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003982533_acorn30m.html?syndication=rss
----

- Tom

[GrainOSand]

That's not disenfranchizement that laziness; a bit different from that describe in Art's post.

[mariemburns]

thank you for giving this story more exposure. the american public has no idea in how many ways the bush administration has trashed this nation. there are few americans who are less patriotic than the bush, cheney gang.

[GrainOSand]

You will not be able to offer opinions from home, brother.
You will not be able to login, post, and logout.
You will not be able to lose yourself on xanax, or crack, and
Skip out for beer during Internet congestion,
Because the revolution will not be blogged.

The revolution will not be blogged.
The revolution will not be brought to you by Politico.com
In 4 posts without commercial advertising.
The revolution will not show you jpegs or gifs of Bush
Dancing with natives and leading a charge by John
McCain, General Petraeus and Karl Rove to eat
Ribs confiscated from a Chicago rib joint.
The revolution will not be blogged.

The revolution will not be brought to you by the
CERT or the IEEE and will not feature Dennis Ritchie and Bill Gates
Or Brian Kernigan and Steve Jobs.
The revolution will not make your fingers type faster.
The revolution will not get rid of carpal tunnel.
The revolution will not make your monitor 5 times bigger
Because the revolution will not be blogged, Brother.

There will be no pictures of you and Shequita
Pushing that router down the block on the dead run,
Or trying to slide that 50” plasma into a stolen SUV.
Huffington Post will not be able predict the winner at 9:38
Or report results from 56 districts.
The revolution will not be blogged.

There will be no looping flash video of pigs shooting down brothers on the run.

[GrainOSand]

This is a take-off on Gil Scott Heron's classic "The Revolution will not be televised". I ran out of space to do the entire song but figured people will get the point that yet again we face urgent times calling for radical change. Yet, I know this is a whisper in a cacophony of lies, disguised as spin, presented as fact. The question: Can we afford another 30+ years of the same old BS.

Get ready for real change be it good or bad. I am proposing that the people can turn the tide. Do you believe?

[HaveyouPerspective]

Nice work; did you write this? Gil Scott Heron was a hell of a social commentator.

I am with you, brother!

[Davwbaird]

Al the Way

[The 13 Colonies]

AMEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[HopeandChange]

When is the probe in Ohio about the threats to Republicans who crossed over?

[BrickSykes]

Wanta know just how the Republican Party has been stealing elections? There is a recent book out entitled "How To Rig An Election" and it is written by the guy who went to jail for the New Hampshire phone-jamming scheme. His name is Al Raymond. It costs $20 and can be gotten at any of the internet outlets: Amazon, Borders, etc. I bought it a couple of weeks ago and read it in about two nights. Though short, it provides a true hands on, first person accounting of actual events that successfully thwarted the efforts of thousands of Americans who wanted to vote, and couldn't. And Yes, most of those voters were Democrats!

Go get it and read it. It names names and places and dates. It is a great read.

Brick

[GrainOSand]

Thanks for the information. It is through the sharing of information that we will certainly overcome evil. That's what has evil so afraid and that's what keeps them posting mis-information here, there, and everywhere.

I salute you.

[Opheux]

God Damn America

[GrainOSand]

I was waiting.

[AfricanusI]

Now you guys will agree why I said' "America want's to eat it's cake and have it". Ths is a country that does not accept blame for minorities and desfranchisement. It's pathetic.

[ObserverinVancouver]

This is another reason why Clinton and Obama supporters will have to bury the hatchet after the nomination. You cannot take any chance of allowing another Republican presential term. Even Sen. Clinton will do a better job of cleaning up the Justice Department than Sen. McCain. Has Sen. McCain given any indication that he understands that the U.S. Constitution has been completely subverted since W has been president?

[desmirl]

The Republican Party: As bigoted as it gets.

[mlaiuppa]

The Republican Party: Fascism in Amerika.

[Ramirez]

The Republican Party:
You can't always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you need.

[RRonin]

Wow, this is classic Karl Rove tactics. We can anticipate more of this in the fall....

[blackrome]

How can you be black and a Republican.

[SeriousBlack]

That's always baffled me. Guys like Ken Blackwell, pundits like Amy Holmes, etc. Now I wouldn't want to tell anyone what party they should belong to, but... geez. As an observer it just seems like a twisted case of Stockholm Syndrome or something. Similar to low-income whites who get duped into voting against their own self-interest by Republican candidates, as well.

[GrainOSand]

There have always been those who live in the field vs. the house to paraphrase Malcolm X.

There have always been those who identify with those who enslave them.

[robXdion]

Low income whites vote Republican because Democrats are too supportive of blacks and minorities and they see that as threatening to them. Blacks vote Republican because they like the novelty of seeming "different" and thereby special. They do this in order to seek white approval and acceptance. Both groups are twisted.

[thinkb4uleap]

I get the sense that Amy Holmes does not consider herself a "black person" and likely has more white friends than black. I can appreciate that she, as a multi-ethnic individual, may not want to be identified as either black or white but I get the impression that she struggles with her ethnic identity. All speculation on my part and not a judgement of her, just an observation.

[RedWhiteandBrooklyn]

How can you ba an American and a republican?

[GrainOSand]

Sub-point, point. Sometimes the pain is so great the sub-point overshadows the point. I wanted to be a blindly patriotic, flag waving citizen then one day when I was about thirteen or fourteen I ran into a blindly patriotic, flag waving member of law enforcement who just could not accept my existence on this planet. I have met many more like him since.

[outnow]

Let's have a Boston Tea Party and ignore all liens and reimbursement clauses in tort cases. 90% of all lawyer time is no invested in sorting out these malicious clauses. It is worse than all human rights abuses combined. Only global warming is close to the actual threat posed to the human race. The first step is to boycott Wal-Mart. Even if you are tempted to buy some cheap stuff - be strong and resist the urge. Shop at Target instead! Write letters and e-mail the Board of Directors c/o Hillary Clinton at Wal-Mart and tell them how you feel. Then contact Kaiser, MediCare and Blue Cross and threaten to not pay your premiums. I am glad that people finally care. Maybe John Edwards would be willing to accept the nomination of the platform of eliminating all liens in personal injury cases. Our time has come! That time is NOW,. No more of your stinkin' liens. Get rid of ERISA while you're at it. I've been complaining since 1974 when it passed. That's only 34 years that it took to get your attention out there.

[BlackLeatherRain]

I agree about boycotting Walmart, but is giving your money to another box store really the answer? I have yet to find a resolution to this dilemna.

I have, however, started buying my beef from a local butcher who cuts his meat every morning, and gets his meat from a local slaughterhouse. Not only does it taste a HELL of a lot better, but the increase in cost is sincerely negligible - I am not spending much more than I used to at WalMart. I can't say enough about how much better the quality is, and I don't have to wash off the flesh to get the preservatives off of it. :P

Aside from that, if I need movies? Meds? A hamper? Some screws? Anywhere I buy it will have shipped it in from somewhere.

[weaselbasher]

Google american made products. You can find most anything you need. I just bought some shoes online and were a fair price and really sturdy and comfortable. I also try to buy from local businesses and union stores. It's better for all of us if local companies and workers get our money instead of China. I've never bought anything from Walmart.

[ProAmericanLobbyist]

Maybe next decade John Conyers and the Congress will wake up. I doubt it though. McClatchy papers have been reporting the Justice Departments voter suppressing program during the Attorneys firing. I sent John Conyers and Congressman Jackson the info and NOTHING HAPPENED. Conyers and Congress is incompetent. It is not just Bush Appointees who are incompetent.

Congress does not know how to spell opversite, more less do it.

[thinkb4uleap]

LOL, was that an intention misspelling?

[thehand]

And they say the New WOrld Order is just a conspiracy theory??

[outnow]

Voter suppression is used against anyone who might vote against the Republican candidate. I have seen young voters in the late sixties and early seventies discriminated against by challenges to their "residency." Systematic "voter profiling" targets certain groups in advance of the election, sometimes during registration. Demographics are used today with computer profiling. These groups are then targeted for "challenges."

In the forty years or so that I have been a witness (in Colorado) to these schemes, I have never seen a Republican criminally prosecuted. There are many "investigations" but never a prosecution. Voter intimidation or other dirty tricks are used such as moving poling places and many other practices.

I used to laugh at the term, "The Bush crime family." However, it has become undeniable that the Republican party acts as a criminal enterprise. It is "asymetrical warfare" since the Republicans have much more money than the Democrats. I have never known a really wealthy Republican who does not brag of his ability to grease the wheels of justice when ever necessary for their private ends. The Republicans are a club of privilege. Occasionally, their are "fall guys" to make it look real. But these are soft-landings with rich rewards later on from the club in appreciation for services rendered.

Our system is not a level playing field for those with no money.

[SeriousBlack]

It's also asymmetrical warfare simply because Republicans approach everything with an ends-justify-the-means mentality, no matter how dirty (or even illegal) the means, whereas Democrats by and large (yes there are always exceptions on both sides) try to play by the rules. It is an unfortunate fact of life that people who cheat and DON'T play by the rules quite often triumph over those who do play by the rules, at least in the short term. It's what makes it so hard to battle against Republicans in general, even when they are in the minority.