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

[GrainOSand]

Of course this story is a fabrication because all American citizens know that the government treats everybody the same and that there is, and has never been, a race issue in America. This country is great, the greatest on the planet, anybody who says otherwise is unpatriotic.

As the Reverend Jeremiah Wright said "Nah, nah, nah ...”

There is another story on the HPost about Indiana voters who have peach skin not wanting to vote for Senator Obama because of the Wright flap. I guess those same people are leaving America because of this flap because they would never want to associate themselves with anything deemed racist.

The hypocrisy and the hits just keep on coming. I said it before I will say again, this campaign has nothing to do with the three vying for the position, it is more a referendum on and a reflection of the people’s ability to be fair, honest, and void of hate.

The polls suggest, the people are going lose big in November.

People/Love 09

[Dorraj]

this is why some blacks damn america. Not because we hate this country but because we hate some of things this country has done and is doing. The sad thing is this is not surprising to me in the least.

[robXdion]

People this is not just a Republican issue. Look at what is going on in the Democratic Primaries right now in Nevada, S. Carolina, Mississippi, Texas, and Ohio; there was sneaky tactics to misinform and disenfranchise obvious Obama leaning voters like youths and blacks. This is about threatening the establishment. And that establishment usually has a white face. Now, before ChrisS13 comes in here crying "racism", pointing out injustice and the motives behind it are not racism. This post by no means accuses ALL white people. There are even blacks that work hard to wrong other blacks to ensure things like this happen. So just realize wrong is wrong. And the motives are what they are.

[ylpatriot]

wow the race card being played over and over .... this is getting very scary .........

[robXdion]

You are not mature enough to discuss the issue as it is obvious you have no idea what a "race card" is. You're so used to the phrase you throw it out whenever a racial issue is brought up. There are 17 yr olds that can handle this better than you.

[GrainOSand]

It was already scary, what is happening is that the game can no longer be played beneath the surface where only those directly affected by it have to deal with it. This is good for America. Think of it as a country after many years of running around saying I am the fairest one of them all, running into an honest mirror to reflect the truth.

Barack Obama's candidacy has forced the forces of evil to try to play their game out in the open. Honest people will recognize. The historically duped will either wake up (eventually) or continue their deep slumber.

[NotMyPrez]

"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.

....and yet, as we saw and has been documented in the 2000 election in Ohio and Florida- no arrests or prosecution have been made as far as I can remember.

[GrainOSand]

...and no arrests will be made either unless something changes drastically.

[LORISNJ]

Just like this Republican Administration, claim that there is a huge problem with voter fraud which then allows them to enact legislation that does more to suppress votes than to solve a problem that didn't exist in the first place. Voter ID, caging votes, and the ever popular threat of imprisonment are just a few of their tricks.

Is anything more un-American?

[frappe]

Yes, the Bush administration was and is so very deceptive, giving the appearance of making progress on matters of public concern, when, in fact, they are doing just the opposite.

One of many examples in this regard is the "Blue Skies Initiative" which was supposedly an environmental action plan. Logically, judging by the name of the program, one would think that it would be of some real benefit to the environment. But. in truth, the program was designed to do just the opposite. I believe it gave coal-fired power plants more leeway to skirt federal legislation designed to protect the environment. And, I repeat, this is just one example of many where they used names for their initiatives that were deliberately misleading.

[athy]

I agree.
War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength

These are Newspeak words/terms.
These words/terms have two mutually contradictory meanings

Term coined by George Orwell in his classic book “1984”.

(If you haven’t seen the film yet, try to-especially the version released in 10/84 starring John Hurt, Suzanna Hamilton & Richard Burton.)

[BlackWidowPilot]

This is just one more ongoing reason to fight the Busheviks at every turn. Their malfeasance -like their avarice and lust for authoritarianism- knows no bounds.

The Busheviks can be beaten.

The Busheviks must be beaten.

The alternative is unacceptable to any decent member of the human species.

Leland R. Erickson

Citizen

[GrainOSand]

With citizens like you rallying in mass around whoever wins the primary there may be a chance.

I appreciate you Citizen Erickson.

[athy]

I agree.

This needs to be investigated.

However, let's not forget the investigation of Kenneth Blackwell too. As Secretary of State of Ohio in 2004, he was responsible for Ohio's VERY controversial election process where the Democratic party filed a lawsuit claiming that Blackwell's attempts to disenfranchise the entire state's minority voters were in violation of federal election law.

[HBeachbum]

Plus all of the reports of voter fraud need to be investigated just as vigorously. There were proven cases in CA and the gov't decided not to prosecute. This goes both ways. I just love the way you Libs try to make showing some sort of identification to vote as being opressive. Try getting on an airplane without some sort of ID and see where that gets you.

[GrainOSand]

I just love the way those who only know themselves try to speak about the situations of others maybe so poor they see paying for a state ID as a luxury, yet they can produce a birth certificate which is not accepted.

I resisted the desire to be very nasty because I realize the potency of the drug you are under.

Wake up or get ready.

[hopeless277]

Department of JUSTICE? HA! This will not end until the Republican party and all it's members are driven out of this country and into the sea. We are at war. Not with Iraq but with Republicans.

[thegreatgiginthesky]

The department of justice is a joke. Within the department of justice, justice is partial to skin color, religion, gender and political affiliation.

[Technician]

Very likely the Republicans are guilty of voter fraud. But do not be so naive as to think Democrats don't do the same thing when they get a chance.

[j0e]

This meme that all parties are politically corrupt equally is getting tiresome. Do you have any evidence that Democrats are equally corrupt in this regard? I'd like to see it. I can, on the other hand, show dozens of examples at the local/State and Federal level where the Republican party has sought to suppress voting and disenfranchise minorities (Hello, Jesse Helms?!).
This type of cynicism is easy, popular and self-fulfilling. It isn't true by volume, which is what we're dealing with here. Power will always corrupt... That's why we have the vote (ostensibly). It's the volume of corruption, the sheer impertinence of the wrong-doers, and their total lack of shame or feeling of responsibility that is at issue.

[donnajane]

similar to what Hillary attempted to do in Texas...

[RedWhiteandBrooklyn]

Another perfect example of an intellectually lazy statement. Show me the facts to back up your statement. People who are of an authoritarian streak or are sympathetic to that personality type are more likely to be republicans... and that type of personality is more likely to break rules in order to get their way. So, while a rare Democrat might act that way, it is much more common for a repug to do so. Spoiled little doughboys like Karl & W. who never made the team when they were young who want to be captains and can't do it on their own merit. Disgusting.

see: "Conservatives Without Conscience"

[BrickSykes]

Oh Yeah?

Please cite book and page where I can find this information. Don't be so naive as to believe that if there were evidence of Democratic Voter Fraud the RepugniKons would not be using it!!

Or, are you suggesting that the RepugniKons DO KNOW of Democratic Voter Fraud but won't tell anybody about it because they are too nice and they don't want to hurt the Democrat's "Feelings."

Or, maybe you ARE that naive!

Brick

[IRIE]

Nice picture....

[Roxanne24]

and you wonder why Rev. Wright is an angry, black man....

I couldn't even imagine what it must be like...what was that old saying a few years ago...it's a black thing and you wouldn't understand...

sad state of affairs...God shouldn't damn American, but He should bring damnation to those who continually do this kind of crap!

[LeftLeanWing]

"
It's A Black Thang
You Just Won't Understand
"

was how he was presented.

[beright]

Question is, how do you separate the two?

[robXdion]

You don't. Why should you need to? You watch the entire sermon and see the context. You can't have injustice and expect the effected people to walk around smiling and singing.

[athy]

ALL people should be angry about this-not just African Americans.
How do you explain Kenneth Blackwell- the African American-(and Republican)- Ohio Secretary of State . What he did to suppress minority voting in Ohio was reprehensible....

[John Warren Gotsch]

Reminds me of the Clintons; Hillary is looking more like ROBERT MUGABE every day.
In both politics and looks.
Np wonder Wild-Billy is screaming in Oregon.

[Maifmart]

If we can elect a President who enforces his oath to protect and defend the Constitution, fire all government employees hired after Bush's 2000 appointment and where appropriate file criminal charges.

[Technician]

If you are going to fire Government employees start with firing the whole State Dept. which has been stuffed with Communists and Socialists for sixty years.

[ObserverinVancouver]

sheesh!

[antbus]

Communists? Sweet Jesus ... that old monster in the closet. Why not throw in a good ol' hippy scare?

[HippieChick]

"Communists and Socialists"

Good grief...the John Birchers are still alive and stuck in a time warp. The "State Dept." has been "stuffed" with neocons in recent history...facists maybe, but not "communists and Socialists."

[thirdparty]

it's time to stop pointing fingers and blaming congress and the president. They are all employees. We the Employers have got to find new employees who actually do what we tell them to do. right now the inmates have control of the media, the courts, and the police. They think we are too stupid to see whats going on and are powerless to fire them. If we truly want change then its up to us to make change. CAN WE PLEASE SET ASIDE OUR DIFFERENCES AND FIND COMMON GROUND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. lets fire the lot of them. if we performed at our jobs like they have performed at their's we'd be gone. let's find new candidates to support candidates who understand that they are employees and reset this mess.

www.resetamerica.com

[robXdion]

And to go along with this article, there is a CNN story about the FBI bragging about its MLK surveillance. That link is effectively shut down.

[Nommo]

Don't worry about it y'all. Black people understand perfectly. As soon as you are done solving those crimes against civil rights workers in the fifties and sixties, you'll get around to conspiracies to disenfranchise Black voters because one genius will figure out that today's crimes are the same ones you are still "investigating" from decades earlier.

[brwnizofmine]

And even when they do finally solve something, they wait until the perpetrators have lived their entire lives, scot free then they clamp down, catch them, and then put them in jail for life. Give me a break! What kind of justice is that? That's exactly what happened in the Medgar Evers case. That man was allowed to live his entire life free, and then when he was too old to enjoy life anymore, almost on life support, then they catch him, and find him guilty and put him away. No wonder there's some anger about some things, and Rev Wright's point is well taken!

[Poboy]

"As soon as you are done solving those crimes against civil rights workers in the fifties and sixties, you'll get around to conspiracies to disenfranchise Black voters because one genius will figure out that today's crimes are the same ones you are still "investigating" from decades earlier."

The main reason for the Voter Rights Act of 1965 to begin with.

A law that has been on the books for 43 years, 95 years after the ratification of the 15 Amendment to the Constitution granting Black men the right to vote and 100 years after the end of the Civil War, which should reveal something about the mindset of the White Supremacists Black people are dealing with.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_Rights_Act


BTW, thank you Mr. Levine.

[GrainOSand]

I love MLK and all those involved in the movement. I honor their commitment to a better America. The problem though is you cannot legislate love. All the legislation did was allow America to change the subject not its treacherous, divisive, hateful, and murderous ways (people are lynched now by their credit score, or mandatory sentencing laws, etc...). Malcolm said you cannot be civil to those you do not consider human. Dr. Rice talked about America's defect. Is there a brain surgeon in the house? I thnk we are going to have to operate.

[Nommo]

My point, I have made it here before is that the conspiracies to disenfranchise Black voters have never been investigated as the question must be how deep or far up do they reach? As "brwniz" pointed out, the perps lived free lives until they were old and then they were prosecuted. But all in their communities knew who committed the crimes! The FBI was like a 5th wheel as far as investigations go.

There were these conspiracies to disenfranchise an entire community and the practice is extant today. Who are these descendants of the original conspirators. Further along those lines I must point out that I cringe every time there is talk of Dr. King's dream. It wasn't about his dream. It was about his work and those people who took to the streets
to demand their franchise.

[PrdAmerican]

the FBI ignores real threats to imprison black voters....

and America is UP IN ARMS over Rev. Jeremiah Wright.. a man who calls America out on her BS! Yeah, yell at the black man, but ignore what's going on right around you.

We haven't come as far as I thought.

[thirdparty]

The fact is that the people who own the Dems and Pubs own the media. Most americans are not going to read the Huffington Post. Theyt are going to trust CNN or MSNBC and think that they are getting the "News". What they are in fact getting is entertainment news. There are atrocities committed by those charged with protecting us every day. What made the civil rights movement successful and the anti war protest successful was unbaised media coverage. For the most part Americans are good fair concerned people. All whites arent racist in fact most arent. All blacks arent thugs, some are. the corporations that bought our government understand that they can control the population by controlling what they see. George Phillies Libertarian Candidate for president commented about the so called free speech zones, where the 3 leading candidates use the secret service to herd demonstrators away from them so they have the impression that there are no dessenting voices. its all part and parcel of the same corrupt rotting from the inside out system we needs to reset and take back. is it any wonder there is no coverage for third party candidates with a serious platform for change. check out MIchael Jingozian at www.resetamerica.com

[GrainOSand]

I only paused on one statement in your comment as juxtaposed to the statement that preceded it and I want to ask if it was merely just phrasing offered in the heat of a blog comment?

"All whites arent racist in fact most arent. All blacks arent thugs, some are."

This would have been more palatable to me if it had read:

"All whites arent racist in fact most arent. All blacks arent thugs, in fact only a minority are."

But perhaps I am splitting hairs.

I will check out the link provided to get the back story for the rest of your comments.

Thanks.

[beright]

@ PrdAmerican,

It's called 'blaming the victim.' Don't you know it's the mentality that shapes public policy? As in "Yep, it's all black people's fault ... they shouldn't have let us enslave em and then keep them from voting, and keep em poor... It's all their fault that they let us victimize them."

You get the picture.

[ObserverinVancouver]

You've been paying too much attention to Pat Buchanan.

[robXdion]

Pending Comments: 0

This is the stuff that fuels a Rev. Wright sermon. People need to understand his words did not happen in a vacuum or weird parallel universe. And yet it seems even here on this blog people refuse to face it. And the article didn't even touch on the disparity in sentencing for blacks for similar crimes to non-blacks OR the steady trickle of black men being released due to DNA evidence. And we lecture other countries???