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| -Lurid Crime Tales- |
| Justice & the Panthers: Serious questions |
| 2010-01-03 |
| The Justice Department's latest moves regarding the career prosecutor who was overruled when a political appointee decided to drop a Philadelphia voter-intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party only heighten suspicions about its handling of the issue. Justice is sending Christopher Coates, who's keeping silent, from its D.C. offices to the U.S. attorney's office in South Carolina for 18 months. Justice contends that has nothing to do with the Philly case. Yet Justice also has told Mr. Coates not to cooperate with a U.S. Commission on Civil Rights subpoena. The subpoena is part of the commission's investigation of Justice's dismissal of the Philly case. Had Justice simply kept Coates in D.C. and let the commission's probe play out, it would have avoided questions begged by those actions. Is his transfer a politically motivated demotion? An attempt to place him beyond the commission's reach? And is Justice -- how else to put it? -- obstructing justice? Whatever the answers, Justice's actions toward Coates certainly exude more than a mere whiff of defensiveness. That's a troubling addition to a situation that already was quite troubling enough -- one that cries out for public disclosure of the truth. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 A preview of 2010. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2010-01-03 02:14 |