Obama's authoritarian regime crushing dissent

Earlier this month, the Justice Department ordered Christopher Coates and J. Christian Adams, two government lawyers who filed a complaint against the New Black Panther Party for intimidating voters in last year’s presidential election, not to cooperate with a nonpartisan civil rights commission investigating how the Obama Administration handled the case.

From Judicial Watch:

Prosecutors filed a civil complaint... against members of the radical... group for bullying voters... during the 2008 presidential election.

But the case was abruptly killed by a top Justice Department official just as a federal judge was preparing to punish the Black Panthers for ignoring the charges and refusing to appear in court.

[In early December], the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights subpoenaed at least two Justice Department lawyers - J. Christian Adams and Christopher Coates [who signed off on the complaint against the Black Panther Party members] - and sought documents from the agency to explain why the complaint was dropped... But a top Justice Department official ordered the government attorneys’ silence in a letter... [saying the commission] does not have the authority to enforce subpoenas - only to make referrals and recommendations to the Justice Department...

A member of the Civil Rights Commission challenged the gag order, pointing out that his panel is duly authorized by statute to review and report on enforcement activities of the Justice Department and similar government agencies. The commission’s job, he reminds, is to serve as a watchdog of federal and state enforcement agencies. That is why Congress has instructed all agencies to comply fully with the commission’s request, he said...

[But apparently], the Obama Administration... doesn’t want the details of this heated case and apparent coverup to be made public... Yet another promise of unprecedented transparency has been broken by the commander-in-chief.

And now we learn that Mr. Coates has been relieved of his duties at DoJ as a result of his insubordinate and mutinous behavior:

In the Obama administration, try to apply the civil rights laws equally and you're gone. That was the experience of the justice department attorney who pressed charges against a group of Black Panthers that were intimidating voters in a Pennsylvania polling place. (Story is here.)

Christopher Coates, the department's veteran voting rights section chief, has been "detailed" (duties unknown) for 18 months to the U.S. Attorney's office in South Carolina. The department is trying to pass off the transfer as having nothing to do with his enforcement of the voting rights act against the Black Panthers; the effort is utterly unconvincing...

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights sought to investigate the dismissal, but has been rebuffed by Obama's justice department.

This is serious stuff. The message is clear to career administrators: Try to enforce the law in a fair and impartial way, and you're gone...

Moral of the story: Do not cross Obama, or else!

But even more astonishing than the gag order and the dismissal of Christopher Coates is how Obama manages to get away with all of this!

Well, maybe not so astonishing, considering he's got the mainstream media covering for him...

But here's another interesting tidbit from The Foundry:

Under 42 U.S.C. § 1975, the subpoena power of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is limited to within 100 miles of where a witness “is found or resides or is domiciled or transacts business.” Living and working in Charleston, South Carolina may very conveniently move Coates outside the subpoena range of the Civil Rights Commission...

Hmmm, wiliness, craftiness and crookedness, all bundled up into one neat, totalitarian package!