The Justice Department is ignoring civil rights cases that involve white victims and wrongly abandoned a voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party last year, a top department official testified Friday. He called the department's conduct a "travesty on justice."
Christopher Coates, former voting chief for the department's Civil Rights Division, spoke under oath Friday morning before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, in a long-awaited appearance that had been stonewalled by the Justice Department for nearly a year.
Coates went in depth about a controversial decision to dismiss charges against New Black Panther members after they were videotaped outside a Philadelphia polling place in 2008 dressed in military-style uniforms and allegedly hurling racial slurs while one brandished a night stick.
The case has drifted in and out of the limelight over the past year as the commission has struggled to investigate it. Ex-Justice official J. Christian Adams fueled the controversy when he testified in July and accused his former employer of showing "hostility" toward cases that involve white victims and black defendants.
Nearly three months later, Coates backed up Adams' claims. In lengthy and detailed testimony, he said the department cultivates a "hostile atmosphere" against "race-neutral enforcement" of the Voting Rights Act. - FOX News Story
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