This week, United States District Judge Kurt Englehardt wrote a 129 page indictment of the Justice Department, and particularly the Civil Rights Division. The opinion documents the dishonest, unethical and disturbing conduct of both Civil Rights Division lawyers, but also the Deputy Attorney General’s office in influencing a series of reports to the court in the New Orleans case.
What federal judges need to know is that the misconduct documented by the Civil Rights Division in the Danziger bridge case this week is just one of many examples. There are many other examples of Civil Rights Division employees lying, stealing, perjuring and misrepresenting the facts and the law.
Some of the same anonymous blogging that occurred during the New Orleans trial by Civil Rights Division staff has occurred in other contexts, as documented by the DOJ Inspector General here. This is but one similarity between the lawlessness in New Orleans and longstanding behavior by Civil Rights Division lawyers.
I will soon have a much longer article detailing this long history of misconduct by Civil Rights Division staff and lawyers – some of which is already documented in my book Injustice.
Right now a series of questionable cases are before federal courts. Consider this one. The Justice Department is suing, get ready, to force apartments to accept “emotional support animals.” These are not seeing eye dogs. These are animals such as hamsters and ferrets to give tenants emotional support, even if the apartment has a no pet policy, or a pet deposit policy.
So if you are a federal judge, or a clerk to a federal judge – recognize that Judge Englehardt’s crushing exposure of DOJ misconduct is but one of a long train of abuses. The public at large has a right to a catalog of the long train of abuses, lies, thefts and misstatements of the law and facts. Stay tuned.
No surprise at all. I clerked on a U.S. Court of Appeals with an NYU grad who was black, gay, and militant about both: the quintessential professional minority. He saw everything through the lens of race and sexual orientation, to the point where even our mutual co-clerk (who voted for Clinton twice) couldn’t carry on a civil conversation with him. And where did he go after his clerkship? You guessed it: DOJ Honors, Civil Rights Division. I told the FBI he should not be hired because I didn’t think he could be trusted to use the power of the United States fairly and impartially. He was hired anyway.