Justice Department investigates itself on Black Panther dismissal

Washington Times:

The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility has begun an official inquiry into the dismissal in May of a civil complaint against the New Black Panther Party and two of its members who disrupted a Philadelphia polling place during the November general elections.

The inquiry is disclosed in an Aug. 28 letter to Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee who first raised questions about the dismissal in May and asked unsuccessfully that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. make available the head of the department's Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division for a closed-door briefing on the decision.

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"I am pleased that someone at the Justice Department is finally taking the dismissal of the New Black Panther Party case seriously," Mr. Smith said Wednesday. "The Justice Department's decision to drop a case against political allies who allegedly intimidated voters on Election Day 2008 reeks of political interference."

Mr. Smith said the department's refusal to provide Congress with an explanation for the dismissal "only further raises concerns that political favoritism played a role in this case."

"Voter intimidation threatens democracy," he said. "These cases must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law without political considerations."

...

The explanations given to date for the dismissal of this case do not make much sense and they reek of partisan injustice. Whether this Justice Department can do a fair investigation of itself is still an open question. We know that the Democrats in Congress will do their best to coverup this matter.