The Justice Department insists that only “career employees” made a controversial decision last May to drop voter-intimidation charges against members of the New Black Panther Party. An analysis by The Washington Times, however, suggests good reason to ask if the White House itself interfered in the case.
Flagrant Justice Department stonewalling of numerous outside inquiries concerning the case already had deepened the suspicion that high-level political interference was involved. Now a new analysis shows that the top Justice political appointee positively identified as having approved the controversial decisions, Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli, had a strange habit of consulting key White House lawyers in person at exactly the times the key Black Panther decisions were being made – but very rarely visiting the White House when Black Panther matters were not pressing. (See the accompanying timeline.) The Justice Department last week explicitly refused to respond to an “interrogatory” by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights about Mr. Perrelli’s involvement.
