Adegbile utterly unfit for Justice’s civil rights post
Obama's choice represents a slap in every policeman's face
The
media focus on President Obama's Obamacare problems, Benghazi and New
Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's "traffic jam that shook the world" has
missed a developing firestorm burning within U.S. law enforcement
circles.
The president's recent nomination of a former "Sesame
Street" performer turned radical civil rights lawyer, Debo Adegbile, to
be assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division in the
Department of Justice is a step too far for those familiar with Mr.
Adegbile's record and background.
He isn't the first questionable
nomination made by a president who, for one reason or another, seems
drawn to those with radical backgrounds, but this one is an open slap in
the face to everyone in law enforcement.
As an FBI agent in the
1970s and '80s, I sometimes found myself assigned to investigate a "44."
That is bureau-speak for cases involving complaints against law
enforcement officers for excessive force that is alleged to have
deprived people of their civil rights.
These investigations
required questioning of police officers and departments we worked with
every day. I did my job as a law enforcement professional, even though
that involved the awkward task of reading the accused police officer his
or her Miranda rights as a matter of policy.
Agents could not
exercise discretion to close a clearly unfounded case. We acted instead
as federal note-takers, whose investigative reports were forwarded to
the Civil Rights Division, where all prosecutorial decisions were made.
The
career, family finances and freedom of the officer under investigation
ultimately turned not on our investigation, but on the objectivity and
fairness of the division's lawyers and their ability to tell the
difference between good, aggressive policing and abusive, illegal
behavior.
That was then, but this is now. In today's aggressively
partisan political atmosphere, no government institution seems free from
the most odious political and ideological behavior. Sadly, that
includes the Justice Department of Attorney General Eric Holder Jr., who
presides over the most politicized Justice Department in my memory.
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Thursday, January 23, 2014
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