A while back, Christian Adams, PJ’s Legal Editor and former Justice Department lawyer, highlighted the Facebook page of a Justice Department senior civil rights analyst, Stephanie Celandine Gyamfi, who labeled Mississippi as “disgusting and shameful.” This was the same employee who admitted committing perjury and leaking confidential legal opinions and documents during the Bush administration. When this caught the attention of the Mississippi Secretary of State, who is trying to decide whether to submit the state’s new voter ID law to the Department for review or go straight to court, the Justice Department defended Gyamfi saying she “is a respected employee.” Apparently, she is more respected by the current bosses at DOJ than previously known.
A source inside the Justice Department sent me an internal posting showing the “Administrative Review Teams” in the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division for Section 5 submissions under the Voting Rights Act. Section 5 is the tool that Justice used to object to the voter ID laws of Texas and South Carolina. Turns out that Gyamfi is the “Team Leader” for the group reviewing Section 5 submissions from both Texas and South Carolina. So the Attorneys General of those states should not be surprised by the biased (i.e., “disgusting and shameful”) review conducted by the Voting Section.
Another email sent by the Voting Section Chief Chris Herren to all of the attorneys and staff in the Section relates that the Section’s historian, Peyton McCrary, was chosen by the head of the Civil Rights Division, Thomas Perez, to receive the Maceo Hubbard Award. The Division gives this award annually to an employee “who has furthered the cause of civil rights through a significant, innovative accomplishment.” Herren said in his email that McCrary “is very deserving of this recognition” and that it is terrific that he was chosen for the award.
Why is that significant? Because according to sworn whistleblower testimony before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in 2010, McCrary adamantly refused to work on the Civil Rights Division’s pathbreaking lawsuit against the infamous Ike Brown in the Southern District of Mississippi. This was the lawsuit that the Division filed against a black felon and other local black officials in Noxubee County, Mississippi, during the Bush administration. Following a trial chock-full of extraordinary evidence, a federal judge found that Brown had engaged in blatant racial discrimination and ballot fraud to prevent whites from voting. McCrary, in an act of insubordination that revealed his opposition to race-neutral enforcement of federal voting rights laws, would not work on the case because he did not believe the Justice Department should protect white voters, no matter what kind of discriminatory conduct was engaged in by local black officials.
According to Christian Adams’ book, Injustice: Exposing the Racial Agenda of the Obama Justice department, McCrary also tried to sabotage the Justice Department’s case against the New Black Panther Party for intimidating voters and poll watchers in Philadelphia in 2008. According to Adams, McCrary’s “obstructionism damaged the case.” The whistleblower testimony and the revelations of Adam’s book are well known to Perez.
One can only imagine that Perez believes that McCrary’s defiance, racial bias, and unprofessionalism was a “significant, innovative accomplishment” that “furthered the cause of civil rights” – at least as civil rights is defined by the radical Left. This is the Holder Justice Department at its worst – and this is the Voting Section that will supposedly be guarding the voting rights of Americans in the November election.
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