Career prosecutors at the Justice Department went after some Obama supporters in the New Black Panther Party following shocking allegations that those supporters had intimidated voters with threats, racial epithets, and a nightstick

National Review, June 22, 2009

Career prosecutors at the Justice Department went after some Obama supporters in the New Black Panther Party following shocking allegations that those supporters had intimidated voters with threats, racial epithets, and a nightstick. The Washington Times reported that Justice even secured an affidavit from poll watcher Bartle Bull, a former Bobby Kennedy aide and longtime civil-rights activist, who witnessed three uniformed NBPP members confronting and intimidating voters with that nightstick.

Bull related that one Panther told a white poll watcher, "You are about to be ruled by the black man, cracker." In all his experience, Bull added, he had never seen "another instance in the United States where armed and uniformed men blocked the entrance to a polling location." Justice won the case because the defendants ignored the complaint. Then Obama's political appointees stepped in. Shortly after career prosecutors began seeking penalties based on the default, Attorney General Eric Holder's subordinates directed that the cases against two of the defendants be dropped. A third was merely ordered to refrain from displaying a weapon near a polling place for the next three years. Where is Congress? Can it be roused only by imaginary politicization of the Justice Department?