Tag Archives: Topic: Department of Justice (DOJ)

Weekly Standard (includes video): California congressman Devin Nunes made the claim yesterday that the Justice Department wiretapped telephones in the House of Representative’s Cloak Room, an exclusive part of the Capitol where members are able to privately interact with one another. Nunes made the claim on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show.

LifeNews: Attorney General Eric Holder told a Congressional committee yesterday he is unsure if a federal law stopping after-birth abortions has been enforced.

The Hill: Holder said he recused himself early on in the DOJ’s investigation of what he described as some of the most serious leaks from government officials that jeopardized national security.

The Hill: “Attorney General Eric Holder, in permitting the Justice Department to issue secret subpoenas to spy on Associated Press reporters, has trampled on the First Amendment and failed in his sworn duty to uphold the Constitution,” said Priebus in a statement.

Lyle Denniston as posted an updated at SCOTUS Blog.

Fox News (AP): The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative’s top executive called a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into how news organizations gather the news.

Volokh Conspiracy: The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights is telling universities to institute speech codes. And not just any old speech codes: Under these speech codes, universities would be required to prohibit students from, for instance . . .

Ed Whelan at NRO: The Obama administration’s argument can’t withstand scrutiny. For starters, RFRA itself makes no distinction between “for-profit, secular companies” and “non-profit, religious organizations.”

WorldNetDaily: U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, in remarks that largely have escaped notice, has claimed that “creating a mechanism for [illegal aliens] to earn citizenship and move out of the shadows… is a matter of civil and human rights.”

Baptist Press: A German family should be granted asylum in the U.S. because their s native government is denying a fundamental human right by preventing them from homeschooling their children, attorney Michael Farris told a three-judge panel of the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals Tuesday (April 23) in Cincinnati.

Blog of the Legal Times: Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez might be nominated to lead the Department of Labor, but the inner workings of Department of Justice took center stage at his confirmation hearing Thursday on Capitol Hill.

Citizen Link: Liberty Counsel testified before Congress today outlining one of a series of incidents that suggests the Department of Justice (DOJ) violated the Constitution by initiating prosecutions for political reasons.

Robert Knight at Townhall: A courageous German Christian couple refused to hand over their children to the government schools and fled to America three years ago. Now, the Obama Administration is trying to send them back. A likely outcome would be the state seizing the children and imprisoning the parents.

Volokh Conspiracy: Three unsuccessful applicants to the Department of Justice’s Honors Program sued the federal government alleging  they were rejected on political grounds.  The district court in D.C. rejected their claims.  Last Friday, however, in Gerlich v. U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit reversed . . .

The Hill: “Holder’s actions keep the porn industry thriving. He not only refuses to enforce obscenity laws currently on the books that prohibit the distribution of hardcore pornography, but he even disbanded the office charged with enforcement,” Trueman said in a statement.

Matthew J. Frank at NRO: So the official position of the United States, in the Supreme Court anyway–notwithstanding the blandishments of the president of the United States–is that same-sex marriage is a constitutional right in those states that have civil unions, but that it is an “open question” whether this is so anywhere else. It might or might not be a constitutional right in, say, Mississippi, but it certainly is one in California!

FoxNews: President Obama nominated Justice Department official Thomas Perez for Labor secretary Monday — but the candidate could be haunted by a newly released report that found he gave incomplete testimony on the controversial decision to drop charges against members of the New Black Panther Party.

AP: President Barack Obama has chosen Thomas Perez, a top Justice Department official, to be the next secretary of labor, calling him a consensus builder whose “story reminds us of this country’s promise.”

Daniel Pipes at Middle East Quarterly: This example fits in a larger pattern: The establishment denies that Islamism—a form of Islam that seeks to make Muslims dominant through an extreme, totalistic, and rigid application of Islamic law, the Shari’a—represents the leading global cause of terrorism when it so clearly does. Islamism reverts to medieval norms in its aspiration to create a caliphate that rules humanity.

Jonathan H. Adler at Volokh Conspiracy: As his Election Law Blog Rick Hasen has a fairly thorough summary of the just-released Justice Department Inspector General’s report on the politicization of the Civil Rights division. The bottom line: liberal and conservative employees of the division did not play well with one another.

The Hill: President Obama plans to nominate Thomas Perez, who heads Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, to become the next secretary of Labor, according to reports.

Sentencing Law and Policy Blog: Thanks to a helpful reader, I have learned that earlier this week a representative of the US Department of Justice sent a lengthy and detailed letter to the US Sentencing Commission concerning its recent huge child pornography federal sentencing report (basics here and here).

CNSNews: The Obama Justice Department is arguing in the United States Supreme Court that children do not need mothers.

Pete Williams at NBC: Obama administration to express support for gay marriage before Supreme Court

Administration officials say the Justice Department will urge the U.S. Supreme Court to allow same-sex marriage to resume in California, wading into the protracted legal battle over Proposition 8 and giving gay-rights advocates a new court ally.

Business Insider: “[A]dministration lawyers worry that taking such an expansive view in legal briefs could unnerve some justices in the Supreme Court’s conservative wing, the people familiar with the matter said,” the Journal reported.

Heritage Foundation: President Obama has so many flip-flops in his policy positions that it’s hard to keep track. After running for President supporting traditional marriage, he “evolved” to support same-sex marriage—and now his Justice Department has officially urged the Supreme Court to overthrow the law of the land.

Pink News: “There’s a critical mass of states that have spoken out and believe states should continue to have the right to define marriage as between one man and one woman,” said Jim Campbell of the anti-equal marriage Alliance Defending Freedom.

Baptist Press: A family homeschooling safely in rural Tennessee may be forced to return to their native Germany, where the parents likely face huge fines and criminal penalties, and could lose custody of their five school-age children. Uwe and Hannelore Romeike are looking to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to give them permanent refugee status. But Attorney General Eric Holder is disputing their case, arguing Germany’s ban on homeschooling fails to violate the family’s fundamental rights.

Michael Farris at HSLDA: But, let’s assess the position of the United States government on the face of its argument: a nation violates no one’s rights if it bans homeschooling entirely.

Eugene Volokh at the Volokh Conspiracy:Of course, under the Free Exercise Clause as interpreted by Employment Division v. Smith (1990), the pastor’s religious belief would likely be constitutionally irrelevant — the duty to testify would likely be viewed as a generally religion-neutral law of general applicability, and even sincere religious objectors would not be entitled to a constitutional exemption. (I generally think this is the right approach.) There are some possible counterarguments. One might argue that the law is not generally applicable because the duty to testify includes a religious exemption for clergy (of any denomination) who refuse to testify about confidential communications that they feel religiously obligated to keep confidential. One might also argue that this case involves a “hybrid rights” claim, involving a supposed combination of a Free Exercise Clause claim and a freedom-from-compelled-speech claim.

Consider Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr.’s most prominent client, President Obama. In May, in announcing his support for same-sex marriage, Mr. Obama said the issue should be decided state by state. In his Inaugural Address last month, Mr. Obama seemed to …

Religion Clause Blog: Under the Agreed Order (full text) in United States v. City of Lomita California, (CD CA), the city will consider on an expedited basis a new application from the Islamic Center.

Charlie Savage at the NY Times: In certain respects, the current dispute is knottier and more abstract than Bush-era fights over the laws of war. But a common concern connects them: reciprocity, or the principle that a military should treat wartime prisoners the same as it wants adversaries to treat its soldiers.

Reuters: On separate occasions in recent days, lawyers on opposite sides of a Supreme Court fight over same-sex marriage took an elevator to the fifth floor of the Department of Justice, entered a large conference room and made a pitch to Solicitor General Donald Verrilli and other top Obama administration lawyers.

UVA: When University of Virginia law professor Toby Heytens was a law student, he was a self-described “law nerd” with a keen interest in constitutional law and the Supreme Court. Yet Heytens found the U.S. Office of the Solicitor General — which represents the federal government before the Supreme Court — to be a bit of a mystery.

Religion Clause Blog: The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced Tuesday the unsealing of indictments (full text of charging documents) charging 26 individuals in overlapping immigration fraud schemes involving fabricated claims of persecution asserted by Chinese aliens seeking asylum.  Those charged were lawyers and paralegals in ten different law firms in the Chinatown area of Manhattan and Queens . . .

AP: Obama says – quote – “It does not make sense from a prioritization point of view” to focus on drug use in states where it is now legal.

Al Daniel at SCOTUS Blog: In addition to the Office of the Solicitor General, the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) has seven litigating divisions, each headed by an Assistant Attorney General: the Antitrust Division, the Civil Division, the Civil Rights Division, the Criminal Division, the Environment and Natural Resources Division, the National Security Division, and the Tax Division. Each of these Divisions has a group of attorneys called either the Appellate Staff or the Appellate Section (collectively, “Appellate Staffs”).

AP: Attorney General Eric Holder and European Union Commissioner for Home Affairs Cecilia Malmström will launch a global alliance targeting online child sexual abuse, building on the success of cross-border police operations that have dismantled international pedophile networks.

San Francisco Chronicle (AP): The Justice Department has asked a federal judge to order a Kansas abortion opponent to answer the government’s questions about her relationship with the man convicted in the murder of abortion provider George Tiller, including compelling her to admit to statements she made to The Associated Press in which she said she admired the then-accused killer.

Wendy McElroy at the Future of Freedom Foundation: A racial agenda is about to be unleashed on America. According to Investor’s Business Daily (Nov. 8), the Obama administration intends to eliminate the “persistent gaps” between whites and minorities “in everything from credit scores and homeownership to test scores and graduation rates.”

The Hill: A new attorney general will face a thorough grilling from conservative senators on highly sensitive issues like the decision to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act, attempts to close the Guantánamo Bay prison, moves to block the implementation of state voter ID laws and the department’s refusal to give Congress thousands of documents relating to a failed gun-tracking operation.

Blog of the Legal Times: Two days after President Barack Obama won re-election, Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. said in remarks today in Baltimore he will assess whether he wants to continue his service at the helm of the U.S. Justice Department.

CNN (includes video): Conservatives and business groups often complain about the government’s growing numbers of regulations. Now CBN News has learned that government officials are using lawsuits to go after American citizens.

SCOTUS Blog: The Obama Administration on Friday urged the Supreme Court to hear and decide the most sweeping federal appeals court decision ever issued on gay rights, as the government’s preferred case for reviewing the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act.  Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli, Jr., in a new brief, said the Second Circuit Court case of Windsor v. United States is “the most appropriate vehicle” for review of DOMA’s ban on federal benefits for legally married same-sex couples.

LifeNews: The Obama administration is using the state of Arizona and claiming that its new law revoking taxpayer funding for the Planned Parenthood abortion business runs afoul of federal laws.

PJ Media: Ever since PJ Media’s blockbuster Every Single One Series documented the radical partisan lawyers hired as career civil servants in the Obama DOJ, many have asked me how this is accomplished. One way is that only attorneys are hired who have resumes which have obvious ideological histories. The Every Single One series provided the public copies of these resumes. They are filled with cues that were used in the hiring process to exclude some and include others. But Eric Holder is also personally furthering the cause of ideological hiring. One way Holder is accomplishing this goal is by recruiting from within identity politics organizations.

Blog of the Legal Times: The Senate Judiciary Committee today approved the nomination of William Baer to lead the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division on a 12-5 vote.

At the Volokh Conspiracy, Eugene Volokh offers more details about a video that has circulated on the Internet. See also this earlier Alliance Alert Post: Obama’s DOJ Can’t Say Criticizing Religion Will Remain Legal | Congressional Testimony Video

Reuters: The U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday asked the Supreme Court to consider two additional legal challenges to a federal law that defines marriage as between a man and a woman, after submitting similar cases for review in July.

NOLA.com: Federal District Court Judge Susie Morgan ruled Saturday that Justice Bernette Johnson has the seniority needed to succeed Catherine “Kitty” Kimball as chief justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court when Kimball retires early next year. In a decision issued just before 7 p.m., Morgan ruled that “any tenure accrued by Justice Johnson between Nov. 16, 1994 and October 7, 2000, is to be credited to her for all purposes under Louisiana law,” which would include determining whether she is the second most senior justice after Chief Justice Kimball.

SCOTUS Blog: The Obama Administration notified the Supreme Court Friday afternoon that it will shortly file two more requests — in cases from New England and New York — for the Justices to rule on the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

CNSNews: DOJ and the National Federation of the Blind objected to the program on grounds that blind people could not use the NOOK e-readers for technological reasons.

Religion Clause Blog: In United States v. Rutherford County, Tennessee, (MD TN, Aug. 29, 2012), a Tennessee federal district court permitted neighbors of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro to intervene in a RLUIPA lawsuit brought by the Justice Department.

The Florida Times Union: The federal government has sued Florida’s Department of Corrections for not offering kosher meals to all prison inmates.

SCOTUS Blog: The Obama Administration urged the Supreme Court on Monday to uphold the University of Texas’s use of race in selecting its incoming class of students, arguing that the university needed to add that factor to assure that more minorities are enrolled.

Blog of the Legal Times: More than 50 former federal judges and prosecutors are urging the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a dispute over alleged government misconduct, taking a position in the case against the Justice Department. | Amicus Brief

The Church Report: But Kenneth Miller’s lawyer, Joshua Autry, told the jury he would prove his client believed Lisa Miller had full custody of Isabella when she fled the country. “Your decision is not going to be a referendum for or against civil unions in the state of Vermont,” Autry told the jury. “It’s going to be about whether, at the time of the removal, Janet Jenkins had parental rights.”

Chicago Tribune: A Mennonite minister goes on trial this week for helping a woman flee to Nicaragua with her daughter to evade court-ordered visitation with her former same-sex partner, and he could face up to three years in jail if convicted.

Reuters: The Department of Justice told California’s high court on Thursday that it should not allow an illegal immigrant to practice law in the state even though he passed the bar exam and has the backing of state officials.

NPR: A landmark federal law used to block the adoption of state voter identification cards and other election rules now faces unprecedented legal challenges. A record five federal lawsuits filed this year challenge the constitutionality of a key provision in the Voting Rights Act.

World Magazine: Dale Schowengerdt with the Alliance Defending Freedom (formerly the Alliance Defense Fund) is one of those lawyers working with the House to defend DOMA in lower courts. In one challenge to DOMA in Philadelphia, he found himself standing on the side of the aisle where the Justice Department lawyer would normally stand, defending U.S. laws, while the Justice Department lawyer stood on the other side of the aisle. “When they made the announcement [that they wouldn't defend the law], we thought they’d just sit on the sidelines,” he said. “It was very strange to have the DOJ lawyer get up and attack the law.” [more]

Washington Examiner: A federal court in Washington, DC, held last week that political appointees appointed by President Obama did interfere with the Department of Justice’s prosecution of the New Black Panther Party.

AP: Congressional Republicans are striking out against the Justice Department, saying its decision to contest several state voter ID laws shows the agency isn’t concerned with the integrity of the vote.

TPM: The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has launched a formal investigation into whether Pennsylvania’s voter ID law discriminates against minorities, TPM has learned.

AP: A federal judge ordered a Tennessee county on Wednesday to move ahead with opening a Muslim congregation’s newly built mosque after a two-year fight from opponents.

LifeSiteNews: The federal government appears to be making a concerted effort to to gain intelligence on the pro-life movement, according to some of the movement’s most prominent leaders.

Lyle Denniston at SCOTUS Blog: The petition by Edith Schlain Windsor is the fourth petition in recent weeks challenging the constitutionality of a key section of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. It is the fifth new case on the rights of same-sex couples; beyond the DOMA cases; the other petition tests an Arizona law that limits state workers’ benefits if they are living in a gay relationship.

BuzzFeed: In a filing at the Supreme Court today, the ACLU asked the Court to hear the New York case of a woman who was forced to pay massive estate taxes after her wife’s death.

Reuters: An ailing 83-year-old lesbian asked the Supreme Court on Monday to hear her legal challenge against a federal law that defines marriage as a union between a man and woman, attempting to place her case on a fast-track to the top court. | ACLU press release: Supreme Court Asked to Review Edie Windsor’s Challenge to “Defense of Marriage Act”

The Daily Caller: Attorney General Eric Holder could lose his license to practice law in the District of Columbia, or face some other penalty from the D.C. Bar, now that he has been found in criminal and civil contempt of Congress.

One News Now: The Coalition of African American Pastors (CAAP) is demanding a meeting with President Barack Obama or Attorney General Eric Holder to discuss the president’s endorsement of homosexual “marriage.”

AP: Attorney General Eric Holder is charging that he’s become a “proxy” for Republican attacks against President Barack Obama in an election year.

The Hill: The Justice Department announced on Friday that it will not prosecute Attorney General Eric Holder for contempt of Congress.

Washington Times: Despite voting to hold Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in contempt of Congress, there’s little House Republicans can do in the short term to compel him to turn over documents — unless it wanted to revisit a long-dormant power and arrest him.