Friends in High Places

The Obama Justice Department went to bat for the New Black Panther party—and then covered it up.

BY Jennifer Rubin
June 21, 2010, Vol. 15, No. 38


Panthers at the Philadelphia polling station on Election Day 2008

The case is straightforward. On Election Day 2008, two members of the New Black Panther party (NBPP) dressed in military garb were captured on videotape at a Philadelphia polling place spouting racial epithets and menacing voters. One, Minister King Samir Shabazz, wielded a nightstick. It was a textbook case of voter intimidation and clearly covered under the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

A Department of Justice trial team was assigned to investigate. They gathered affidavits from witnesses—one of the poll watchers was called a “white devilâ€