Thread: Sessions did not disclose meetings with Russian ambassador

Sessions did not disclose meetings with Russian ambassador

By Evan Perez, Shimon Prokupecz and Eli Watkins, CNN
Updated 12:24 AM ET, Thu March 2, 2017

(CNN)Attorney General Jeff Sessions met twice last year with the top Russian diplomat in Washington whose interactions with President Donald Trump's former national security adviser Mike Flynn led to Flynn's firing, according to the Justice Department.

Sessions did not mention either meeting during his confirmation hearings when he said he knew of no contacts between Trump surrogates and Russians. A Justice official said Sessions didn't mislead senators during his confirmation.

The Washington Post first reported on Sessions' meetings with the official.

Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador, is considered by US intelligence to be one of Russia's top spies and spy-recruiters in Washington, according to current and former senior US government officials.

Sessions met with Kislyak twice, in July on the sidelines of the Republican convention, and in September in his office when Sessions was a member of the Senate Armed Services committee. Sessions was an early Trump backer and regular surrogate for him as a candidate.

Sessions responded swiftly Wednesday, strongly stating that he never discussed campaign-related issues with anyone from Russia.

"I never met with any Russian officials to discuss issues of the campaign," he said in a statement. "I have no idea what this allegation is about. It is false."

Key Democratic lawmakers immediately called for Sessions' resignation after the news broke.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi characterized Sessions' comments in his confirmation "apparent perjury," and said the attorney general should resign.

Kislyak's potential proximity to Russian spying is one reason why Flynn's interactions with him, and Flynn's failure to disclose what he discussed with Kislyak, raised concerns among intelligence officials.

In his confirmation hearing to become attorney general, Sessions was asked about Russia and he responded at the time that he "did not have communications with the Russians."

Sessions' spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores said there was nothing "misleading about his answer" to Congress because the Alabama Republican "was asked during the hearing about communications between Russia and the Trump campaign -- not about meetings he took as a senator and a member of the Armed Services Committee."

"Last year, the Senator had over 25 conversations with foreign ambassadors as a senior member of the Armed Services Committee, including the British, Korean, Japanese, Polish, Indian, Chinese, Canadian, Australian, German and Russian ambassadors," Isgur Flores said in the statement.

A Justice Department official confirmed the meetings, but said Sessions met with the ambassadors "in his capacity as a senator on the Armed Serviced Committee."

A White House official said: "This is the latest attack against the Trump Administration by partisan Democrats. (Attorney) General Sessions met with the ambassador in an official capacity as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which is entirely consistent with his testimony."

In reaction to the report, Rep. Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat and the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, also called for Sessions' resignation.

"There is no longer any question that we need a truly independent commission" to investigate potential ties between Russia and the Trump campaign, Cummings said. "It is inconceivable that even after Michael Flynn was fired for concealing his conversations with the Russians that Attorney General Sessions would keep his own conversations for several weeks."

Cummings called Sessions' claim during his confirmation hearing that he did not have communications with the Russians "demonstrably false."

Minnesota Democrat Sen. Al Franken, who asked Sessions about Russia at the confirmation hearing, said if the reports of Sessions' contacts with Kislyak were true, then Sessions' response was "at best misleading."

"It's clearer than ever now that the attorney general cannot, in good faith, oversee an investigation at the Department of Justice and the FBI of the Trump-Russia connection, and he must recuse himself immediately," Franken said.

News of Sessions' contacts with Kislyak came as the New York Times reported Wednesday evening that officials under former President Barack Obama had sent information throughout government about potential Russian contact with Trump's associates and interference in the 2016 election. The officials did so, the Times reported, in order to preserve the information after Obama left office.

Regarding the Obama administration efforts, Obama's spokesman Eric Schultz told CNN: "This situation was serious, as is evident by President Obama's call for a review -- and as is evident by the United States response. When the (intelligence community) does that type of comprehensive review, it is standard practice that a significant amount of information would be compiled and documented."

Two days before Trump's inauguration, the State Department sent Sen. Ben Cardin, a Maryland Democrat and the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a batch of documents related to Russian attempts to meddle in elections worldwide, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

Cardin spokesman Sean Bartlett told CNN that the senator had received the classified documents on request and that they were shared with both Republican and Democratic committee staffers.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/01/politi...ador-meetings/

https://www.alipac.us/f9/sessions-me...swoman-344327/

In my opinion, the above article is more of The Washington Post and CNN in lockstep to print slanderous fake news and innuendo. It is all about ginning up the liberals to keep them rabid and dancing in the streets.

As the second article points out.

Sessions met with more than two dozen foreign ambassadors last year in his capacity as a member of the Armed Services Committee, Flores said.

As for what Sessions told the Judiciary Committee, "he was asked during the hearing about communications between Russia and the Trump campaign — not about meetings he took as a senator and a member of the Armed Services Committee," she said.

https://www.alipac.us/f9/sessions-me...swoman-344327/

The Democrats are terrified of Sessions being Attorney General. It seems that Judicial Watch has already found the slush fund that the DOJ used to fund liberal organizations such as LaRaza, with money received through settlements with large corporations. Money that should have gone either to the treasury or the people that were actually harmed. With Sessions overseeing the DOJ, the National Council of LaRaza and the National Community Reinvestment Coalition won't get the billions of dollars from the DOJ slush that they have been accustomed to receiving to promote their agenda.

GOP wants to eliminate shadowy DOJ slush fund bankrolling leftist groups
https://www.alipac.us/f12/gop-wants-...#post1541793to getting

ABC BREAKING NEWS: AG JEFF SESSIONS WILL RECUSE HIMSELF FROM ANY PROBES OVER ALLEGED LINKS BETWEEN TRUMP CAMPAIGN AND RUSSIA

Thu Mar 2, 2017 | 5:31pm EST

Two more Trump campaign officials met Russian envoy: USA Today

At least two additional officials in Donald Trump's presidential campaign said they spoke with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyan at a conference on the sidelines of the Republican National Convention last July, USA Today reported on Thursday.

The newspaper said J.D. Gordon, who was the Trump campaign's director of national security, and Carter Page, another member of the campaign's national security advisory committee, both said they met the ambassador.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who also met Kislyan at the conference of diplomats in Cleveland that coincided with the Republican convention to select Trump as the party's presidential candidate.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-us...KBN1692ZN?il=0

The DNC emails were hacked in May of 2016. Announced by Julian Assange on June 12 to be released by Wikileaks. First group of emails related to Bernie Sanders and the DNC Chairperson, were released in July.

None of these meetings did or could have had anything do with Russian hacking to interfere in our elections.

This is all FALSE FLAG media hype and Congressional hysteria driven by the incestuous desire to bring down the Trump Presidency. So far all they've accomplished today is cause a stock drop of over 112 points.

GRRRR!!!

Kushner and Flynn Met With Russian Envoy in December, White House Says

By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT, MATTHEW ROSENBERG and MATT APUZZO MARCH 2, 2017



Michael T. Flynn, left, and Jared Kushner at the White House last month.Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — Michael T. Flynn, then Donald J. Trump’s incoming national security adviser, had a previously undisclosed meeting with the Russian ambassador in December to “establish a line of communication” between the new administration and the Russian government, the White House said on Thursday.

Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and now a senior adviser, also participated in the meeting at Trump Tower with Mr. Flynn and Sergey I. Kislyak, the Russian ambassador. But among Mr. Trump’s inner circle, it is Mr. Flynn who appears to have been the main interlocutor with the Russian envoy — the two were in contact during the campaign and the transition, Mr. Kislyak and current and former American officials have said.

But the extent and frequency of their contacts remains unclear, and the disclosure of the meeting at Trump Tower adds to the emerging picture of how the relationship between Mr. Trump’s incoming team and Moscow was evolving to include some of the president-elect’s most trusted advisers.

The White House has repeatedly sought to play down any connections with Mr. Kislyak. Attorney General Jeff Sessions acknowledged this week that he had met twice with him during the campaign, despite previous denials.

The New Yorker reported this week that Mr. Kushner had met with Mr. Kislyak at Trump Tower in December. Hope Hicks, a White House spokeswoman, confirmed on Thursday that Mr. Flynn was also at the meeting in response to questions from a New York Times reporter.

It is common and not improper for transition officials to meet with foreign officials. But all meetings between Trump associates and Russians are now significant as the F.B.I. investigates Russian interference in the American election and whether anyone close to Mr. Trump’s campaign was involved.

The meeting in December came at a crucial time, just as the Obama White House was preparing to sanction Russia and publicly make its case that Moscow had interfered with the 2016 election.

What is now becoming clear is that the incoming Trump administration was simultaneously striking a conciliatory pose toward Moscow in a series of meetings and phone calls involving Mr. Kislyak.

“They generally discussed the relationship and it made sense to establish a line of communication,” Ms. Hicks said. “Jared has had meetings with many other foreign countries and representatives — as many as two dozen other foreign countries’ leaders and representatives.”

The Trump Tower meeting lasted 20 minutes, and Mr. Kushner has not met since with Mr. Kislyak, Ms. Hicks said.

When first asked in January about Mr. Flynn’s contacts with Mr. Kislyak, the White House said that there had been only a text message and phone call between the men at the end of December, and that both came before the United States imposed sanctions. That was quickly contradicted by news reports.

Mr. Flynn’s story then began changing, and the White House eventually acknowledged the two men had discussed the sanctions and how the two countries could move past the acrimony once Mr. Trump was in office.

American officials have also said that there were multiple telephone calls between Mr. Flynn and Mr. Kislyak on Dec. 29, beginning shortly after Mr. Kislyak was summoned to the State Department and informed that, in retaliation for Russian election meddling, the United States was expelling 35 people suspected of being Russian intelligence operatives and imposing other sanctions.

Mr. Kislyak was irate and threatened a forceful Russian response, according to people familiar with the exchange. He then left the State Department and called Mr. Flynn, the first in a series of calls between the two in the 36 hours that followed.

American intelligence agencies routinely wiretap the phones of Russian diplomats, and transcripts of the calls showed that Mr. Flynn urged the Russians not to respond, saying relations would improve once Mr. Trump was in office, according to the current and former officials.

Mr. Flynn’s failure to fully disclose the nature of the calls with Mr. Kislyak ultimately cost him his job last month after a tumultuous 25 days as national security adviser.

The United States government has concluded that Russia intended, at least in part, to help elect Mr. Trump through a campaign of cyberattacks, propaganda and misinformation.

The government has concluded that Russian operatives were behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and John D. Podesta, the chairman of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

Current and former American officials have said that Mr. Flynn had contacts with Mr. Kislyak during the campaign. But few of the specifics of those contacts were known. The Russian ambassador has acknowledged that the two men had known each other since 2013 and were in contact during the campaign.

“It’s something all diplomats do,” Mr. Kislyak was quoted as saying by The Washington Post, though he refused to say what subjects he discussed with Mr. Flynn.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/02/u...ns-russia.html

The meeting in December came at a crucial time, just as the Obama White House was preparing to sanction Russia and publicly make its case that Moscow had interfered with the 2016 election.

Well, lets see, you issued sanctions and threw 35 Russian diplomats out of the United States. That was in December.

This is March, and so far, there's not been one scintilla of evidence presented to the American People about the "case" you've already sanctioned a country for.

In the United States, Mr. Obama, we like to see the evidence before you can expect our support for a punishment.

Your antics have potentially ruined a new relationship with Russia.

Your antics have cost Mike Flynn his job as National Security Advisor for President Trump.

Your antics have almost cost Jeff Sessions his job as Attorney General.

How many lives are you going to ruin before you show your "case" that Russia tried to interfere with our election, the election you lost, the one you and Michelle went out and begged and banged on the stump to win for Hillary Clinton? Did you try to interfere in our election with lies?

The election is over, you lost. There's nothing you can do to change that. And Russia had nothing to do with it. You lost because the majority of Americans in 30 states want our jobs back, our bad trade deals fixed, our wages up, our money brought back, our borders secured, illegal aliens deported, regulations reduced, taxes reduced and changed, our infrastructure and military upgraded, and spending reduced by putting people back to work and ejecting illegal aliens so we aren't spending hundreds of billions of American dollars on poverty programs every single year. And yeah, most Americans are truly befuddled with why we're still in a cold war with Russia, our old Ally, a nation with whom we have more in common today that many other countries whose dumb asses we're kissing from sunup to sundown. So sure, we'd like to try a new deal with Russia without it being sandbagged by a con artist named Obama.

This is what Jeff Sessions has inherited without any of his own team confirmed, he is on his own with this bunch of socialist, in my opinion, Socialist/Communists in the DOJ that are now government employees and almost impossible to fire.

This is a very long report and I have opened the first two articles of the series.

'Every Single One': PJ Media's Investigation of Justice Department Hiring Practices


Every Single One: The Politicized Hiring of Eric Holder’s Voting Section

Every Single One: The Politicized Hiring of Eric Holder’s Voting Section


BY HANS A. VON SPAKOVSKY AUGUST 8, 2011
CHAT 0 COMMENTS

Recently released documents -- disclosed by the Obama Justice Department only after a court battle -- reveal that the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice is engaging in politicized hiring in the career civil service ranks. Typical Washington behavior, you say? Except the hiring in question is nearly unprecedented in scope and significantly eclipses anything the Bush administration was even accused of doing. And the evidence of the current political activity is far less impeachable than what was behind the libelous attacks leveled at officials from the Bush years.

For nearly a year, the Civil Rights Division rebuffed Pajamas Media’s Freedom of Information Act request for the resumes of attorneys hired into the Division during the tenure of Eric Holder. PJM was finally forced to file a federal lawsuit earlier this year. Only then did Justice relent and turn over the documents. The result leaves little wonder why PJM’s request was met with such intense resistance.

The Department’s political leadership clearly recognized that the resumes of these new attorneys would expose the hypocrisy of the Obama administration’s polemical attacks on the Bush administration for supposedly engaging in “politicized hiring” -- and that everyone would see just how militantly partisan the Obama Civil Rights Division truly is. Holder’s year-long delay before producing these documents -- particularly when compared to the almost-instantaneous turnaround by the Bush administration of a virtually identical request by the Boston Globe back in 2006 -- also shows how deep politics now runs in the Department.

As Richard Pollock of Pajamas Media observed in an article, none of this should surprise anyone even remotely familiar with Holder’s highly partisan nature. Indeed, Holder boasted to the American Constitution Society (an organization started as a liberal counterweight to the Federalist Society) back in June 2008 that the Obama Justice Department was “going to be looking for people who share our values,” and that “a substantial number of those people would probably be members of the American Constitution Society.” The hiring records from Holder’s initial thirty months in office underscore how serious he was about this mission.

This is the first in a series of articles by Pajamas Media about the Civil Rights Division’s hiring practices since President Obama took office. These accounts will put to the test Holder’s repeated (and all-too-rarely scrutinized) statement that ideological considerations play no role in the hiring of career attorneys in his Department -- a test that the Department’s practices clearly fail.

The evidence will demonstrate that, in contrast to the Bush administration’s Civil Rights Division -- which hired individuals from across the political spectrum -- there has been nary a token conservative welcomed into the Division under Holder. More than that, though, this series will show that the ranks of new civil servants arriving in Holder’s civil rights shop in protected civil service slots are some of the most strident ideologues in Washington.

But don’t just take my word for it. Let the resumes speak for themselves.

We start today with the Civil Rights Division’s Voting Section. This Section is responsible for enforcing, among other things, all aspects of the Voting Rights Act. This includes reviewing redistricting and other pre-clearance submissions under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act that covered jurisdictions throughout the country must submit to the Justice Department for approval. Redistricting maps, voter ID statutes, citizenship verification laws, and a host of other politically contentious election issues rest in the hands of these Voting Section bureaucrats.

Long a refuge of partisan activists and ideological crusaders, the Section has been filling its ranks over the last 30 months with like-minded liberals ready to do the bidding of left-wing advocacy organizations. Sixteen attorneys have come on board in this hiring binge. Who are these new radicals?

Bryan Sells: Mr. Sells was recently hired as one of the Voting Section’s new deputy chiefs. He comes to the Department from the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, where he worked for nearly 10 years as a Senior Staff Counsel. During his tenure, his organization strongly opposed all voter ID laws, and challenged the right of states to verify the U.S. citizenship of individuals seeking to register to vote. He also characterized state felon disenfranchisement laws -- which are expressly authorized in the Constitution -- as a “slap in the face to democracy,” and consistently took the most aggressive (and generally legally unsupportable) positions on redistricting cases throughout the country.

Meredith Bell-Platts: The other new deputy chief hired by the Voting Section, Meredith Bell-Platts, also comes from the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, where she, too, spent nearly 10 years. Much of her time there was devoted to blasting voter ID requirements, which she claimed were motivated by people who do not want to see blacks vote (an issue on which she consistently lost in court). Before arriving at the ACLU, Ms. Bell-Platts was a founding member of the Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law, a publication whose stated “mission is to explore the impact of gender, sexuality, and race on both the theory and practice of law” and thereby “complement[] a long tradition of feminist scholarship and advocacy at the [Georgetown] Law Center.”

Anna Baldwin: While all of the new trial attorneys hired into the Voting Section have streaks of radicalism, few can match Ms. Baldwin. A financial contributor to the Obama presidential campaign, she clerked for two liberal Clinton appointees on the federal bench and then worked briefly at Jenner & Block (a D.C. law firm which has been a major feeder of Democratic political appointees to the Obama administration), where she primarily pursued liberal positions in pro bono litigation. During law school, she interned at the International Labor Rights Fund and Women’s Agenda for Change.

Prior to that, Baldwin served for three years as field coordinator for Equality Florida, where she “coordinated lobbying and state legislative policy work on behalf of Florida’s gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities.” Meanwhile, in her undergraduate days at Harvard, she was a member of the "Queer Resistance Front" and was frequently covered in the Harvard Crimson for her radical antics. A review of these campus newspaper articles suggests that Ms. Baldwin will have to work very hard to separate her activist politics from her role as an apolitical civil servant. Then again, if she takes her cues from most of her Voting Section colleagues, she won’t even need to attempt such separation. As the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case showed, partisanship and law enforcement are one and the same in Holder’s Civil Rights Division.

Risa Berkower: Ms. Berkower was hired into the Voting Section following a clerkship with U.S. District Judge Christopher Droney, a liberal jurist who President Obama recently nominated to the Second Circuit and whose brother is the former state chairman of the Connecticut Democratic Party. During law school at Fordham, she interned in the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, a notorious hotbed of left-wing activity. She also worked on the "Student Hurricane Network" with members of the NAACP LDF, the Advancement Project, and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights. It was in her undergraduate days at Yale, though, that she really let her left-wing political colors shine. While on the Yale College Council, she wrote an editorial advocating support of unionization of Yale graduate students and advocated “neutrality” in card-check reform (which has become a major Obama initiative as a sop to organized labor).

It is quite ironic that a lawyer who refused to oppose the effort by unions to get rid of the secret ballot, a fundamental mainstay of our democracy, is now charged with protecting voting rights. All of the leadership positions on Berkower’s resume were conspicuously redacted by the Obama administration in its FOIA response to PJM. And lest you think she abandoned her radical ways since arriving in the Civil Rights Division, Ms. Berkower is the same Voting Section attorney who negotiated the outlandish consent decree with the state of Rhode Island earlier this year in a case under Section 7 of the National Voter Registration Act which, as Christian Adams detailed extensively, ignored the requirements of federal law and represented a gross abuse of federal authority.

Daniel Freeman: Mr. Freeman comes to the Voting Section following a fellowship at the New York Civil Liberties Union. He previously interned at the ACLU, where he assisted the organization with its efforts to attack the Bush administration’s national security policies. He also helped to challenge the “state secrets privilege” and to support the rights of terrorist detainees at Guantanamo Bay during an internship at Human Rights First.

On his resume, Freeman proudly notes his membership in the liberal American Constitution Society, as well as his service as co-chair of the Yale Law School Democrats. Of course, being a member of the American Constitution Society does not bar you from federal employment. Yet the Bush administration was castigated for hiring lawyers who were members of the Federalist Society. Incidentally, Mr. Freeman is helping lead the Voting Section’s review of redistricting submissions from the state of Alabama.

Jenigh Garrett: Ms. Garrett worked for approximately five years as an assistant counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund (LDF), where she worked on voting-related litigation. She co-drafted the NAACP LDF’s amicus brief in Crawford v. Marion County Board of Elections, claiming that voter ID laws are unconstitutional (a position the Supreme Court rejected in an opinion by Justice John Paul Stevens).

Garrett also was a member of the organization’s litigation team in Hayden v. Paterson, arguing that felon disenfranchisement laws violate the Voting Rights Act (a position the Second Circuit rejected). She is a member of the American Constitution Society and recently gave a presentation at Yale Law School on “The Future of Black Legal Scholarship and Activism.” Although DOJ’s FOIA shop notably redacted her other activities on her resume, perhaps legislators in Virginia can ask her about them: she is the redistricting point of contact for the Commonwealth.

Abel Gomez: Mr. Gomez initially came to the Voting Section in the waning days of the Clinton administration as part of a wave of hiring engineered by former Acting Assistant Attorney General Bill Yeomans. The intent: stack the Civil Rights Division with left-wing activists before President Bush took office. Gomez had previously served for six years as a public defender in Tallahassee, Florida. In 2007, he left the Civil Rights Division to join another component of the Department of Justice, but was eager to rejoin the Voting Section once Obama and Holder were in charge. In addition to his voting work, FEC records reveal that he is a significant financial contributor to the “Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund” and to organizations opposing California’s Proposition 8 (Marriage Protection Act).

Bradley Heard: Before joining the Voting Section, Mr. Heard worked for a number of years at the Advancement Project, a radical left-wing voting organization. The Advancement Project has worked closely with the ACLU, NAACP LDF, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, and other liberal advocates to oppose voter ID statutes, felon disenfranchisement laws, and citizenship verification regulations, and to take myriad other militant positions on state and federal voting rights laws. Mr. Heard fit right in at the Advancement Project, having previously founded the Georgia Voter Empowerment Project, which describes its mission as increasing the “civic participation levels of progressive-minded Georgians.”

Amusingly, before moving to Washington, Mr. Heard had a nasty breakup with his plaintiff’s civil rights firm in Atlanta. He commenced litigation against his partners, who in turn claimed he was engaging in misconduct. Heard then sought criminal arrest warrants against his former partners, charging that they had engaged in false voter registration and voting by an unqualified elector, both felonies. The court declined to issue the warrants. South Carolina officials can ask Mr. Heard about these events during his review of the state’s redistricting submission; after all, he is the point of contact for the Voting Section.

Michelle McLeod: Ms. McLeod has overcome substantial adversity in her personal life, and her story is an admirable one in many respects. But her liberal bona fides are equally genuine, and likely represent the primary reason why she was hired into the Voting Section under Eric Holder’s regime. Ms. McLeod came straight to the Justice Department after her graduation from law school at the University of Maryland, where she worked as a research assistant to Professor Sherrilyn Ifill, a radical academic whose writings and media appearances on voting rights and race issues take her well out of the mainstream.

Ms. McLeod also worked in the law school’s Post-Conviction Appellate Advocacy Clinic, assisting convicted felons with their direct appeals and habeas corpus challenges. As an undergraduate at East Carolina University, she interned for the SEIU Local’s New York Civic Participation Project, where she wrote articles favorable to labor unions. She also interned for the National Employment Law Project, drafting pro-union articles and other publications relating to workers’ rights. She is now one of the Voting Section’s points of contact for redistricting in Mississippi.

Catherine Meza. Ms. Meza, who contributed $450 to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign before getting hired by the Voting Section, has a rich history of liberal advocacy. During law school at Berkeley, she interned for (i) the NAACP LDF, where she worked on voting rights and “economic justice” issues, (ii) Bay Area Legal Aid, (iii) the ACLU of Northern California, (iv) the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), (v) Centro Legal de la Raza, and (vi) the East Bay Community Law Center Workers’ Rights Clinic. She also worked as a legislative intern for Democratic Rep. (now Sen.) Robert Menendez of New Jersey as part of a fellowship with the liberal National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. On her resume, Meza proudly proclaims her membership in the American Constitution Society and her role as an Advisory Board Member of the Thelton Henderson Center for Social Justice. Talk about filling the whole bingo card! Meanwhile, while working a brief stint at the Fried Frank law firm after law graduation, she assisted on a pro bono case seeking to preserve the confidentiality of ID cards issued to illegal aliens by the city of New Haven, Connecticut, an effort to help illegal aliens avoid being prosecuted for violating federal law. She also helped draft a report for the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination in which she suggested that the U.S. “government’s programs and policies continue to perpetuate segregation and concentrate poverty in communities of color.”

Kelli Reynolds: Ms. Reynolds arrived in the Voting Section having worked for several years as the Senior Redistricting Counsel and Assistant General Counsel at the NAACP. While there, she managed the organization’s National Redistricting Project, no doubt working closely with many of her now-colleagues in the Voting Section. She also boasts on her resume of her membership in the American Trial Lawyers Association (or, as that plaintiffs’ lawyers group now likes to euphemistically refer to itself, the “American Association for Justice”).

Elise Shore. Ms. Shore came to the Voting Section by way of the “Southern Coalition for Social Justice,” where she worked as a legal consultant focusing on “voting rights, immigrant rights, and other civil rights and social justice issues.” The far left-wing positions of this group are nicely summarized on its website. Ms. Shore also made a $1,000 contribution to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

Before joining the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, she worked for more than two years as a Regional Counsel for MALDEF. There, she was an outspoken critic of Georgia’s voter ID law and well as its proof of citizenship requirements for voter registration (which, incidentally, have been found to be non-discriminatory by a federal court) and described how heartened she was that the Civil Rights Division had objected to the registration law under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. But her joy must have been fleeting: the Division later capitulated and withdrew its objection after Georgia filed a federal declaratory judgment action. It will be interesting to see if Shore can put her politics to the side in her role as the Voting Section’s point of contact for all redistricting submissions in the state of Florida.

Jaye Sitton: Ms. Sitton first joined the Civil Rights Division during the Clinton administration, but left immediately before President Bush took office in order to become an international human rights lawyer. (This desire not to serve in a Republican administration seems to be a recurring theme among many of the individuals hired into the career ranks of the Division during the Clinton years.) Before recently returning to work as an attorney the Voting Section, she volunteered to work in North Carolina for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.

Sitton is a member of the “Intersex Society of North America,” an organization “devoted to systemic change to end shame, secrecy, and unwanted genital surgeries for people born with an anatomy that someone decided is not standard for male or female.” She also taught a course on “sexuality, sexual orientation, gender, and the law” at the College of William and Mary Law School, and wrote a law review article titled “(De)Constructing Sex: Transgenderism, Intersexuality, Gender Identity and the Law” for the William and Mary Law Journal.

Sharyn Tejani: Ms. Tejani is another activist who has come to the Voting Section to masquerade as a career civil servant. She also first joined the Civil Rights Division during the Clinton administration but left within two months of President Bush taking office. Her resume boasts of her work defending affirmative-action programs, i.e., racial quotas, during that earlier stint of employment. She recently returned, however, after having worked as a Senior Policy Counsel for the National Partnership for Women and Families, a left-wing organization that advocates greater abortion rights and is deeply involved in judicial nomination battles in favor of liberal candidates and in opposition to conservative candidates. Prior to that, Tejani served for more than three years as an advisor to one of the Democratic commissioners on the EEOC, and for three additional years as the Legal Director of the Feminist Majority Foundation. In her writings, she has advocated for the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would require equal pay for men and women even when there are legitimate work- and experience-related reasons for those pay disparities. She also wrote an article for Ms. Magazine sharply criticizing any efforts by the Commission on Opportunity in Athletics to modify Title IX regulations to stop the discrimination that has occurred against men’s sport programs.

Justin Weinstein-Tull: Mr. Weinstein-Tull, a $250 contributor to President Obama’s 2008 campaign, was hired into the Voting Section following a clerkship for Judge Sidney Thomas, one of the most liberal judges on the Ninth Circuit. One can see why Judge Thomas was eager to have him in chambers. Indeed, Mr. Weinstein-Tull interned with the ACLU of Southern California, worked as a research associate at the liberal Urban Institute, and served as a fellow at the Congressional Hunger Center.

He also wrote a law review article for the University of Virginia Law Review in which he criticized the Supreme Court’s decision in Gonzales v. Carhart -- affirming the constitutionality of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 -- as a setback to a woman’s right to choose abortion. Mr. Weinstein-Tull will now be one of the Voting Section’s points of contact for redistricting submissions from the state of North Carolina.

Elizabeth Westfall: Last, but certainly not least, is Ms. Westfall. According to the Federal Election Commission website, she contributed nearly $7,000 to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential election campaign, contributed another $4,400 to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, contributed $2,000 to Wesley Clark’s presidential campaign in 2004, contributed $3,000 to John Kerry’s presidential campaign and compliance fund in 2004, contributed $500 to former Senate Democratic Majority Leader Tom Daschle’s PAC in 2004, and contributed $2,000 to Hillary Clinton’s U.S. Senate campaign in 2000.

In addition to this incredible funding of Democratic candidates, Westfall worked for six years at the far-left Advancement Project, directing its Voter Protection Program and managing its litigation and advocacy activities. She also previously served as a staff attorney at the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights in its Fair Housing Group, and worked on the Hill as a legislative assistant to then-Congressman Bill Richardson (D-NM).

On Westfall’s self-drafted Harvard alumni biography, she notes that she has testified before the U.S. Congress about supposed "barriers” to voter registration, “unwarranted” purging of the voter rolls, and voter caging. While those subjects may sound benign, in fact, the Advancement Project and the Lawyers Committee claim that common-sense reforms like voter ID or requiring proof of citizenship are “barriers” to voting and registration and that removing voters who have moved or otherwise become ineligible to vote is “unwarranted purging.”

“Vote caging,” an imaginary crime the Left dreamed up several years ago, faults any efforts by private parties to challenge the eligibility of voters when first-class mail sent to their registration addresses is returned by the U.S. Postal Service as undeliverable because they no longer live there. This despite the fact that federal law specifically authorizes election officials to use the USPS for that very purpose. Just the kind of neutral, detached attorney a state wants reviewing its redistricting submissions and applying the heavy hand of the federal government in voting rights enforcement actions. California’s redistricting submission will be in the hands of Ms. Westfall.

These 16 new attorneys, liberal partisans one and all, now join the career civil service ranks of an already heavily politicized Voting Section in the Civil Rights Division. Supervision, meanwhile, comes from Deputy Assistant Attorney General Julie Fernandes, whose public pronouncements about her refusal to apply the voting rights laws in an even-handed and race-neutral format are now infamous. The likelihood of the federal voting-rights laws being enforced in a fair and neutral fashion by this group of radicals is incredibly slim. Eric Holder clearly recognizes, as Ronald Reagan astutely observed, that “personnel is policy,” and Holder and his staff are doing everything in their power to ensure that the policies and legal positions advanced by the Civil Rights Division bureaucracy are in line with those of the Obama administration.

The real scandal, however, is the utter disregard by the so-called “mainstream media” and DOJ Inspector General’s Office of the blatant politicization of the hiring process in the Obama Civil Rights Division. I previously wrote about the absurdity of the attacks on Bush civil rights officials who were unfairly pilloried for supposedly hiring on the basis of political affiliation. I pointed out how the IG’s Office and the former Civil Rights Division attorney who spearheaded the Office of Professional Responsibility’s joint review glibly ignored all evidence that did not fit their biased narrative. A blind eye was turned towards the numerous liberal attorneys who were hired and promoted in the Voting Section during the Bush years.

Now, though, with the Obama Civil Rights Division virtually devoid of conservative hires, the press has gone silent and DOJ’s internal watchdogs have expressed nothing but indifference. This is particularly ironic given that almost all of these hires previously worked at organizations labeled as “liberal” by the joint OIG/OPR report attacking the Bush administration. So by the OIG/OPR’s own prior standards, the Obama administration has hired individuals exclusively from only one side of the political aisle. Once again, the one-way ratchet.

No apology will be forthcoming to the Bush Justice Department officials who were subjected to outrageous and unwarranted attacks, of course. But at least the public record is being fleshed out. Perhaps the Inspector General’s Office will redeem itself as a credible organization in its new probe of the Voting Section’s activities over the last 20 years. Whatever happens inside DOJ, though, at least the public is now aware that the almost daily rhetoric about neutrality that emanate from Eric Holder and his civil rights chief, Thomas Perez, is belied by their hiring decisions.

From the racially motivated dismissal of the New Black Panther Party lawsuit, to the partisan Section 5 objection to the change to nonpartisan elections in Kinston, N.C., on the offensive and patronizing grounds that blacks are not smart enough to know who to vote for without a party label next to the candidate’s name, to the baseless objection to Georgia’s citizenship verification requirements (later withdrawn by the Voting Section in the face of a federal lawsuit), to the dilatory and inept efforts to protect the voting rights of active military personnel, to the complete and total paucity of enforcement of Section 8 of the NVRA (requiring that voting rolls be purged of dead and ineligible voters), Eric Holder’s tenure has been distinguished by weighty evidence of partisan and ideological decision-making.

It seems that enforcement activity is governed predominantly by political, not legal, factors. And with the new radical ideologues in the Voting Section, it is difficult to imagine the situation improving any time soon. Americans deserve much better from their Department of Justice.

Reviewing the Resumes: The Politicized Hiring of Eric Holder’s Voting Section

Reviewing the Resumes: The Politicized Hiring of Eric Holder’s Voting Section



BY J. CHRISTIAN ADAMS

AUGUST 9, 2011


Eric Holder’s Justice Department wields enormous power over the American political landscape heading into the 2012 elections. Under the Voting Rights Act, sixteen states must submit any election law change to the Justice Department for approval. The law also gives the states the right to go to federal court for approval instead.

States need to understand the biographies of the DOJ officials who will be responsible for managing the review of these submissions. PJM has learned their backgrounds weigh in favor of bypassing the DOJ and going straight to court.

PJM has been investigating an unprecedented hiring blitz by the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department since Obama’s inauguration. In these lean economic times, Eric Holder went on a hiring frenzy, bringing over 130 high-paid government attorneys onto the federal payroll.

After the Bush administration was accused of hiring some attorneys for ideological reasons, PJM requested the resumes of the new Obama hires back in the summer of 2010. The Bush administration satisfied similar media requests within weeks, but a lawsuit had to be filed to dislodge the resumes from the Most Transparent Administration in History. The resumes were only recently turned over -- but redacted. (Hans von Spakovsky authored this piece yesterday providing the first review of the resumes.)
The biographies of the people holding the power to review election law changes are wholly relevant to which course state government officials should choose. They should know the Voting Section has a history of being sanctioned and scolded by federal courts for mischief in the redistricting process. Courts have described biased Section 5 reviews by the Voting Section as an “embarrassment” and “disturbing.” The DOJ’s relationship with the ACLU was described by a federal court as “that of peers working together.” The same court all but called DOJ lawyers liars, saying their “professed amnesia” was “less than credible.”
This tawdry history of misconduct by the DOJ coupled with the enormous power to meddle with state election laws more than justifies the examination of the individuals who wield the power in the Obama administration.

Sixteen states, mostly in the south, must submit the tiniest of changes to the federal government for approval under the Voting Rights Act. If a polling place moves from a school cafeteria to the school gym, Washington must approve. If a voter registration office expands business hours by 15 minutes, Washington must approve. If a state adopts a photo identification requirement or passes new legislative districts, changes now occurring across the nation, Washington must approve.

If states covered by Section 5 want to see their redistricting plans and voter identification laws approved, they should go to federal court and bypass the bureaucrats inside the DOJ. Many are relishing the prospect of states like South Carolina running the gauntlet of hostile Justice Department lawyers to obtain approval of voter identification laws or new legislative districts. After Hans von Spakovsky and I urged states to go to court instead, partisan Democrat lawyers claimed fears of DOJ were overblown.

Tell that to Georgia. Georgia enacted a law requiring voter registrants to demonstrate they are American citizens. To Elise Shore at the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, this was an outrage, and her organization sued Georgia. She did much more. She badgered DOJ to interpose an objection to the citizenship requirement in 2009. When MALDEF talks, the Obama DOJ listens. Georgia then decided to yank the submission from DOJ and sue in federal court for approval. For good measure, Georgia challenged the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

The bureaucrats ran for the hills in terror, knowing the federal court would approve the citizenship verification requirement, and terrified the court would strike down Section 5. James Buchanan won a Nobel Prize in economics for his Public Choice theory, the idea that bureaucrats make decisions based on personal self-interest rather than public criteria. The swift DOJ retreat on the Georgia citizenship verification objection, and the fear that continued DOJ intransigence might nullify dozens of high-paying jobs inside the Voting Section, brought a swift capitulation by Voting Section management.

And what does Elise Shore, formerly of MALDEF, do now? She works in the Obama Voting Section and will be reviewing state redistricting plans and new voter integrity laws in Florida.

Not only did Shore contribute $1,000 to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, her resume is a lengthy story of a leftist activist. Shore also worked for the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, a group dedicated to “environmental justice” and aiding illegal aliens. Naturally, while at MALDEF, she vigorously campaigned for comprehensive amnesty for illegal aliens and characterized the citizenship verification program as an attempt to “disenfranchise” not only Hispanics, but also blacks. She also fought against Georgia’s photo identification requirement for voters, something states passing such laws should realize.

Florida recently submitted for DOJ approval a new law which limits the amount of time that ACORN-style groups can hold voter registration forms they harvest. The civil rights industry mobilized in opposition. Jesse Jackson held a rally in Tampa, railing against “Jim Crow.” To Jackson, moving the hours of early voting and requiring timely turnover of voter registration equals Jim Crow. After some early conversations with Shore at DOJ, and upon learning more about her background, Florida wisely yanked the submission and sought out a neutral federal judge for approval.

"By asking a court to rule on certain aspects of the bill, we are assured of a neutral evaluation based on the facts,” said Secretary of State Kurt Browning.
But the DOJ Voting Section has more “poster children” demonstrating why states should go straight to federal court.

Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange should be wary. If he submits Alabama’s redistricting plans to DOJ, they will be reviewed by Daniel Freeman. Freeman’s resume shows he worked at the New York Civil Liberties Union and interned for the ACLU. Rounding out his ideological bona fides, he helped Islamic terrorists held in Guantanamo while working for Human Rights First, a George Soros-funded group. Indeed, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee named him the Pro-Bono Attorney of the Year. He was the chair of the Yale Law School Democrats and a member of the Yale College Democrats while an undergraduate.

The Most Transparent Administration in History conspicuously redacted some of Freeman’s activities while at Yale. Freeman brings the perfect partisan pedigree combined with the requisite ideological fervor to Eric Holder’s Voting Section. Alabama would be better off submitting important election changes straight to a federal judge who won’t have the same sort of background as Freeman.

Unfortunately, Alabama won’t be the only state where Freeman will be reviewing redistricting changes. Alaska Attorney General John Burns should also consider sending Alaska election law changes straight to federal court to bypass Freeman. Joining Freeman to review any Alaska submission will be Jaye Sitton. Sitton is a donor to Democratic candidates and the resume she submitted to DOJ boldly proclaims she was a volunteer for “Barack Obama’s Campaign for Change.” She is also a member of GAYLAW and the Intersex Society of North America -- whatever that is.

California election law changes will be reviewed by DOJ lawyer Elizabeth Westfall. Westfall worked for the Advancement Project, a Soros-funded group notable for blocking efforts around the country to purge voter rolls of ineligible voters. But Westfall also has stunningly deep political pockets. She maxed out her political contributions to Barack Obama, giving him $4,600 in 2008. For good measure, she donated, $2,300 to the “Obama Victory Fund.” Before she was smitten with Obama, she helped Hillary Clinton, to the tune of $2,100 in 2006 and $2,300 in 2007. She gave thousands of dollars to other Democratic candidates, including Wesley Clark, John Kerry, and Tom Daschle.

Like Daniel Freeman, Elizabeth Westfall has the perfect mix of liberal activism combined with raw partisan politics to work in Eric Holder’s Voting Section.Election law changes in Mississippi will face Michelle McLeod, an attorney with a purple-shirted background in the labor movement. Her resume reveals she worked for the SEIU’s New York “Civic Participation Project” as well as the National Employment Law Project, a pro-union outfit. She also won an award from LexisNexis and Minority Corporate Counsel Association “for demonstrated … commitment to advancing diversity in the legal profession.”

North Carolina has been considering both voter identification laws as well as legislative redistricting plans. Signs are that the Tar Heel state will be bypassing DOJ. Awaiting any North Carolina submission is Justin Weinstein-Tull. He too is a donor to the Barack Obama presidential campaign, and his resume shows he worked for the ACLU in Southern California. He has published a law review article characterizing bans on partial birth abortion as infringing on constitutional rights.

South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson should take note of the Obama administration attorney hire reviewing the submissions he made to DOJ instead of to court. DOJ lawyer Bradley Heard is a longstanding opponent of voter integrity initiatives. He worked for the Advancement Project, the Soros-funded organization dedicated to blocking voter integrity efforts like voter ID. Stranger still, Heard had a nasty falling-out with his old law firm which resulted in wicked litigation. He sued his partners, and they responded by alleging Heard engaged in misconduct at the firm. Heard filed criminal arrest warrants against his former partners, alleging they had engaged in false voter registration and voter fraud. It may mark the first and last time Heard was concerned about phony voter registration and voter fraud.

For good measure, Michelle McLeod, formerly of the SEIU, will join Heard to review the submissions made by South Carolina. McLeod will also be responsible for statewide election law changes in South Dakota, so Attorney General Marty Jackley should take note.South Carolina has made a serious mistake in submitting voter ID and redistricting plans to Justice. Every other covered southern Section 5 state realized they couldn’t trust DOJ to give a fair and lawful review of the plan and so they filed in court. Florida even realized DOJ can’t be trusted to review early voting times. Why South Carolina ignored the wisdom of sister southern states is a mystery.

Reviewing changes in Georgia and Michigan will be Maria Rios, a long-term DOJ Civil Rights Division attorney, and Jennifer Maranzano. Maranzano also worked for the George Soros-funded Advancement Project.

In fact, the resumes reveal that almost all of the organizations which formerly employed these new DOJ Voting Section lawyers were funded by George Soros. Expect the George Soros-funded media to rush to their defense shortly.The sixteen states covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act should go straight to federal court, where they can obtain an unbiased, non-partisan, and fair review of election law changes. Rules of evidence and civil procedure will govern the submission, not ideological whimsy. Detached magistrates will make the decision, not attorneys who formerly worked for the pet projects of George Soros.

Every Single One: The Politicized Hiring of Eric Holder’s Immigration Office
Every Single One: The Politicized Hiring of Eric Holder’s Special Litigation Section
Every Single One: The Politicized Hiring of Eric Holder’s Education Section
Every Single One: The Politicized Hiring of Eric Holder’s Employment Section
Every Single One: The Politicized Hiring of Eric Holder’s Compliance Section
Every Single One: The Politicized Hiring of Eric Holder’s Housing Section
Every Single One: The Politicized Hiring of Eric Holder’s Disability Rights Section
Every Single One: The Politicized Hiring of Eric Holder’s Criminal Section
Every Single One: The Politicized Hiring of Eric Holder’s Appellate Section
‘Every Single One’ Fallout: Justice Dept. in Turmoil From PJMedia Series
https://pjmedia.com/every-single-one-pj-medias-investigation-of-justice-department-hiring-practices/