The National Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) represents 330,000 police officers nationwide. FOP is expressing extreme displeasure over President Barack Obama’s new Justice Department nominee, issuing a scathing letter of opposition to Debo Adegbile.
At the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Civil Rights Division is tasked with safeguarding the constitutional and statutory rights of American citizens against violations from state and local governments, with a special focus on protecting against racial discrimination. It was created by Congress in 1957.
Obama’s first assistant attorney general for civil rights was Thomas Perez, the controversial figure associated with, among many other things, meddling in an important federal lawsuit against St. Paul, Minnesota. Perez pushed the far left’s disparate-impact theory, which would allow federal courts to hold that a city is discriminating against racial minorities solely on the basis of statistics regarding housing, with no evidence whatever of any discriminatory intent.
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a case raising that issue, Manger v. Gallagher. Many legal experts believed the Court would reject this legal theory and hold that mere statistics do not amount to discrimination under the Fair Housing Act.
Evidently Perez agreed, as he reportedly used political muscle and an alleged quid pro quo to convince the city to withdraw its case from the Supreme Court. Obama rewarded Perez’s undermining the rule of law by appointing him secretary of labor, where he currently serves in the president’s Cabinet, following a confirmation process that was difficult even with Harry Reid’s Democrat-controlled Senate.
On Nov. 18, 2013, Obama made another controversial nomination to that position by naming Adegbile – who currently serves as senior counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee – as the new head of DOJ’s Civil Rights Division.
FOP wrote to “express our extreme disappointment, displeasure and vehement opposition” to Adegbile. When working at the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund, Adegbile volunteered legal representation to Mumia Abu-Jamal, “our country’s most notorious cop-killer.” Abu-Jamal was facing a death sentence for murdering a police officer until Adegbile’s team demagogued the case, tarring the slain Philadelphia police officer, Daniel Faulkner, “with unfounded and unproven allegations of racism.”
FOP adds that not only did the White House and DOJ not consult with FOP before making this nomination, it believes the Obama administration did not get support from any law enforcement group for Adegbile. FOP adds, “This nomination can be interpreted in only one way: it is a thumb in the eye of our nation’s law enforcement officers. It demonstrates a total lack of regard or empathy for those who strive to keep you and everyone else in our nation safe in your homes and neighborhoods.”
Appointing Adegbile, age 46 and a graduate of New York University’s elite law school, is also seen as a sign that Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder will aggressively press efforts to place Southern states back under the Voting Rights Act preclearance system after last year’s Supreme Court decision striking down part of that statute.
Adegbile’s nomination is currently pending in the Senate.
Ken Klukowski is senior legal analyst for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @kenklukowski.
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