Every Single One: The Politicized Hiring of Eric Holder’s Compliance Section
For several weeks, PJMedia has been publishing a series of articles on the ideological and partisan histories of attorney hires into the career civil service ranks of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division in the Obama administration. The articles have demonstrated the political and ideological litmus test being employed by those entrusted with hiring in the Division.
Every single new attorney hired has a history thick with left-wing activism.
Two previous pieces focused on the Voting Section, with additional segments on the Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices, the Special Litigation Section, the Education Section, and the Employment Litigation Section.
If the public had any idea just how politicized the Division has become under this administration, outrage would follow. I cover the policy ramifications of this ideological hiring frenzy in my forthcoming book Injustice. For now, here are more details about the people involved.
Today’s installment focuses on the new career attorneys hired into the Division’s Federal Coordination and Compliance Section, which until recently was known as the Coordination and Review Section, or “COR” in DOJ nomenclature. COR badgers state and municipal governments who receive federal funds — federal gripes follow federal gold. They also serve as the watchdog over the behavior of other federal agencies. The stated mission of COR is to “ensure that all federal agencies consistently and effectively enforce civil rights statutes and Executive Orders that prohibit discrimination in federally conducted and assisted programs and activities.”
Most of the Section’s resources are spent bullying educational institutions into complying with expansionist interpretations of Title IX, or coercing law enforcement agencies into providing expensive foreign language translation services. The Section during this administration has also managed to find time to demand that municipalities permit Muslim women to wear headscarves in court. For reasons of political expediency, jurisdictions rarely challenge the legality of the Executive Orders enforced by the Section. If they did, however, the Section’s work would decline precipitously.
Five new career attorneys have been hired into the Section since Holder took office. As is true of the new attorneys hired into every other section, there is not a single apolitical individual — let alone a conservative — in the bunch.
Non-liberals of course are free to apply; it’s just that their resumes are summarily discarded.
Sources familiar with hiring committee practices have told me that resumes of qualified people lacking the correct ideological worldview were discarded by the infamous Loretta King, then the acting assistant attorney general. The contrast with the bipartisan and ideologically diverse hiring practices of the Bush administration is incredibly stark. Here’s the proof:
Deanna Jang: Ms. Jang was recently hired as the new chief of the Section. She is a generous Democratic contributor, having given handsomely to the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and John Kerry, the congressional reelection campaigns of ultra-liberals Donna Edwards (D-MD) and Mike Honda (D-CA), and to the left-wing political group America Coming Together.
Before arriving in the Civil Rights Division, she was the Policy Director of the Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum, which was a major supporter of Obamacare. She also worked as a Policy Analyst for the Center for Law & Social Policy, an organization which “advocates for policies that support its vision of an America in which poverty is rare, there is justice for all, and all people can participate equally.” Before that, she served as a senior policy analyst at the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Health & Human Services, a notorious hotbed of liberal activists.
Ms. Jang spent most of her career hopping from one left-wing advocacy group to another. She worked as a staff attorney at the Asian Law Caucus, the San Francisco Neighborhood Legal Assistance Foundation, and the Asian Law Alliance. She was a special assistant to the militantly liberal (former) Commissioner Yvonne Lee at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and the chair of the National Immigration Project, which advocates on behalf of illegal aliens. A perfect fit for someone charged with enforcing regulatory mandates of dubious legal validity at the Department of Justice.
I’ve been following this series, every part starting with “Every Single One”. Whew.
I think they would be more accurately described with the statement: “Every STINKING One”.
But that is semantics…
All these folks will be gone when the department is drastically downsized when we have a new president in 2013.
If we survive that long as a nation and our state- of -the union.
This series is absolutely amazing. PJM deserves to win some sort of award for revealing the political shenanigans inside the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. How in the world is this story not getting wider attention in the so-called “mainstream” media? Actually, to ask the question is to answer it. Great work, guys!!
When Hitler was made chancellor in Germany in 1933 he immediately launched an effort to take over all government departments, one by one. To be fair, Obama’s ultimate goals differ from Hitler’s. I don’t think Obama is planning concentration camps or gas ovens for Jews or whites (though it may have crossed his mind) but his modus operandi is similar, using executive orders to accomplish much by avoiding Congressional approval, introducing censorship by forbidding the use of words that link terrorist to Muslim, appointing czars throughout government who become puppets dancing to his strings like Holder, etc. In one way I have less contempt for Hitler than for Obama. Hitler was evil, looked evil, acted evil openly and was at least honest about his evil. Obama’s approach involves far more stealth while putting on a phony front of smiles and “shucks, I’m just a regular guy,” type facade. He learned his taqiyya well in Muslim schools in his infancy. And I doubt that he’d have the strength of his convictions in the end when he realizes he is finished to end as Hitler did.
Obama’s goals are different from Hitler’s? In what sense? Substituting “non-Leftists” for “Jews” pretty much covers all of it.
Yes, because genocide is the exact same this administration is doing. Give me a break.
Not concentration camps, but FEMA camps.
Remember when Bush’s attorney general got in trouble for firing a few people. Has Obama did the same thing?
This is all part of the DEMOCRATIC PARTY PLANTATION……Hire white trash or black trash….Eric Holder black cowardly trash…..same social status as Obama….the problem is that the electorate is capable of allowing these inexperienced shoe shine boys in …..that the congress (not the congressional Plantation Party)the lesser of two evils ….has not even whispered a word while away….Czars……Criminals is more like it……If Washington is broken… than the fault lies in the hands of the electorate and congress…..when a Regime breaks constitutional laws and the country sits back and just gives a shrug….we become enablers…. From my perspective….we need to reload and attack, our weapons Faxes and e-mails, phone calls…in fact between now and elections anything coming from the Criminal Eric Holder or his gangsters…..should be totally ignored …..what’s he going to do…..besides wet his pants….when I was a child in grammar school where a foreign language was a mandate…..the Professor asked me to read something….at 8 I knew I had rights….I refused and was sent to the Principle office…..who gave me cake and Ice cream and I explained that as an American I speak English only…and any foreigner can learn my language if they should choose to speak to me….that was about 58 yrs ago….
You don’t honestly think that unelected baboons are going to dick-tate to me…..no sir by no means…I see and hear outrage about Obamacare….Gov. in States that find this objectionable should not bother with the mess….let the Supreme Court decide than follow instruction….when you know something is wrong its wrong and you move in the right direction…. The DEMOCRATIC PARTY PLANTATION is not happy …they can’t believe that American went against them last Nov…after all they did give us an illiterate baboon to run the country and we should be content…it was a gift….they can have all their gifts back…….and we need to get the country on the right track…less talk more action….Muslim terrorist is the correct description….appointed criminals without Congressional approval can be ignored……
As a strong conservative, veteran, and Tea Party anti-Obama American, I am angry when I read stupid comments calling the President a baboon. Are you an Obama supporter trying to make conservatives appear ignorant and racist? This site is showing signs of degenerating into a Yahoo blog. What’s happening to Pajamas Media, whose articles are so outstanding? The comments used to be as good as the articles. Are these pro Obama Trolls?
Heck, these activists don’t even need to relocate from their former organizations in order to become affiliated with the DOJ anymore: now our tax dollars are being used to promote La Raza’s “free” legal services in immigration cases (scroll down to San Francisco, as it were):
http://www.justice.gov/eoir/probono/freelglchtCA.htm
Chavez pulled these same tricks 11 years ago. Now look at Vzla. The new America coming to you soon.
Thank you for “exposing” the enemy. It’s obvious, based on the types of people the Obama Administration hires, they care only about one thing…loyalty to the “agenda.” No matter what we uncover, we are always too late.
What will anyone do about it? Nothing. Just like the executive order signed by Obama on immigration policy, we sit and read, knowing it’s wrong, but powerless to do anything about it…always reactionary.
Who do we have on “our” side working as hard to save our country as they have working as hard to destroy it? I think the answer there is also…no one. Sure, we’re coordinating our message, but have we been able to orchestrate enough to prevent things like this from happening? Obviously not.
I feel the only way to change it is through our vote. We need to elect a President with back-bone. Someone who is a fighter and will stand toe-to-toe with Obama and his “gangsters” in the Justice Department. I’m leaning towards Perry, but am undecided at the moment.
There’s an important part of this story that’s missing.
Why are they doing all of this hiring?
Did they have this many unfilled slots left open from when Bush was president? 76? Seems high.
Did they expand the department since Obama’s election?
Did they fire people from the department? If so, was there any ideological slant to the firings?
There may be nothing there. This might be a non-issue. But I can’t tell.
Not every article can provide a comprehensive history of the the division. Why were so many hired? Because Congress radically increased spending starting in 2008 and created over a hundred new slots. Read more about it at:
http://pajamasmedia.com/tatler/2011/05/24/justice-department-hiring-sprees-scavenger-hunts-and-high-priced-tour-guides/
Thanks!
Just to be clear – When I said part of the story was missing, I was speaking of the blank spot in my mind, and I didn’t mean it to come out like “dude, finish your story!”
I was trying to figure out how the nation’s attention could be so riveted by the supposed Bush sins of hiring, and then completely fail to be aroused at all by this mess, considering that this is larger and encompasses the career guys. (Well, beyond the fact that the popular press won’t touch this one.)
All I could figure is that they had specific people to point to who had suffered harm – i.e., the ones who were fired, or who thought they were going to be fired. They could put names to their victims in that story. If people had been fired for the sake of the newly-filled 76 slots, I figured it might be time for them to start speaking out.
If the slots were all newly-created, then we can’t point to any specific victims – besides the entire American citizenry, of course, who are now less well served than we might have been had competence and intelligence and hard work been weighted higher than LibCred – which is too bad, because it seems the American public loves a good victim story, while a political story leaves them cold.
Making it tougher, most nonlawyer people have no clue about the career/political dichotomy. Most of the people with whom I’ve discussed Holder’s takeover have looked puzzled and said, of course they can hire politically, can’t they? So, there’s no real understanding that there might be a problem with this – and, if you think that this is legally permissible but “nasty”, your response to the story might be “youse guyz just do it back and forth to each other.”
This is sort of like the story of how Obama usurped BK law and cheated the GM bondholders: most people don’t have the necessary background and process information to understand that something bad happened.
Thanks for all the hard work and reporting, by the way.
Ask Dayton, Ohio what they think of Eric Holder! http://www.thedailyrash.com/dayton-ohio-gets-a-new-police-chief-courtesy-of-eric-holder
Well, gee, umm, thanks, that was rather disgustingly racist and distasteful. Back to the Kos with you now, eh?
Hilarious! Thanks, Glen.
Can these tumors be excised from the department when the Hope N Change Era has finally passed? Or are they there for life?
Considering this whole series one thing stands out. The deliberate subversion of justice by those charged with justice.
First the subvesive must fly under false colors which is a subversive strategy. We have ample evidence of that as they have been elected and appointed to office as Democrats when they were not. Once in office they were in a position to appoint and promote their fellow travelers. In the thirties they were know as the fifth column and the press did much to cover for them. There was enough print to inform than none needed to remain ignorant but most chose to be blind to the subversion.
As reported here it is no longer necessary for the subversive to cover his subversion but it has reached the highest levels and can be done openly without restraint.
Now the only option left is to back up from all this subversion and excise it from our own life fist and then vote it out of office.
“Most of the Section’s resources are spent bullying educational institutions into complying with expansionist interpretations of Title IX, or coercing law enforcement agencies into providing expensive foreign language translation services.”
Just one comment on this. I recently attended a meeting where a prominent judge gave a talk about a case he was involved in, forget which state it was now, but they had an immigrant accused of murder who was convicted although no one even noticed he didn’t speak a word of English but some mountain dialect from Mexico that was not similar to Spanish. This judge was brought into the case because people who liked to go to sit in on court proceedings for entertainment watched this case and were appalled that the man didn’t even know what was going on, no testimony could be properly evaluated, because no one bothered to even find out what the man understood. After contacting the judge, who read over the case file and saw instantly this was totally improper and unjust, they worked with the courts to get proper linguistic support and found him easy to clear of the charges.
Now, to you, that may be frivolous and a waste of money, but I can’t imagine anyone with the remotest sort of conscience would blow that off as no big deal. A man goes to jail for something he didn’t do because we can’t cope with someone who doesn’t speak English! Would you want to be in his shoes?
Well done series. The greatest confusion for concerned citizens is why at every level of power in government the impostor is NOT challenged? From a justice view point, can Mr. Adams answer this question- why the silence from FBI, Congress, CIA, Secret Service, and DOJ about the eligibility of barry soetero?
Is the Constitution dead?
how is this different from the ideological hiring and firing binge the Bush Administration had with the U.S. Attorneys Office? There you had Rove pushing Gonzales to target attorneys for dismissal to impede investigations of Republican politicians, or for their failure to initiate investigations that would damage Democratic politicians or hamper Democratic-leaning voters. In all Bush and Gonzales had 25+ attorneys in the cross-hairs before Congress was moved to act. The DOJ’s IG office said the firings brought the integrity of Department prosecutorial decisions under question (ya think) and were inappropriately political (is there an appropriate level).
Had we a functional political system instead of the circus we’re cursed with, Gonzales would have resigned or been impeached and so should Holder. Get me; I don’t mean this as some tu quoque defense. Ideological litmus tests are wrong, regardless which party does it. But I fail to see the effective difference between Obama/Holder’s politicization of the DOJ versus Bush/Gonzales’.
Von Spakovsky was appointed by Bush via recess appointment after his nomination was opposed by Senate Democrats, who argued that his oversight of voter laws was unacceptably partisan and that he had consistently acted to disenfranchise poor and minority (i.e. Democrat) voters. Opposition was bolstered by objections from career Justice Department staff, who accused von Spakovsky of politicizing his nominally non-partisan office to an unprecedented degree. The nomination was withdrawn and Von Spakovsky subsequently joined the staff of the Heritage Foundation, a politically conservative think tank.
So when it’s their guys, it’s shocking, depressing, and unbelievable. When it’s ours, well, that’s different. You think Hans might have a little credibility problem here?
And we wonder why Americans are so disgusted with both parties.
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