Civil Rights Commission Sets Panther Case Deadline for Eric Holder's New, Super-Transparent DOJ

Several weeks ago, Eric Holder's Department of Justice celebrated a "year of transparency".

On Monday, March 15, the Department of Justice celebrated the first anniversary of Attorney General Eric Holder’s 2009 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) guidelines. Issued this week last year, the Attorney General’s guidelines were supposed to usher in President Obama’s “new era of open government” by establishing a “criteria governing the presumption of disclosure” and creating “effective systems for responding to requests..."

Held in the Great Hall at the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building, the “celebration” was roughly an hour long, and featured several self congratulations by FOIA representatives from the Department of the Treasury, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Office of the United States Trade Representative. Attorney General Eric Holder made some short remarks touting the Justice Department’s work in creating a new era of transparency. According to Mr. Holder, President Obama has “delivered” on his pledge “to restore the sacred bond of trust that should exist between our nation’s government and its citizens.” Holder also announced that the Justice Department will present an Open Government Plan on April 7th. The celebration did not feature a question and answer portion.

Oh, that Eric Holder! He's such a card!

Gerald A. Reynolds, chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, sent a letter today asking Attorney General Eric Holder to launch a “full-fledged, nationwide investigation of ACORN... with all deliberate speed.”

The Oct. 9 letter, also signed by four other commissioners, notes that ACORN is now “the subject of vote fraud investigation in some 15 states.” The letter cites an internal report in which ACORN itself raised “serious questions about the relationships between its nearly 175 affiliates and possible violations of federal law” – including money transfers, possible conflicts of interest of employees working for more than one affiliate, and widespread evidence of ACORN’s role in fostering vote fraud.

The commissioners called the filing of “possibly hundreds of thousands of fraudulent voter registration applications in some 14 states” an “invidious invitation for corruption” that disenfranchises legitimate voters, and called on Holder to take “serious and rapid action.”

Commissioners previously criticized Holder for dropping a Department of Justice investigation into alleged voter intimidation in Philadelphia by the New Black Panther Party.

Confidential Memo to Eric Holder: the voters are coming for you in November. Then you can try stonewalling Congress.