O'Reilly Factor ludicrously blames Obama for not pressing criminal charges in New Black Panthers case
On The O'Reilly Factor, Bill O'Reilly and Fox News legal analysts Lis Wiehl and Kimberly Guilfoyle criticized President Obama's administration for not pursuing criminal charges against members of the New Black Panther Party. In fact, it was the Justice Department under President Bush that decided not to pursue criminal charges in the case.
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Guilfoyle, Wiehl blame Obama admin. for lack of criminal charges in case
Wiehl: Obama DOJ "absolutely" should have pursued criminal charges. On the July 6 edition of The O'Reilly Factor, Wiehl said that "there's absolutely no reason" that the Obama DOJ "didn't prosecute" the case. She added that "all the department did was file a civil complaint" against the Panthers, but "they never pursued criminal charges." When O'Reilly stated, "But you say they should have done that," Wiehl replied "absolutely."
Guilfoyle: "No justification" for AG Holder supposedly not filing criminal charges. When Bill O'Reilly stated to Guilfoyle and Wiehl "you both don't know why the Attorney General of the United States chose not to" file criminal charges against the Panthers, Guilfoyle replied, "there's no justification."
O'Reilly: "Nobody differs" on whether Obama DOJ should have brought criminal charges. Referencing the decision not to pursue criminal charges, O'Reilly said that Attorney General Eric Holder "did it" because "his ideology comes into every decision." Wiehl replied that "it's not just the criminal charges, ok, let's say we can differ about that, maybe that the criminal charges shouldn't have been brought." O'Reilly interjected, "Nobody differs about that." Wiehl continued, saying that the Obama Justice Department "won the civil complaint, they had them and they let them go." O'Reilly replied, "[i]t's on Holder, with a very strong Obama component."
It was Bush's DOJ that decided not to press criminal charges
Bush administration decided to file a civil, not a criminal, complaint. In his May 14 testimony before the United States Commission on Civil Rights, Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez said that the Bush administration's Justice Department "determined that the facts did not constitute a prosecutable violation of the criminal statutes" but instead decided to "file a civil action on January 7, 2009." From Perez's testimony:
PEREZ: Moving to the matter at hand, the events occurred on November 4th, 2008. The Department became aware of these events on Election Day and decided to conduct further inquiry.
After reviewing the matter, the Civil Rights Division determined that the facts did not constitute a prosecutable violation of the criminal statutes. The Department did, however, file a civil action on January 7th, 2009, seeking injunctive and declaratory relief under 11(b) against four defendants.
No voters have alleged intimidation stemming from incident
Civil Rights Commissioner: "[N]o citizen has even alleged that he or she was intimidated from voting." While O'Reilly, Wiehl, and Guilfoyle stated or suggested that the New Black Panthers had engaged in voter intimidation, in an April 23 hearing on the DOJ's decision in the case, Civil Rights Commissioner Arlan Melendez noted that "no citizen has even alleged that he or she was intimidated from voting," which "was clear to the Justice Department last spring, which is why they took the course of action that they did." From the April 23 Civil Rights Commission hearing:
MELENDEZ: My remarks are going to be brief because I think far too much of our time has been consumed on this seemingly unnecessary investigation. Citizens should be able to vote without intimidation, and it is our Commission's duty to investigate complaints from citizens that their voting rights have been infringed.
In this case, however, no citizen has even alleged that he or she was intimidated from voting at the Fairmount Avenue Polling Station in 2008. This absence of voter intimidation was clear to the Justice Department last spring, which is why they took the course of action that they did.
This absence of voter intimidation was clear to the members of this Commission as well, or at least it should've been. Our investigation has been going on now for the better part of a year. We have wasted a good deal of our staff's time, and the taxpayers' money.
Main Justice: "[N]o voters at all in the Philadelphia precinct have come forward to allege intimidation." A July 2 article at the legal news website Main Justice reported that "no voters at all in the Philadelphia precinct have come forward to allege intimidation" adding, "The complaints have come from white Republican poll watchers, who have given no evidence they were registered to vote in the majority black precinct."
There have been NO complaints of voter intimidation filed in this case by any voters.
This is another Fox created "news" story.
Do you take joy in exposing your own ignorance? When you post without reading the article, you don't advance your position, you detract from it.
Can you read? Can you even 'skim', ignoring any concern for comprehension?
HELL NO!!
Don't lat all the negative posts here dissuade you from coming back and posting more!
We need useful morons like yourself to demonstrate for others of your ilk (and your 'special Olympian', 70+ point, I Q range) how commonly, even dependably, racism and ignorance are bound together.
The head racist at the black panthers admitted they were involved in the Philly intimidation scene, right on the air. And he has got plenty of allies in the Obamanation administration.
http://www.clcblog.org/blog_item-245.html
If you don't know what you're talking about, you should just hush. It makes you look silly and uninformed.
Oh, and I like how you have nothing to say about the Nazis and Skinheads. Says a lot about you.
What behavior? Standing around with nightsticks? What crime was committed?
You find may this odd, but just because you labeled something an "intimidation scene" does not mean you've proven that something illegal happened. You're not on the fox.com forums anymore; giving things you don't like negative labels won't constitute a convincing argument here.
Try to remember what happened the last time you eagerly swallowed a fox tabloid story, when you spent months defending the O'keefe ACORN videos. Do you want to get suckered like that again?
Existing while black.
Get out of the house, get away from the television . . . . you are OBSESSED with Fox. It's sick, Fairliberal. Seriously.
Besides the fact that these idiots obviously don't have anything better to do than to dig up something from almost 2 years ago to try to make a case for stating that our President is racist, the clip just doesn't feel right. How is it that NOOOOO other news team was there to film this besides Faux?
This is all an effort to get people angry about race, a month before Glenda stands and defaces not only the Lincoln Memorial, but defiles the memory of MLK, attempting to replace his message with Glenda's message of white people being the victims of racism.
This country is so upside down right now that it almost makes me cry. If ever Glenda and his accomplices wanted to create a civil war, it will be at the end of August in Washington DC.
I hope that someone is working hard to stop this madness because it is like a computer virus that is spreading and shutting down common sense.
They were questioning Holder and others in the DOJ and NOT Obama as the headline claims.
O'Reilly replied, "[i]t's on Holder, with a very strong Obama component."
That's ONE thing.
And the second is, how in the world do you think that criticizing the Obama Administration isn't criticizing Obama?
Then they will tell their Zombie viewers Fox is the only one reporting on the NEW BLACK PANTHER scandal. Beck is trying to get his tiny brain working to give his viewers a big stinking pile of misinformation.