During its meeting on Friday, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights was denied a chance to vote on its report attacking the Obama Justice Department over the phony New Black Panthers scandal by a walkout by Democratic Commissioner Michael Yaki, which left the commission without a quorum. In a statement to Media Matters, Yaki ripped the conservative majority that controls the commission, saying that it “has manipulated the process in a manner designed to exclude myself and Commissioners [Arlan] Melendez and [Abigail] Thernstrom, who have opposed this farce from the beginning”:

The majority has manipulated the process in a manner designed to exclude myself and Commissioners Melendez and Thernstrom, who have opposed this farce from the beginning. By cancelling last week's meeting at the 11th hour and scheduling today's meeting without consulting our schedules, both Melendez and Thernstrom were denied the opportunity to have their voices heard. When the majority failed to muster their 5 members for quorum, they effectively doomed their own chance to ram this flawed report through.

He also said of the majority, “In their zeal to vote this out before the election, they overreached -- and fell one member short. It's not my job to ensure they have quorum to shove this hatchet job out the door when they have 5 votes -- a quorum -- in their pocket”:

We already had our one meeting in October on the 8th. We are part time government officials, with schedules and jobs. They could have voted this out on the 22nd. In their zeal to vote this out before the election, they overreached -- and fell one member short. It's not my job to ensure they have quorum to shove this hatchet job out the door when they have 5 votes -- a quorum -- in their pocket.

As we have noted, the allegation that the Obama DOJ engaged in racially charged “corruption” while prosecuting the case doesn't stand up to the facts. The decision not to pursue criminal charges in the case was made during the Bush administration, and the Obama Justice Department successfully obtained an injunction against the New Black Panther Party member at the center of the investigation.

The faulty allegations about the phony New Black Panthers scandal, whose main champion has been Republican activist J. Christian Adams, have been leveraged into a broader, racially charged accusation that the Obama Justice Department won't pursue voting-rights cases against defendants who are minorities. This accusation also falls apart in the face of the facts. In July, the Obama DOJ asked a federal court to extend an injunction against black leaders in Mississippi who discriminated against white voters.

As Commissioner Thernstrom, who is a Republican, told Politico, the entire saga has been a manifestation of the conservative majority's “fantasies” that it could use the case “to topple the [Obama] administration”:

“This doesn't have to do with the Black Panthers, this has to do with their fantasies about how they could use this issue to topple the [Obama] administration,” said Thernstrom, who said members of the commission voiced their political aims “in the initial discussions” of the Panther case last year.

“My fellow conservatives on the commission had this wild notion they could bring Eric Holder down and really damage the president,” Thernstrom said in an interview with POLITICO.