FOIA docs show Holder's Justice Department aided Zimmerman protests

I know it won't do any good, but, for the record: Fire Eric Holder.

Documents obtained through an FOIA request from the Department of Justice by Judicial Watch reveal that a little known unit deep inside DoJ was tasked with assisting community groups in Florida with organizing and running demonstrations in favor of putting George Zimmerman on trial.

JW filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the DOJ on April 24, 2012; 125 pages were received on May 30, 2012. JW administratively appealed the request on June 5, 2012, and received 222 pages more on March 6, 2013. According to the documents:

  • March 25 - 27, 2012, CRS spent $674.14 upon being "deployed to Sanford, FL, to work marches, demonstrations, and rallies related to the shooting and death of an African-American teen by a neighborhood watch captain."
  • March 25 - 28, 2012, CRS spent $1,142.84 "in Sanford, FL to work marches, demonstrations, and rallies related to the shooting and death of an African-American teen by a neighborhood watch captain.
  • March 30 - April 1, 2012, CRS spent $892.55 in Sanford, FL "to provide support for protest deployment in Florida."
  • March 30 - April 1, 2012, CRS spent an additional $751.60 in Sanford, FL "to provide technical assistance to the City of Sanford, event organizers, and law enforcement agencies for the march and rally on March 31."
  • April 3 - 12, 2012, CRS spent $1,307.40 in Sanford, FL "to provide technical assistance, conciliation, and onsite mediation during demonstrations planned in Sanford."
  • April 11 - 12, 2012, CRS spent $552.35 in Sanford, FL "to provide technical assistance for the preparation of possible marches and rallies related to the fatal shooting of a 17 year old African American male."

From a Florida Sunshine Law request filed on April 23, 2012, JW received thousands of pages of emails on April 27, 2012, in which was found an email by Miami-Dade County Community Relations Board Program Officer Amy Carswell from April 16, 2012: "Congratulations to our partners, Thomas Battles, Regional Director, and Mildred De Robles, Miami-Dade Coordinator and their co-workers at the U.S. Department of Justice Community Relations Service for their outstanding and ongoing efforts to reduce tensions and build bridges of understanding and respect in Sanford, Florida" following a news article in the Orlando Sentinel about the secretive "peacekeepers."

The "Community Relations Service" came about as a result of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But as with so many other things in government, Barack Obama has vastly expanded the reach of this little known DoJ entity. Judicial Watch reports:

Set up under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the DOJ's CRS, the employees of which are required by law to "conduct their activities in confidence," reportedly has greatly expanded its role under President Barack Obama. Though the agency claims to use "impartial mediation practices and conflict resolution procedures," press reports along with the documents obtained by Judicial Watch suggest that the unit deployed to Sanford, FL, took an active role in working with those demanding the prosecution of Zimmerman.

Former Sanford, FL police chief Bill Lee, who was fired when he came under enormous pressure from so-called civil rights groups, told CNN that the case was "taken away from us" by the feds:

It was a matter of protocol, Lee said. Arresting Zimmerman based on the evidence at hand would have been a violation of Zimmerman's Fourth Amendment rights, he said. Thus, the Sanford police presented a "capias request" to the state's attorney, asking that the prosecutor determine whether it was a "justifiable homicide," issue a warrant for arrest or present the case to a grand jury.

"The police department needed to do a job, and there was some influence -- outside influence and inside influence -- that forced a change in the course of the normal criminal justice process," Lee said. "With all the influence and the protests and petitions for an arrest, you still have to uphold you oath."

"That investigation was taken away from us. We weren't able to complete it," he said.

What Lee is saying is that the federal government conspired with local authorities to deny George Zimmerman his Fourth Amendment rights. The conspiracy alone would be a crime and federal statutes are pretty clear about denying a citizen their civil rights. You can't do that. It's illegal.

PJ Media's J. Christian Adams actually reported on this story on June 27, before Judicial Watch received the FOIA documents.

One might ponder why the Justice Department Civil Rights Division rushed to Florida in the first place and took sides once the racial furnace was sufficiently stoked.  When Eric Holder's old pal from D.C. (and a Philadelphia court case), New Black Panther chieftain Malik Zulu Shabazz, called for a 10,000 strong black-male mob to seize George Zimmerman, we knew what was in store.

But Justice came to Florida anyhow, in the form of the Community Relations Service of Eric Holder's DOJ.  Instead of calming the racial tensions, the DOJ took sides.  Instead of calming the mob, the DOJ joined it -- providing training for the mob and even arranging a police escort.

This is justice, race-hustler style. When Malik Zulu Shabazz demands blood, Eric Holder arrives to deliver a more moderate face to mob anger.

Not one single major media outlet has reported on these explosive documents. And it's becoming clear why. No national media entity wants to be blamed for stoking the fires of racial violence if Zimmerman is acquitted and African Americans are set off.

One of the unspoken and unwritten rules of modern media is; don't identify perpetrators of crimes or their victim's race lest your newspaper or TV station would be accused of upping racial tensions for profit. Hence, you have the ludicrous stories in papers like the Chicago Tribune who report that "youths" attacked and beat up an old man while not identifying the race of the attackers or the victim. In the case of the FOIA documents, no media outlet is going to cover a story that suggests that the demonstrations by so-called civil rights groups in favor of prosecuting Zimmerman weren't "authentic" outbursts of community anger. That would raise the temperature among the race hustlers in Florida and may lead to a backlash against the media outlet.

Cowardly? Sure. But from the liberal media's perspective, they are acting "responsibly." Forget informing the public. It's more important to maintain the forms and the narrative that describes "Justice for Trayvon" than any backwards, old fashioned notion of printing the truth.

It is unlikely that Holder will ever be confronted with the facts of this story. So he gets a pass, free to interfere in the local judicial process if he thinks it will advance his racialist agenda.


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