[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 26 (Wednesday, February 12, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S918-S919]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          ADEGBILE NOMINATION

  Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, fairly recently, the President of the 
United States nominated a candidate to lead the Civil Rights Division 
of the Justice Department. His name is Debo Adegbile. I am here this 
morning to explain to my colleagues why I believe that Mr. Adegbile is 
a very bad choice to run the Civil Rights Division of the Justice 
Department.
  To make my case clear, I need to start with a story of a slain 
Philadelphia police officer. His name was Daniel Faulkner. This is a 
picture of Daniel Faulkner. It is important to tell his story. It is a 
story that begins 32 years ago. Many people have never heard this 
story, others have perhaps forgotten, since it was some time ago.
  But the fact is that Danny Faulkner can no longer speak for himself 
and those who have tried to speak for him have often been drowned out 
by some powerful and wealthy voices that have had a political agenda 
and that have perversely defended his killer rather than the memory of 
Daniel Faulkner.
  The story begins late at night on December 9, 1981. It was actually 
in the early morning hours that 25-year-old Philadelphia police officer 
Daniel Faulkner stopped a car that was driving in Philadelphia. The 
driver got out of the car and began to assault Officer Faulkner. The 
driver's brother Mumia Abu-Jamal was watching the incident from across 
the street. When he saw what was happening and as Officer Faulkner 
attempted to handcuff the driver of the car, Abu-Jamal ran up to the 
car and shot Officer Faulkner in the back. As Officer Faulkner was 
falling, he got off a shot, but the shot did not seriously wound Mumia 
Abu-Jamal.
  Officer Faulkner then collapsed on the ground. While he was lying on 
the ground, helpless, defenseless, and severely wounded, Mumia Abu-
Jamal stood over him and pumped four more bullets into him, including 
five bullets to the face, which killed Danny Faulkner on the spot.
  Abu-Jamal himself was quickly apprehended. There were police who were 
on the next block over, and they got there almost immediately. They 
arrested Mumia Abu-Jamal. They took him to the hospital because he had 
been wounded, and while he was at the hospital he bragged about the 
fact that he had just shot a police officer and stated that he hoped 
the police officer would die.
  Given these facts, Mumia Abu-Jamal's guilt was never in any serious 
question. There was a trial. There were four eyewitnesses to the 
shooting. There were three other witnesses who heard Mumia Abu-Jamal 
brag about the murder he had committed while he was in the hospital. In 
addition, there was ballistic and forensic evidence that made his guilt 
completely obvious to everyone. So it was not surprising that a jury 
took only 3 hours to convict Mumia Abu-Jamal after the trial occurred. 
It took them a further 2 hours to sentence him to death.
  Then, instead of allowing Daniel Faulkner's young 24-year-old widow 
and his extended family to grieve in peace, a group of political 
opportunists decided this would be the case they would use to launch a 
campaign to further their political agenda. They fabricated a whole set 
of claims that Mumia Abu-Jamal was somehow framed. They spread lies 
about the trial. They organized a rally. Amazingly, what they were 
doing was portraying Mumia Abu-Jamal as a victim when, in fact, he was 
unquestionably a cold-blooded murderer.
  It was part of a bigger campaign to turn Abu-Jamal into a celebrity 
and use him by those who had an agenda to attack America's criminal 
justice system. Unfortunately, to a large extent it worked. Abu-Jamal 
the murderer became somewhat of a celebrity in certain Hollywood 
circles. In Paris, they even named a street after him, and there were 
plenty of high-priced lawyers who lined up to volunteer their time to 
jump on this cause and to file endless series of appeals in a case that 
was an open-and-shut case. This, of course, among other things, had the 
effect of forcing Danny Faulkner's widow to relive this tragedy, this 
disaster for her, time after time, for decade after decade.
  This gross abuse of justice, this travesty of justice had been going 
on for nearly three decades when in 2009 the

[[Page S919]]

NAACP Legal Defense Fund, or the LDF, decided to volunteer its time, 
considerable resources, and its donor funds to join in this fray, to 
join in this travesty, initially as an amicus to the trial and then as 
co-counsel.
  The President's nominee to run the Civil Rights Division, Mr. Debo 
Adegbile, was the person responsible for the LDF's decision and its 
behavior in this outrageous set of circumstances. At the time, he was 
the LDF's director of litigation, and, as Mr. Adegbile told our own 
Senate Judiciary Committee during his testimony, he ``supervised the 
entire legal staff'' at LDF. That was 18 lawyers. He was also, if one 
looks at the LDF's site, responsible for ``providing leadership and 
coordination regarding both litigation and non-litigation legal 
advocacy'' and was also, according to the LDF's own description, 
``responsible for LDF's advocacy both in the courts of law and in the 
court of political opinion.'' So all of the legal, public, and 
political actions LDF was taking, it was taking under the direction, 
the supervision, and the authority of Mr. Adegbile.
  It is important to understand this. There is a very clear legal 
principle that a supervising lawyer has the responsibility for the 
actions undertaken by the lawyers who report to him. That is the case 
in these circumstances, as well as the fact that the LDF openly 
acknowledges this.
  What is it that the LDF lawyers then did in the circumstances of this 
case? When they should have been pursuing their historic role of 
providing the truth and justice for American people, they were 
advancing neither cause.
  It is also important to point out that this was never a case of a 
criminal deserving a legal defense. Criminals do deserve appropriate 
legal counsel in their defense. The fact is that the trial had occurred 
decades ago. Abu-Jamal had multiple high-cost lawyers volunteering 
their time. He had plenty of lawyers. He didn't need more lawyers. What 
Mr. Adegbile did was he decided to join a political cause. That is what 
he decided to do. That is what this was all about. In my view, by doing 
so he demonstrated his own contempt for and, frankly, a willingness to 
undermine the criminal justice system of the United States.
  Under Mr. Adegbile's oversight, the LDF spread misinformation about 
the trial, about the circumstances, and about the jury. He promoted 
division and strife among the American people and blocked justice for 
Danny Faulkner and Danny Faulkner's family. These LDF lawyers promoted 
the myth that Mumia Abu-Jamal was somehow a heroic political prisoner 
and that he was framed. In fact, he was a coward and an unrepentant 
murderer.
  Under Mr. Adegbile's oversight, in January 2011 the LDF issued a 
press release decrying what I quote as the ``grave injustices 
embodied'' in Abu-Jamal's case.
  In May 2011 two of the lawyers reporting to Mr. Adegbile traveled to 
France for a rally on behalf of this murderer Mumia Abu-Jamal. One of 
these LDF lawyers said she was ``overjoyed'' that Mumia Abu-Jamal's 
death sentence was suspended but bemoaned the fact that he would not 
have a new trial so he could be set free.
  Another LDF lawyer described Abu-Jamal as ``people who are innocent'' 
but ``will continue to be put to death in America.'' Later, the same 
lawyer would falsely state that there was an absence of forensic 
evidence tying Abu-Jamal to Officer Faulkner's death. The fact is that 
there was forensic evidence. There were four eyewitnesses to the 
murder, and there were three witnesses to the subsequent bragging by 
Abu-Jamal about the murder.
  At another rally again celebrating this murderer, one of the LDF 
lawyers supervised by Mr. Adegbile gushed: ``It is absolutely my honor 
to represent Mumia Abu-Jamal.'' This attorney went on to say: ``And 
there is no question in my mind, there is no question in the mind of 
anyone at the Legal Defense Fund, that the justice system has 
completely and utterly failed Mumia Abu-Jamal.''
  I have to say I agree the justice system failed, but the justice 
system failed Danny Faulkner, not Mumia Abu-Jamal.
  Now we are faced with a situation where an individual who was 
directly responsible for some of these terrible injustices that have 
been done in the wake of Danny Faulkner's murder has been nominated to 
a high-ranking position in the Justice Department. The Civil Rights 
Division is an extremely important division in the Justice Department. 
The head of this division plays a very important role. And what is his 
responsibility? According to the division's Web site, the Civil Rights 
Division ``fulfills a critical mission in upholding the civil and 
constitutional rights of all individuals.'' Of course, this requires 
that the head of the Civil Rights Division have an absolute commitment 
to truth and to justice.
  I do not believe Mr. Adegbile's nomination is consistent with the 
goal of promoting truth and justice in America. I do not believe Mr. 
Adegbile's nomination is consistent with respect for America's legal 
system and rule of law. I do not believe Mr. Adegbile's nomination is 
consistent with justice for the family of Officer Danny Faulkner or for 
anyone else who cares about the law enforcement community across this 
country. For these reasons, I will oppose Mr. Adegbile's nomination to 
head the Civil Rights Division, and I urge my colleagues to do the 
same.

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