[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 36 (Tuesday, March 4, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1262-S1264]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          ADEGBILE NOMINATION

  I will share a few thoughts on the nomination of Debo Adegbile to be 
the Assistant Attorney General of the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil 
Rights Division, a very important position.
  There is no question he is a bright young lawyer, has a good resume. 
He spent 13 years with the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, one 
of the advocacy groups of the historic organization. They have been 
champions for advocacy and defense of civil rights and have done 
tremendous work over the years, and I have seen a lot of it. But they 
have also used the courts to advance political agendas which haven't 
always been accepted and have been seen to be improper.
  While serving as the acting president and director-counsel of the 
Legal Defense Fund, Mr. Adegbile positioned himself at the center of 
many high-profile cases--cases in the news media, and issues he dealt 
with. Perhaps most notably as litigation director, he chose, without 
being asked or without being even needed, to participate in the case of 
Mumia Abu-Jamal, the country's most notorious killer of a police 
officer. Abu-Jamal was tried at trial and convicted of the murder of a 
young 25-year-old Philadelphia police officer, Daniel Faulkner. The 
evidence at trial proved that Abu-Jamal shot Officer Faulkner in the 
back, and then stood over him and shot him three more times before 
firing a final shot into Officer Faulkner's face. Immediately following 
the murder, he stated that he hoped the officer died.
  As noted by Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams, in his 
letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee in opposition to this 
nomination, he said:

       Evidence at the trial established that while this was not 
     some case of random street crime, Abu-Jamal was a supporter 
     of the MOVE organization, an anarchist group that explicitly 
     advocated violence against police.

  This is the district attorney's summary of this case.

       Some members of this body have argued that Mr. Adegbile's 
     choice to involve himself and his organization in this case 
     is irrelevant because it is simply a case of a lawyer 
     representing an unpopular client.

  And lawyers do that. They are called upon to do that. I live in 
Monroe County, AL, the home of Atticus Finch,

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Harper Lee, who wrote ``To Kill A Mockingbird.'' He was asked to defend 
an unpopular defendant in the setting of Macon, which is Monroeville, 
AL. He undertook and did his duty because he knew it was his duty.
  But I will take a few moments to read from District Attorney 
Williams' letter to Chairman Leahy and Ranking Member Grassley which 
powerfully illustrates why this is not the same thing. We are talking 
about a lawyer's duty to take on unpopular clients and make sure every 
American who is charged with a crime is entitled to an adequate 
defense. The district attorney of this very large office goes on:

       Abu-Jamal made every effort to turn the trial into 
     political theater. He repeatedly interrupted the proceedings, 
     insulted the judge, and chanted the name of MOVE leader John 
     ``Africa.'' During the appeals, his supporters attempted to 
     intimidate the judge by massing in front of his home in a 
     residential neighborhood. Worst of all, they have maintained 
     a three-decade-long campaign of verbal abuse against Officer 
     Faulkner's widow, Maureen, who simply wanted justice for her 
     dead husband.

  This is indisputable. I think no one denies it. The D.A. goes on to 
say:

       His lawyers . . . echoed these tactics in their legal 
     maneuvers.

  In other words, the lawyers defending him used the same tactics that 
the defendant did.
  In other words, the lawyers defending him used the same tactics that 
the defendant did. They were not required to do that. Lawyers are 
officers of the court. They should never misrepresent anything in court 
or take a position contrary to plain law or misstate facts. Lawyers are 
not entitled to do that. So District Attorney Williams' letter goes on 
to say:

       Despite the overwhelming evidence of guilt, they have--

  The defendant and the lawyers, he is saying here--

       --they have consistently attempted to turn reality on its 
     head, arguing that Abu-Jamal was framed and that it was he, 
     rather than Officer Faulkner, who was the victim of racism. 
     The LDF perpetuated these allegations when they took over 
     Abu-Jamal's case. Although Abu-Jamal's death sentence was 
     eventually overturned on the basis of new procedural rules 
     invented after his trial, his murder conviction has been 
     upheld, and his lawyers' bogus racial claims have been 
     consistently rejected in both state and federal court.

  That is the D.A.'s continuing summation of it. He goes on to say:

       Aside from being patently false, moreover, these claims are 
     personally insulting to me. As an African-American, I know 
     all too well the grievous consequences of racial 
     discrimination and prejudice. I also know that Abu-Jamal was 
     convicted and sentenced because of the evidence, not because 
     of his race; and I have continued to fight for the jury's 
     verdict because it was the just result.

  So I respect that opinion. I don't think he would be saying that if 
he didn't believe it. He goes on to say:

       Given all the laudable objectives of the NAACP, it is 
     telling that Mr. Adegbile chose to devote his resources to 
     this particular cause rather than the many legitimate battles 
     that called for his formidable abilities.

  I was a federal prosecutor for 15 years and attorney general of 
Alabama for 2 years. I am a firm believer in the essential integrity of 
the American criminal justice system. I have seen it too long. I have 
tried too many cases before a jury. I believe they do justice every 
time. But there are--in a place as large as Philadelphia, and in places 
as large as America and in any state in America, you have poor people, 
people who are uneducated, people who can be deprived of rights they 
didn't know they had. Errors by chance could occur in a trial. There 
are needs for groups like the NAACP, the Legal Defense Fund, and other 
groups to defend people who have been caught up in the system and 
unfairly treated. That is a legitimate thing. So what I hear the 
district attorney saying is: Why choose this one to be so active about? 
He has good lawyers. The case was on appeal. So he goes on to say:

       Of course, in our system even a radical cop-killer like 
     Mumia Abu-Jamal is entitled to legal representation. That 
     does not mean, however, that those lawyers who elect to arm 
     him in his efforts are suitable to lead this nation's highest 
     law enforcement offices. To select such a lawyer, among all 
     those qualified for the position, speaks volumes to police 
     officers and their families.

  So he is saying: OK, you can do this. You can defend these cases. 
That is perfectly all right. You can pick that case out of all of them 
in the country and defend it, but you should not necessarily be 
promoted to this high position.
  So this is not simply a case of a lawyer representing an unpopular 
client. It was a political cause. There was really no question about 
it.
  What troubles me more than some of the other issues in the case is 
Mr. Adegbile's co-counsel, Christina Swarns, who actually worked for 
him. He was a supervising attorney. She explained the Legal Defense 
Fund motivation for getting involved in this case. Why? She explained 
it at a ``Free Mumia'' rally in 2011. This is what she said at that 
rally:

       It is absolutely my honor to represent Mumia Abu-Jamal. It 
     is my pleasure, it is my honor to have that opportunity, and 
     there is no question in my mind, there is no question in the 
     mind of anyone at the Legal Defense Fund--

  I suppose, surely, that includes the nominee--

       that the justice system has utterly and completely failed 
     Mumia Abu-Jamal and in our view, that has everything to do 
     with race and that is why the Legal Defense Fund is in this 
     case . . . We are acutely aware that the injustices of the 
     criminal justice system are inextricably bound up in race.

  She says the Legal Defense Fund agreed with that. But the district 
attorney, Mr. Seth Williams, an African American himself, said the 
conviction had nothing to do with race but everything to do with the 
plain fact that he murdered a police officer, was observed, confessed 
and admitted it, and said he hoped he died, and the jury found that. A 
biracial jury convicted him.
  So while that is just her opinion, that is her statement, and she 
said she was speaking for the Fund. I serve on the Judiciary Committee, 
and we asked Mr. Adegbile: What about this statement by Ms. Swarns, and 
do you agree with it? How do you explain it, and what do you have to 
say about it?
  Did he say he didn't agree with it? Did he say she misspoke? Did he 
say, I wouldn't have used those words? Did he say it was inappropriate, 
I didn't know about it?
  This is what he said:

       I do not know what Ms. Swarns had in mind when she made the 
     comment.

  That is not satisfactory to me. The question was a very serious one. 
I believe the comments by Ms. Swarns were inappropriate. They were 
false. They demeaned the integrity of the legal system of America 
improperly. As an officer of the court she had no right to do that. She 
really should have been disciplined, in my opinion. What did he say to 
the Judiciary Committee's written questions submitted to him? What does 
he say? All he said was: ``I do not know what Ms. Swarns had in mind 
when she made the comment.''
  I think it is pretty clear what she had in mind. This is a radical 
view of criminal justice in America. It is very wrong. It is not 
correct. It is false. I am amazed that he would not at least take this 
opportunity now several years later to correct it.
  In 2011 a Legal Defense Fund press release at the time that the 
nominee was leading the department declared:

       LDF seeks to sweep the grave injustices embodied in this 
     case into the dust bin of history and, in so doing, give 
     communities of color reason to believe that they can and will 
     receive equal justice in Pennsylvania courtrooms.

  So it is a direct attack on the integrity of the courtroom and the 
jury and the judge and the appellate courts and federal appellate 
courts in Pennsylvania. That is the official press release of the Legal 
Defense Fund.
  I don't think there is any evidence that there was any grave 
injustice done. In fact, justice was plainly done in this case. So that 
same press release, former LDF director, John Payton, is quoted as 
saying:

       Abu-Jamal's conviction and death sentence are relics of a 
     time and place that was notorious for police abuse and racial 
     discrimination . . . unless and until courts acknowledge and 
     correct these historic injustices, death sentences like Mr. 
     Abu-Jamal's will invite continued skepticism of the criminal 
     justice system by the African American community.

  Mr. Adegbile has not rejected these statements. In fact, he is proud 
of his role in the case, testifying it demonstrates America's 
commitment to follow our procedural rules even in those hardest cases.
  I just would say that a chief of the Civil Rights Division of the 
U.S. Department of Justice in Washington,

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DC, holds an extremely important position. He is not a blind advocate 
for one vision of what some might call civil rights. I do not think it 
is a civil rights position these lawyers are taking. He is supposed to 
be a neutral observer. If a police officer violates the civil rights of 
someone under his custody, then he ought to be prosecuted, dismissed, 
and punished for it. But the Civil Rights Division leader is supposed 
to be somebody that everybody can trust, who people believe does not 
have an agenda, and who they believe is fair to all. So therein lies 
the rub.
  Even someone who murders a police officer deserves legal 
representation. There is no doubt about that. But the Philadelphia 
District Attorney, Mr. Seth Williams, an African American said:

       That does not mean, however, that those lawyers who elect 
     to arm him in his efforts are suitable to lead this nation's 
     highest law enforcement offices. To select such a lawyer, 
     among all those qualified for the position, speaks volumes to 
     police officers and their families.

  It speaks volumes to them that this individual, this nominee for the 
Department of Justice, would be perceived as someone who is just 
voluntarily, aggressively, and improperly, in my opinion, taking the 
side of someone who is tried for murdering a policeman.
  So the Civil Rights Division must protect the civil rights of all 
Americans. It must not be used to further a political agenda of any 
special interest groups as too often has occurred in this 
administration, in my opinion. It must be a place where the rights of 
all Americans are protected, regardless of their race and political 
party.
  We have seen racial prejudice in the past, and it does need to be 
stamped out, but I do not believe the President's nominee is qualified 
because I do not see the required degree of objectivity and balance 
that will be necessary, and I will oppose the nomination.
  I don't like to oppose nominees. It is no fun. I am sure this nominee 
has done many good things in his life. But there are points in time 
when we just have to say that as a Senator, I cannot vote for a nominee 
I don't believe is going to be objective and fair in the conduct of 
that important office.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Manchin). The Senator from Missouri.

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