Washington, DC – The House Judiciary Committee today held a hearing on “Mismanagement at the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice” and invited Liberty Counsel’s Senior Litigation Counsel, Harry Mihet, to testify on this troubling subject. Mihet was the lead attorney in Liberty Counsel’s successful defense of Susan Pine, a pro-life woman who endured a two-year, baseless and politically motivated prosecution by the DOJ, under the leadership of Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez. Mr. Perez is President Obama’s nominee for Secretary of Labor.
Mihet today told Congress that “The Department of Justice has apparently forgotten its name and that its purpose is to pursue justice and protect civil rights, not unconstitutional, groundless claims manufactured by abortion clinics to intimidate and silence pro-life Americans.”
Mihet recounted how Mr. Perez assembled a team of seven (7) taxpayer-funded lawyers, flew many of them down to Florida for a taxpayer-funded stakeout of Ms. Pine’s constitutionally protected speech outside an abortion clinic, and filed a federal lawsuit against her, claiming that she “obstructed” a vehicle from entering the clinic. The DOJ had no “victim” because no one ever complained of being obstructed. The DOJ and the clinic failed to preserve the videotapes from the clinic’s security system, which would have shown that Ms. Pine broke no law. And the DOJ manufactured facts out of whole cloth, only to have them refuted by its own witnesses.
At the end of the two-year ordeal, federal Judge Kenneth L. Ryskamp concluded that “the evidence could not lead a rational jury to find that Ms. Pine’s conduct [i.e., having peaceful conversations with clinic visitors on a public sidewalk] constituted a physical obstruction” in violation of any law. “The Court is at a loss as to why the Government chose to prosecute this particular case in the first place,” he added. And he suspected that “this action was the product of a concerted effort between the Government and the [abortion clinic], which began well before the date of the incident at issue, to quell Ms. Pine’s activities.” The Court threw out the DOJ’s lawsuit, and the DOJ paid $120,000 in fees and costs for its frivolous conduct.
“When the very institution charged with protecting civil rights becomes complicit in violating them, all Americans suffer,” said Mihet. “Mr. Perez and those under his leadership have demonstrated that they cannot be trusted to follow the rule of law when it conflicts with their partisan ideology,” he added.
Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel, commented: “Today’s testimony reveals that this Department of Justice is driven by political ideology rather than the rule of law. The testimony is especially troubling regarding Thomas Perez. When confronted with the thugs of the New Black Panther Party, who used clubs to intimidate citizens from voting, he refused to apply the law because he believes the law protecting the right to vote free of intimidation does not apply to ‘white citizens.’ In our case with Susan Pine, Perez ignored the law and placed his abortion ideology over the rule of law. He was soundly chastised by the federal judge for his shocking disregard for the law and facts. He has been nominated by President Obama to be the Secretary of Labor. In this capacity, he would be charged with equal enforcement of employment non-discrimination laws, which past history reveals he is incapable of doing."
Liberty Counsel is an international nonprofit, litigation, education, and policy organization dedicated to advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of life, and the family since 1989, by providing pro bono assistance and representation on these and related topics.
