Sanford Speaks Out: Obama Disgraces Officer's Memory with Appointment

Friday, January 31, 2014

Obama Disgraces Officer's Memory with Appointment

Obama Disgraces Officer’s Memory with Appointment

Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
January 31, 2014

Just as jokes about the Lincoln and Kennedy assassinations are still inappropriate, even after 33 years Barack Obama’s nomination of the lawyer who willingly defended the murderer of a police officer in 1981 is just as inappropriate – if not more so as it reopens barely healed wounds of the family the officer left behind.

Proving once again to feed his own progressive agenda, Obama has appointed Debo P. Adegbile to the Justice Department to serve as Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Rights Division. Adegbile volunteered to represent Mumia Abu-Jamal in 1981 for the murder of Philadelphia police Sergeant Daniel Faulkner. Abu-Jamal shot Faulkner four times and was slated for death when Adegbile, again, volunteered to fight and succeed in getting the death penalty lifted.

Abu-Jamal was convicted of murder in 1982, having neither testified on his own behalf nor denied his guilt throughout the trial. Abu-Jamal’s own brother William, a witness at the crime scene, also declined to testify during the trial. Additionally, multiple court rulings upheld the murder conviction.

Adegbile, also an NAACP legal defense official, is slated to replace Tomas Perez, now heading the Labor Department in Obama’s cabinet. “Through his extensive work at the NAACP and in arguments before the Supreme Court, Adegbile has made it clear he does not believe civil rights apply to whites,” wrote Katie Pavlich on Townhall.com, January 8, 2014.

While Obama has the right to nominate who he chooses, and Adegbile followed his credo by zealously defending his client, Adegbile did not have to volunteer to take the case, nor did Obama have to nominate such a candidate. Is this the kind of person who should be heading the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department? Does his background scream open-mindedness and fairness to all? Is this the best nominee Obama could find of all the attorneys in the United States with experience in civil rights?

This appointment is a clear poke in the eye at the memory of Sgt. Faulkner, his survivors, and the law enforcement fraternity in general. Adegbile will face the Senate Judiciary Committee. Should that committee be obtuse enough to approve this nominee, he will come before the entire Senate for a vote of confirmation.

Below is a list of the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Contact them and politely express your outrage at the caliber of this appointment. We the people can, and must, make a difference.

All telephone numbers begin 202-224, with the specific four final numbers listed below.

Democrats

Patrick Leahy (VT) – Chairman

-4242; www.leahy.Senate.gov/contact/

Richard Blumenthal (CT)

-2823; www.blumenthal.Senate.gov/contact/

Christopher Coons (DE)

-5042; www.coons.Senate.gov/contact/

Dick Durbin (IL)

-2152; www.durbin.Senate.gov/public/index.cfm/contact

Dianne Feinstein (CA)

-3841; www.feinstein.Senate.gov/public/index.cfm/e-mail-me