Megyn Kelly Displays Even More Bias Touting Her “Independent” Investigation Of Her “Racist DOJ” Source
Reported by Ellen - July 2, 2010 -
Megyn Kelly aired Part 2 of her promotion interview with an ex-DOJ employee and GOP activist alleging that the Obama Department of Justice does not want to prosecute black people for voting crimes. Once again, Kelly acted more like an advocate for her guest than a news gatherer even though her 1 PM ET show is supposedly part of Fox News’ objective news lineup. That evening, on The O’Reilly Factor, Kelly made a showy pretense of having done some independent verification of her guest. But Kelly only discussed his supposedly impeccable background. She offered no corroboration of his actual charges about the DOJ. She also left out a lot of information that casts doubt on his story. Guest host Laura Ingraham didn’t care. Past comments from Attorney General Eric Holder about race were all the proof she needed that the DOJ has an anti-white bias. So we can add Ingraham to the growing list of Fox News pundits echoing Glenn Beck’s accusation that President Obama is a racist.
On The Factor last night (7/1/10), in a segment laughably called “The Investigation Segment,” Ingraham showcased a clip of Kelly’s interview in which she asked, “Do you believe that the DOJ has a policy now of not pursuing cases if the defendant is black and the victim is white?” Her guest, ex-DOJ employee J. Christian Adams, said that in voting cases, “There’s no doubt about it.”
Actually, there’s plenty of reason to doubt it. This so-called scandal arises from a case of alleged voter intimidation by a group of New Black Panther Party members during the 2008 presidential election. As Main Justice described it, after the DOJ obtained a default judgment against the Black Panthers, “then-acting Civil Rights Division chief Loretta King… decided one incident didn’t constitute an orchestrated campaign or pattern to deny voting rights, the usual criteria for deploying federal resources in litigation. She also had concerns about seeking legal action in part based on how the men were dressed, and noted that one of them – Jackson – held an official poll watching certificate, giving him a reason to be on the premises. She recommended dismissal, a decision approved by her supervisor, Associate Attorney General Thomas Perrelli, an Obama political appointee.”
Main Justice also noted in late December, 2009, “So far, no voters registered in the majority-black precinct in Philadelphia where the incident occurred have come forward publicly to say they were intimidated. The complaints have come instead from white Republican poll watchers.” And, of course, Fox News. It’s worth noting that Main Justice reported that Fox News played a significant role in promoting this story from the beginning.
I got that information from a simple Google search. But Kelly did not offer it to the "we report, you decide" network's viewers either here or in any of the four previous segments where I've seen her discuss the story. Instead, she adopted her guest’s hearsay accusations as her own while pretending otherwise.
“Is there any reason to doubt (Adams’) veracity?” Ingraham asked Kelly.
Kelly replied, “When I first heard him make these charges, I thought, ‘This is so extraordinary. What’s the deal with this guy? Is this some nut case? Where is this coming from?’ So, I made a lot of phone calls to some very good contacts and people who have had careers at the Department of Justice and who know this guy and who know of him. And his reputation is very much in tact. And they said… ‘He is a conservative… but the feedback I got on him uniformly was that he’s the real deal, he’s a legitimate lawyer. He is a very well respected lawyer and for him to be doing this is as extraordinary as it seems.”
You have to admire Kelly’s snow job. In the first place, she neatly avoided mentioning what kind of contacts she spoke with. Adams has a reputation as a GOP partisan who was hired by a GOP political appointee. Was that the person who gave Kelly the character reference? Further, Kelly said she spoke to people who “have had careers” at DOJ. Were they all Bush administration lawyers?
But more importantly, the issue is really not Adams’ reputation but whether his allegations are correct. Therefore, all the people with first-hand information about Obama administration policies must have worked there during the Obama administration. Adams made it clear in his interview he had no first-hand knowledge about the allegations he made. Did Kelly even try to verify his claims? If not, why not? If so, why didn’t she mention it?
Not that Ingraham cared. She quickly maneuvered the discussion to paint Holder and Obama as racists. She started with Holder, by bringing up his “We’re a nation of cowards” comments about race and baselessly adding, “One would think that given his viewpoints… that somehow that’s bleeding into this decision-making. This was a CLEAR CASE of voter intimidation.”
“Yeah,” Kelly agreed. “The evidence was pretty clear… But the bottom line was, according to this guy, this whistleblower, the Department of Justice under Eric Holder now has a policy that it’s not going to pursue these cases where it’s a black defendant and a white victim. And that’s really the headline out of this interview.”
Ingraham sneered, “What happened to the post-racial presidency?”
Kelly said in her sincerest voice, “Well, think about that. Think about that… Now you’re going to have instances like this where Black Panthers and others can go to the polling stations and do this if they so choose. And they just basically are gonna get a pass because while it’s not an official thing, it’s been made very clear to all the rank and file voting rights attorneys in the DOJ those cases are not to be pursued.”
Kelly offered no indication that the Panthers are on any kind of tear of voter intimidation nor did she discuss any other examples of black intimidation of white voters. But she deliberately suggested that this case is of major significance. For example, in the second part of her interview, she asked, “How high did this thing go?” (at about the 7:27 mark) and “Would it be extraordinary for a decision like this to be made in a case this big without being run by the Attorney General?” (7:40)
Main Justice also reported that the conservative-dominated U.S. Commission on Civil Rights will release a final report on this case this summer “in advance of the midterm elections.”
In addition to adding another race-based attack to her resume, I can’t help but feel that Kelly has done some nice little footwork for the GOP’s Fox News’ regular, pre-election obsession with (African American) voter fraud.
