Hans A. von Spakovsky at a Republican forum on ACORN (photo by Ryan J. Reilly / Main Justice).

Former Bush administration Justice Department official Hans von Spakovsky lashed out at the Civil Rights Division in a new column for the National Review. He said the Justice Department “exiled Christopher Coates to South Carolina.”

Coates is the ex-chief of the Voting Section who was transferred over Christmas break at his request, according to the Justice Department. He had approved cases against the New Black Panther Party and against black defendants in Noxubee County, Miss.

In the article, von Spakovsky writes that Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez called Coates a “remarkably seasoned litigator” at a goodbye lunch last week.

“So why would Perez send a “remarkably seasoned litigator” and “an attorney’s attorney” (as another lawyer said at the farewell) to South Carolina?,” asks von Spakovsky.

Coates has refused to talk to reporters about the NBPP case or his transfer. But several sources at Justice and elsewhere have confirmed what happened in this case. The source of mine who attended Coates’s going away event told me it was clear from Coates’s speech to the assembled staff that the criticism had hurt him greatly. In his rather blunt remarks, Coates emphasized that as a DOJ attorney and enforcer of these laws, it was not his right to create unwritten exceptions or to ignore the plain language of the statute.

The Civil Rights Division, argues von Spakovsky, has set up a system to place liberal ideologues in the bureaucracy.

The new leadership has trumpeted the fact that hiring has been returned to “career attorneys.” But the unspoken and undeniable fact is that every single lawyer on the new hiring panel is a staunch, results-oriented ideologue. These ultra-Leftists will seek to replicate themselves, just as they did prior to the arrival of the Bush administration. They may couch their hiring standards in neutral terms, like “demonstrated commitment to civil rights,” but the upshot is that conservatives (or even fair-minded Democrats who believe in objective legal standards) need not apply. And the handful of fair and objective lawyers who remain will be encouraged (by all sorts of coercive means) to move on.

The full article, “Politicizing the Law” is available on National Review’s Web site.

Main Justice was the first to report early last week that Voting Section Chief Christopher Coates, who had approved the voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party and the first voter intimidation case against black defendants in Noxubee County, Miss., had been transferred to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in South Carolina.

Christopher Coates underwent an ideological conversion shortly after a black lawyer in the Voting Rights Section, Gilda Daniels, was promoted to deputy section chief over him in July of 2000 (U. of Baltimore photo).

Now Adam Serwer of The American Prospect has written a story that puts the shake up in the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division into context. Coates, writes Serwer, “underwent an ideological conversion shortly after a black lawyer in the Voting Rights Section, Gilda Daniels, was promoted to deputy section chief over him in July of 2000. Outraged, Coates filed a complaint alleging he was passed up for the job because he is white. The matter was settled internally.”

Voting section employees help a goodbye lunch for Coates on Tuesday, writes Serwer:

At the end, the attendees were startled when Coates pulled out a binder and began reciting a written defense of his decision to file the New Black Panther and Noxubee cases. Voting Section employees exchanged glances in disbelief.

“It felt like he was summing up to a jury,” one attendee said.

Serwer also writes that Coates “has been identified by several current and former Justice Department officials as the anonymous Voting Section lawyer, referred to in the joint Inspector General/Office of Professional Responsibility report, that [Bradley] Schlozman recommended for an immigration judge position.”

One of the key players in the politicization scandal, Bradley Schlozman, wrote a letter to Monica Goodling, a former senior counsel to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales who was also implicated in the scandal involving politicized hiring, wrote of Coates:

Don’t be dissuaded by his ACLU work on voting matters from years ago. This is a very different man, and particularly on immigration issues, he is a true member of the team.

Be sure to read the whole story at the American Prospect.

Veteran Civil Rights Division attorney Christopher Coates has stepped down as chief of the Voting Section, according to the division’s Web site.

There was no official announcement of the personnel change in the long-troubled section, which most recently has been embroiled in the controversy over the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case. Main Justice noticed the change on the Voting Section Web site.

Taking over for Coates in an acting role is Chris Herren, a deputy chief of the section, according to the Web site.

Coates did not respond to an email seeking comment. Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said Coates requested an 18-month detail to the U.S. Attorney’s office in South Carolina, where he’ll start in January.

“His new role is the result of conversations Mr. Coates initiated with the division leadership earlier this year,” said Schmaler.

Coates signed off on the controversial voter intimidation complaint against the New Black Panther Party and three of its members, filed in the waning days of the George W. Bush administration. The Obama DOJ’s decision to dismiss most of the charges in May has become a political controversy for the administration.

Coates also supervised J. Christian Adams, the career Voting Section attorney who compiled the Black Panther case. Adams, who has a history of conservative advocacy, was hired in 2005 by then-Civil Rights Division official Bradley Scholzman, a Bush political appointee who improperly politicized the hiring process in the division, the department’s Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility found in a joint investigation.

Coates had been listed on the Web site as chief of the Voting Section as late as Dec. 20.

Coates and Adams were subpoenaed last month by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which is investigating the Justice Department’s decision to dismiss most charges against members of the anti-white fringe group, two of whom stood in military-style garb outside a Philadelphia polling place in November 2008, one of them holding a nightstick.

A person familiar with the civil rights commission’s investigation told Main Justice that Coates immediately notified his superiors upon learning he had been subpoenaed.

The Justice Department has resisted complying with the conservative-dominated commission’s subpoenas. But Adams has argued to department lawyers that he is obligated to comply.

Coates had been Voting Section chief since January 2008. He replaced John Tanner, who resigned in December 2007  following comments he made about voter identification laws that some lawmakers perceived as racist.

Tanner rebutted liberal criticism of voter ID laws by saying they affected the elderly more than minorities, and that because African-Americans tended to die younger, the ID requirements didn’t have a disproportionate effect on them.

Tanner’s comments led then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) to call for his removal. Upon taking over the Voting Section, Coates demoted two of Tanner’s deputy chiefs.

This article was updated to include a response from Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler.

When the George W. Bush Justice Department filed a civil complaint against members of the New Black Panther Party in January, it invoked a rarely used provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act to allege voter intimidation.

Bush-era Civil Rights Division official Brad Schlozman improperly politicized the hiring process for career attorneys, a DOJ investigation found. (Getty Images)

It was the second time the Bush DOJ filed suit under Section 11 (b) of the landmark civil rights legislation – both times targeting black defendants.

The common denominator in these unusual applications of Section 11 (b) is J. Christian Adams, a line attorney at the Justice Department who compiled the Black Panthers case and also worked on a 2005 federal lawsuit against black officials in Mississippi accused of discriminating against whites.

Adams is a career Voting Section lawyer. He is also a foot soldier in the conservative movement, hired into the Justice Department during the Bush administration under a process the department’s Inspector General concluded was improperly politicized.

Adams’s background helps explain how a relatively minor incident in Philadelphia during the 2008 presidential election involving two members of an anti-white fringe group blossomed into a political controversy for the Obama administration.

J. Christian Adams, one of the attorneys who brought the Black Panthers case, at a Federalist Society panel last month (Photo by Ryan J. Reilly / Main Justice).

Adams previously had volunteered for the Republican National Lawyers Association, an off-shoot of the Republican National Committee that trains lawyers to fight on the often racially tinged frontlines of voting rights, and had been a Republican poll watcher in Florida for the 2004 presidential campaign.

As a Virginia lawyer, he once filed an ethics complaint in Florida against the brother of Hillary Clinton, and reviewed a manuscript of a book that questions the contemporary need for Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act that he is tasked with enforcing.

More recently, Adams asked a question at a meeting of the conservative Federalist Society in Washington that appeared skeptical of affirmative action, wrote a piece for the American Spectator that likened President Barack Obama’s world view to that of Nazi appeasers and argued on a conservative blogging network that health care reform is a threat to liberty.

Hired in 2005 by Bradley Schlozman, a Bush-era political appointee who drove out veteran Civil Rights Division attorneys perceived to be liberal, Adams appears to be one of the “right-thinking Americans” with conservative affiliations that Schlozman improperly seeded throughout the bureaucracy.

Civil service protections make his removal difficult, and Adams now is emblematic of the challenges facing Attorney General Eric Holder and Civil Rights Division chief Thomas Perez, who have vowed to “restore” the division to its historic mission of enforcing anti-discrimination laws protecting minorities, while adapting to new challenges.

Republican members of the House asked for an investigation into whether politics played a role in the dismissal of the case and asked GOP senators over the summer to delay Perez’s confirmation over the matter.

Grace Chung Becker (photo by Ryan J. Reilly / Main Justice).

When asked about Adams’s role in the Black Panther case, Perez said in a briefing with reporters last week: ”I don’t want to get in the business of speculating as to why somebody brought something at what point.”

The complaint Adams drafted was also signed by Christopher Coates, chief of the Voting Section, and then-acting Assistant Attorney General Grace Chung Becker, a Bush political appointee who failed to win Senate confirmation over Democrats’ concerns she wasn’t committed to enforcing anti-discrimination laws to protect minorities.

“We clearly communicate our expectations [to Civil Rights Division attorneys]. If you meet those expectations that are transparent, then we want you to continue as long as you want to be there,” Perez added, in another session with reporters after a speech at the National Press Club last Friday. “And if you don’t, we hold you accountable.”

Adams compiled the lawsuit against the Black Panthers, two of whom stood outside a majority-black Philadelphia polling place in November 2008 in military-style fatigues, one of them carrying a nightstick. After the Obama DOJ dismissed of the most of the complaint in May, outraged conservatives called for investigations into whether politics played an improper role in the decision.

“That looks more like some sort of street fight than it does a polling place,” David Norcross, chairman of the Republican National Lawyers Association, said of a widely viewed video showing the incident.

Adams referred questions about his casework to the DOJ’s Office of Public Affairs. A spokesman said the public affairs office doesn’t normally provide a log of cases on which a particular attorney has worked.

A review of documents on the Civil Rights Division Web site indicates that more recently, Adams worked on complaint filed in March under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, under the Obama administration, alleging the town of Lake Park, Florida, denied black voters an equal opportunity to elect representatives of their choice. In October, the Southern District of Florida federal court entered a consent decree and judgment changing the way the town elected its commissioners.

Turning the Voting Rights Act on its head

The Section 11 (b) civil authority under which the Black Panthers lawsuit was filed is rarely used, since criminal acts of voter intimidation are usually referred for prosecution.

The first known 11 (b) case since the early days of the Voting Rights Act came in 1992, when the government filed suit against North Carolina Republicans and the campaign of then-Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) for sending threatening postcards to 100,000 mostly black voters with misleading information about election laws.*

There were no more 11 (b) cases until 2005. Then, the Bush administration filed a voter intimidation lawsuit against black officials in Noxubee County, Miss., alleging systematic discrimination against white voters. It marked the first time the DOJ had used authority of the Voting Rights Act to allege voting discrimination by blacks against whites.

While the government won the Noxubee case and even Bush administration critics agree it had merit, they argue that pursing the case was a misuse of limited department resources. Critics also say the manner in which the Bush DOJ used section 11 (b) turned the spirit of the Voting Rights Act on its head. The 1965 act was passed amid incidents of beatings and harassment in the South by white mobs and Ku Klux Klan members against people demonstrating for black voting rights.

“Sadly, the only two [section 11 (b)] cases that have been brought by the [Bush] department have been on behalf of whites,” J. Gerald Hebert, a former acting chief of the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division, told Main Justice.

The Government Accountability Office, meantime, recently highlighted a Section 11 (b) voter intimidation case that the Bush DOJ chose not to pursue. The case involved allegations that officials in an unidentified state had intimidated black voters.

The GAO didn’t give further details, but Perez said in recent congressional testimony the division had opened an investigation into the incident cited in the report. He declined to elaborate, citing the ongoing probe.

Hebert said in order to pursue a voter intimidation case, there should be depositions from voters who felt intimidated and the actions should be shown to be part of a larger campaign.

The Black Panther complaint provided little evidence to support the government’s allegation that the group conducted a coordinated campaign to intimidate voters, Obama Department of Justice officials have told Republican lawmakers.

“Frankly, the Philadelphia case [against the New Black Panthers] was on shaky ground from the beginning and was largely, I think, filed by the previous administration for the new administration to have to clean up, putting them in a difficult position,” said Hebert, a critic of the Bush administration’s management of the Justice Department who has written extensively about Section 11(b) for his current employer, the Campaign Legal Center.

Spakovsky: ‘political hacks” at DOJ

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.

The conservative-dominated U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is investigating the DOJ’s handling of the Black Panther case, and Adams has fought to obtain permission to assist its investigation, over objections from his superiors at the Justice Department.

Yet conservatives have raised no questions about the background or possible motivations of Adams, who compiled the case. Instead they have attacked the career DOJ lawyers who recommended dismissing it.

Hans A. von Spakovsky at a Republican forum on ACORN (photo by Ryan J. Reilly / Main Justice).

“Those two lawyers, Steve Rosenbaum and Loretta King, are two of the worst political hacks to be found in the career ranks of the Civil Rights Division,” wrote former Bush Civil Rights Division official Hans A. von Spakovsky in an opinion piece for National Review Online.

House Judiciary Committee members Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and Frank Wolf (R-Va.) have written letters to the DOJ asking whether it “improperly considered partisan politics” in dismissing the Black Panther case.

Spakovsky worked closely with Schlozman. He helped oversee the Noxubee case in Mississippi and assisted in the controversial purge of veteran lawyers in the division perceived to be liberal. The Democratic-controlled Senate in 2007 refused to confirm Spakovsky as a Federal Election Commission member.

Spakovsky has also worked at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights for commissioner Todd Gaziano, an official at the conservative Heritage Foundation who’s been the driving force behind the push to investigate the Black Panthers matter.

Von Spakovsky told Main Justice said he hadn’t spoken with Adams about the case. “I know Christian just like I know all the lawyers, but I have not talked to him about the case,” he said.

The Obama DOJ, he added, has “not offered any reason to justify its dismissal, which leads you to the obvious conclusion that there were political and other reasons for doing it.”

In fact, Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs Ron Weich has outlined the reasons for the dismissal in letters to Republican members of Congress. Read his response here (scroll down).

I’m Just a Media Guy

On election day in November 2008, a call came into the Philadelphia office of the John McCain for President campaign. Two black men in military-style fatigues and berets were standing outside a polling station. One of them was carrying a nightstick.

Stephen Robert Morse, a young freelance journalist who’d been hired by the local Republican Party to document potential irregularities at the polls, jumped in a car and sped to the apartment building at 1221 Fairmount Street, in a majority black neighborhood of Philadelphia.

“Dude, you got my back?” Morse said to a companion. He walked toward the two members of the New Black Panthers and began speaking for his video.

“Hi, I’m here at 1221 Fairmount in Philadelphia and there’s a guy with a billy club right here,” Morse said. “So, do we have any problems here? What’s going on? Everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine,” said Minister King Samir Shabazz, the Black Panther holding the night stick.

“Okay, I’m just, I’m just making sure,” Morse said.

Shabazz asked Morse to identify himself.

“I’m just a media guy,” Morse said. “I’m with the University of Pennsylvania. Who are you with? Sorry?”

“Ah … security,” Shabazz said. “Just wondering why everybody’s taking pictures, that’s all.”

“I think it may be a little intimidating that you have a stick in your hand, that’s all. I mean, that’s a weapon. I mean, I’m a concerned citizen,” Morse said.

“So are we. That’s why we’re here.”

“Okay, but you have a nightstick.”

“So what? You have a camera phone.”

“I have a camera phone, which is not a weapon,” Morse said.

Only 34 whites live in Precinct 4 in Philadelphia out of a total population of 970, according to census data. But there was a sea of white faces there that day, mainly Republican lawyers who’d come to monitor the polling station in what, since the disputed 2000 presidential election, has become an election-day ritual for both parties.

Jerry Jackson, accused in a lawsuit by the Bush DOJ of intimidating voters, was also a certified Democratic poll watcher. (National Geographic)

One of the white Republican poll watchers called police, and the nightstick-wielding Shabazz was shooed away without apparent incident. The other Black Panther, Jerry Jackson, who’d been issued a poll watching certificate by the Philadelphia County Board of Elections, remained.

Although both Shabazz and Jackson had been recorded in an earlier National Geographic documentary calling whites “cracker” and other derogatory terms, no racial epithets were recorded on Morse’s video in Philadelphia.

Then Fox News arrived.

Fox reporter Rick Leventhal interviewed an unidentified Republican poll watcher who told of a more racially charged scene.

The Black Panthers “told us not to come outside, because a black man is going to win this election no matter what,” the unidentified Republican poll watcher said on the Fox camera. “So, as I came back outside to see, the nightstick turns around and says, you know, ‘We’re tired of white supremacy,’ and starts tapping the nightstick in his hand.”

Fox reporter Rick Leventhal said: “The Black Panthers were there to intimidate white voters from coming to this polling location?”

“Or anyone who’s in their way. You know, I don’t know. A guy standing in front of a polling place with a night stick is a factor for all voters. Maybe little old ladies don’t want to walk through that,” the Republican poll watcher said.

The video that Morse made was uploaded to YouTube through a Web site called electionjournal.org, run by a Republican operative named Mike Roman.

Later that evening, Barack Obama won the election, becoming the nation’s first African-American president.

On YouTube, viewers started clicking Morse’s video. It eventually logged more than a 1.2 million views.

Republican poll watchers complain

In January, 13 days before Obama’s inauguration, the Civil Rights Division filed a civil complaint alleging that Shabazz and Jackson hurled “racial insults” and threats at both black and white individuals in Philadelphia, and “made menacing and intimidating gestures” directed at “individuals who were present to aid voters.”

Those “individuals who were present to aid voters” appear to be a reference to the white Republican poll watchers who reported the incident and gave interviews to Fox News. So far, no voters of any race who were registered in that precinct have come forward publicly to say they were intimidated.

King Samir Shabazz and Jerry Jackson (National Geographic).

The New Black Panther Party made an easy target for Republicans. Characterized as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Shabazz and Jackson had been videotaped by National Geographic for a documentary calling whites “cracker” and other denigrating terms.

The black separatist group takes its inspiration from, but is not related to, the 1960s Black Panthers, the original “black power” movement.

Republicans have suggested the Justice Department dismissed the case because the New Black Panther Party helped get Obama elected. “It just smacks of some kind of a deal or a thank-you payback,” said Norcross of the Republican National Lawyers Association.

But a review of Shabazz’s comments before the election indicate he wasn’t an Obama fan.

“[Obama] is a puppet on a string. I don’t support no black man running for white politics. I will not vote for who will be the next slavemaster,” he told the Philadelphia Daily News days before the election, according to Politico.

The New Black Panther Party could not be reached for comment.

Washington Times “Exclusive”

After the Black Panthers failed to contest the lawsuit earlier this year, a default judgment was entered. The case then went to then-acting Civil Rights Division chief Loretta King for review.

A career DOJ lawyer, 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.

Associate Attorney General Thomas Perrelli (Photo by Ryan J. Reilly / Main Justice).

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.

The DOJ sought and won an injunction against Shabazz prohibiting him from carrying a weapon at polling stations through Nov. 15, 2012.

On May 29, the Washington Times published an “exclusive” that said Justice Department “political appointees overruled career lawyers” in dismissing the case.

“Career lawyers pursued the case for months, including obtaining an affidavit from a prominent 1960s civil rights activist who witnessed the confrontation and described it as ‘the most blatant form of voter intimidation’ that he had seen, even during the voting rights crisis in Mississippi a half-century ago,” the Times added.

The affidavit came from Bartle Bull, who worked for Robert F. Kennedy’s campaign in New York 40 years ago but has since been better known as a novelist. Bull supported John McCain for president – a fact not noted by the Washington Times.

After the Washington Times piece, Bull popped up in an interview with Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly. “The senior lawyer working on this case, Christian Adams, said to me, ‘if this is not a case of intimidation, nothing is,’” Bull told O’Reilly.

Bull also said he’d heard the Black Panthers in Philadelphia say: “Now you’ll see what it is like to be ruled by a black man, cracker.”

And Rep. Wolf gave a speech on the House floor in July excoriating Holder.

“Martin Luther King did not die to have people in jack boots block polling places,” Wolf said. “I question Eric Holder’s commitment to voting rights.”

Standoff over subpoenas

Now the matter lies in a standoff between the Justice Department and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which has subpoenaed the DOJ for internal communications about the New Black Panther Party case.

Todd Gaziano is leading the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights inquiry into the New Black Panther Party case (photo by Ryan J. Reilly / Main Justice).

The DOJ has resisted complying with the subpoenas, citing a Supreme Court precedent that protects the department’s internal work products from disclosure. But Adams has argued he is obligated to comply with the commission’s inquiry.

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights’ general counsel, David Blackwood – who like Adams and other staff members on the commission is a Republican National Lawyers Association member – wrote the DOJ on Dec. 18 to say the commission had agreed for now to postpone depositions of DOJ officials.

The commission will set new deposition dates for the department employees in the next few weeks, and may consider subpoenaing other department personnel during the same time.

According to a plan circulated among members of the commission by Todd Gaziano, possible deponents in January and February 2010 include Thomas Perrelli, Loretta King, and civil appellate section chief Diana Flynn. The plan also calls for a hearing in Washington in early 2010.

The commission’s final report is scheduled to be released next summer, in advance of the midterm elections.

Mary Jacoby contributed to this report.

*Experts consulted by Main Justice indicated that the 1992 case was the first Section 11 (b) case they knew about. A reader has pointed out there was a case in 1966, and the language has been updated. While a previous version of this story called the Campaign Legal Center “liberal-leaning,” it is a non-partisan organization whose president served as general counsel for John McCain’s campaign in 2000 and 2008. Adams read the manuscript of, but did not edit, the book on the Voting Rights Act.

The career Civil Rights Division attorney who helped bring a controversial voter intimidation case against members of the New Black Panther Party is in conflict with Justice Department lawyers, who’ve ordered him to hold off cooperating with an outside investigation of the matter.

J. Christian Adams (Photo by Ryan J. Reilly / Main Justice).

Voting Section lawyer J. Christian Adams, who assembled the now-dismissed government lawsuit against members of the black separatist group, is arguing through his attorney that he has a legal obligation to comply with a subpoena from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, according to correspondence reviewed by Main Justice.

The independent executive branch agency is examining whether Obama DOJ officials improperly considered politics in their May decision to dismiss most of the civil case against the Black Panthers, who stood outside a Philadelphia polling place last November in military-style fatigues.

The commission, led by George W. Bush appointee Chairman Gerald Reynolds, is dominated by members with conservative affiliations. The two Democrats on the panel have objected to the Black Panther probe, calling it a waste of resources and a “partisan kangaroo court.”

But conservative commentators and Republican members of Congress have pressed the issue, questioning whether the decision to dismiss most of the case after the defendants failed to contest the lawsuit was political. Justice officials have said the evidence in Philadelphia was weak and the incident was isolated, making the case unworthy of further federal resources.

Last month Adams and another Civil Rights Division lawyer, Voting Section chief Christopher Coates, both received subpoenas from the commission, according to people familiar with the matter. But it is only Adams, who has a record of conservative activism, who appears to be in disagreement with the DOJ over whether to comply.

Adams “may have a statutory obligation to appear and testify,” wrote his lawyer, Jim Miles, in a Nov. 25 letter to Joseph H. Hunt, director of the department’s Federal Programs Branch. Hunt’s office defends the government against lawsuits seeking information from its files.

“Failure to comply could subject my client to imprisonment for contempt,” Miles added. “Are you requesting that my client subject himself to imprisonment?”

U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Chairman Gerald Reynolds. (Photo by Ryan J. Reilly / Main Justice).

In a Nov. 27 reply, the DOJ’s Hunt said Miles had misinterpreted the law. A 1951 U.S. Supreme Court decision, United States ex rel. Touhy v. Ragen, affirmed the right of an FBI agent to withhold documents subpoenaed by a state prisoner in a federal habeas corpus proceeding, Hunt wrote. “It is well established that a DOJ employee complying with the Touhy regulations in the face of a subpoena is not subject to contempt.”

Hunt added: “Contrary to your characterization, the Department has not given your client a ‘command to ignore’ the Commission’s subpoena. Rather, the Department has instructed him to abide by lawful Departmental regulations until a final decision has been made.”

Hunt also said that because the Justice Department decides whether to prosecute for failure to comply with executive branch subpoenas – and in this case, the DOJ has instructed Adams not to comply – “there is no reasonable likelihood of imprisonment for your client.” The agency also has no independent power to enforce subpoenas, Hunt said.

Therefore, ”The only way he [Adams] can be placed in a ‘difficult position’ is by deciding to act contrary to the instructions he has been given and, thereby, in a manner that would violate the lawful regulations,” Hunt wrote.

Adams was hired in 2005 by then-Civil Rights Division political appointee Bradley Schlozman, according to a person familiar with the situation. Schlozman was found in this joint investigation of the Justice Department’s Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility to have violated civil service rules by improperly taking political and ideological affiliations into account when making career attorney hires.

Before coming to the Justice Department, Adams volunteered with the National Republican Lawyers Association, an offshoot of the Republican National Committee that trains lawyers to fight on the front lines of often racially tinged battles over voting rights.

In 2004, Adams served as a Bush campaign poll watcher in Florida, where he was critical of a black couple for not accepting a provisional ballot in early voting after officials said they had no record of the couple’s change of address forms, according to Bloomberg News. Democratic poll watchers had advised voters not to accept provisional ballots because of the risk they could be discounted under Florida law, Bloomberg reported.

Adams referred questions to the Justice Department’s public affairs office, which had no comment. Schlozman, who’s now a lawyer in at the Wichita, Kan., law firm of Hinkle Elkouri, did not respond to requests for comment.

The subpoenas to Adams and Coates required a response this week. But Miles would not say Wednesday evening whether Adams would comply with the subpoena. ”It’s shocking to me that they’re suggesting he risk being sent to jail for not complying,” Miles told Main Justice.

Miles is with the Miles Law Firm in Lexington, S.C. Adams served as his general counsel in the 1990s, when Miles was South Carolina Secretary of State.

Lenore Ostrowsky, a spokesman for the commission, would not comment on scheduling of the depositions. The commission’s general counsel, David Blackwood, also said he could not comment.

This report has been changed to reflect a more detailed account of  a Bloomberg News article describing Adams’s service as a Florida poll watcher in 2004.