There is a new reason to be appalled by the sensationalized George Zimmerman trial, as the jury is scheduled to begin deliberations today. Judicial Watch has just recently obtained damning documents showing that the Department of Justice (DOJ) actively aided and organized protests against Zimmerman. The documents detail the actions of the Community Relations Service (CRS), a small outfit within the DOJ.
Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act request on April 24, 2012. According to the documents received:
- March 25 – 27, 2012, CRS spent $674.14 upon being “deployed to Sanford, FL, to work marches, demonstrations, and rallies related to the shooting and death of an African-American teen by a neighborhood watch captain.”
- March 25 – 28, 2012, CRS spent $1,142.84 “in Sanford, FL to work marches, demonstrations, and rallies related to the shooting and death of an African-American teen by a neighborhood watch captain.
- March 30 – April 1, 2012, CRS spent $892.55 in Sanford, FL “to provide support for protest deployment in Florida.”
- March 30 – April 1, 2012, CRS spent an additional $751.60 in Sanford, FL “to provide technical assistance to the City of Sanford, event organizers, and law enforcement agencies for the march and rally on March 31.”
- April 3 – 12, 2012, CRS spent $1,307.40 in Sanford, FL “to provide technical assistance, conciliation, and onsite mediation during demonstrations planned in Sanford.”
- April 11 – 12, 2012, CRS spent $552.35 in Sanford, FL “to provide technical assistance for the preparation of possible marches and rallies related to the fatal shooting of a 17 year old African American male.”
The federal government is now in the business of swaying public opinion in criminal trials against defendants they want to smear. This should be a chilling reminder that the ever-increasing authority of the federal government knows no bounds, and that Washington’s lust for power will continue to ooze into anything and everything in order to further consolidate its dominion.
Although the amount of money is relatively small, these reports document an orchestrated effort by the CRS to organize protests and give assistance to anti-Zimmerman groups. Perhaps most ominously, this campaign to influence and aid these groups began just five days after the DOJ and the FBI decided to open further investigations into the events of February 26th.
So to recap: The DOJ actively abetted anti-Zimmerman groups in order to tarnish Zimmerman’s reputation, while at the same time leading a supposedly unbiased investigation into the Martin shooting. The DOJ is supposed to be a disinterested and even-handed arbiter of disputes. These flagrantly political actions further mar Attorney General Eric Holder and the Obama administration as a whole, although with the recent and alarming revelations about the NSA’s extensive surveillance programs, frankly, it’s shocking that there’s any integrity left to mar.
The media has created a narrative concerning the shooting, a wholly racial fabrication starring an idealized 17-year-old black boy and the racist “white-hispanic” who gunned him down. The Obama administration shamelessly–and nonsensically—assisted in this endeavor.
A month after the shooting, Obama stated:
If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon. When I think about this boy, I think about my own kids.
Rich Lowry at Politico has a good piece about this angle. In it he correctly notes:
MSNBC tried and convicted Zimmerman, executed him by firing squad, then propped the body up at the defense table so it could do it all over again. Host Lawrence O’Donnell said Zimmerman shot “a black teenager to death for having done absolutely nothing,” and opined that “I believe what we have here is evidence of a police cover-up.” At a rally, another of the network’s personalities, the Rev. Al Sharpton, compared the injustice done to Martin to the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ — and that may have been one of his cooler-headed moments.
How many of these rallies were spontaneous movements and how many were mobilized or even created by the DOJ or Obama?
Lowry’s conclusion is blunt and biting:
Justice, in the sense of a deliberate, lawful judgment consistent with the facts, was never the driving passion of the Zimmerman-haters. They wanted a racial morality play. If Trayvon Martin had been shot by another black person, no one would have cared. Al Sharpton wouldn’t have made him a cause. Lawrence O’Donnell wouldn’t have batted an eyelash. No one outside his immediate family and friends would have ever known his name.
Trayvon Martin’s shooting was an ideologically useful tragedy, and so the vultures did their worst.
Now that these documents illuminate the DOJ’s role in helping to frame the narrative, we can include Obama as one of the vultures circling their carrion, intervening in order to score cheap political points. Although it’s been a consistent lie, Obama always said that he was going to have the most transparent administration in history. Now, for a brief glimmer–and in a way he wholly unintended–it looks like he finally backed up his promise, revealing just how unscrupulous he can be.
Sources:
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/07/11/19415120-zimmerman-trial-case-bound-for-jury-today?lite
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/03/19/justice/florida-teen-shooting
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/07/zimmerman-a-morality-play-that-failed-93994.html#ixzz2Yq1uXmtv
https://wondergressive.com/2013/06/11/prism/
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