Adegbile Nomination

Floor Speech

I rise today to pay tribute to the men and women across the country serving as police officers who protect law-abiding Americans. It is out of this respect for our Nation's police officers that I also rise to oppose the nomination of Debo Adegbile to be the head of the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division.

We must always remember our Nation's fallen police officers who have bravely given their lives to serve our Nation and to protect us.

Police officers help form the backbone of our country that supports the rule of law. They risk their lives every day to help keep law-abiding citizens safe. According to the FBI, in 2012, 95 law enforcement officers were killed in line-of-duty incidents and 52,901 officers were victims of line-of-duty assaults--52,901.

The New York Times in 2012 observed: ``As violent crime has decreased across the country, a disturbing trend has emerged: rising numbers of police officers are being killed.''

In 2008, 41 officers were killed; in 2009, 48 officers were killed; in 2010, 56 officers were killed; in 2011, 72 officers were killed; and in 2012, 95 officers were killed.

Unfortunately, as Byron York noted today, the New York Times has not reported on the controversial nomination of Debo Adegbile to head the DOJ Civil Rights Division.

It is out of respect for all of our Nation's police officers that I rise to oppose Mr. Adegbile's nomination. Under Adegbile's leadership and supervision, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund brazenly politicized the murder of a Philadelphia police officer, Officer Daniel Faulkner. On December 9, 1981, 25-year-old Officer Faulkner was murdered by Wesley Cook, who is widely known as Mumia Abu-Jamal. Officer Faulkner was shot several times. The fatal shot was when Abu-Jamal pointed the gun inches from Officer Faulkner's face and pulled the trigger.

During the trial it was made known that Abu-Jamal was a supporter of the MOVE Organization, an anarchist group that explicitly advocates for violence against police officers.

In a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mrs. Faulkner described that during the trial, when her husband's bloodstained shirt was displayed by the evidence handler, Abu-Jamal turned in his chair and smirked directly at her, the grieving widow. The jury convened for a matter of hours before they came back with a guilty verdict and a death sentence. That was 1982.

Fast forward 27 years to the year 2009. Adegbile was at the time the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund Director of Litigation. In 2009, the Legal Defend Fund began advocating for Abu-Jamal--first as an amicus and then as cocounsel. To be clear, every criminal defendant is entitled to an attorney, but Adegbile's representation of Abu-Jamal was pure advocacy.

Abu-Jamal's guilt was not in doubt. Four eyewitnesses saw the shooting. Abu-Jamal confessed and stated in front of three witnesses that he hoped Officer Faulkner died.

There was significant ballistic and forensic evidence. For example, the murder weapon was registered to Abu-Jamal and found at the scene with spent shell casings.

Abu-Jamal already had a team of high-priced lawyers working pro bono, who had filed decades of post-trial petitions and appeals, delaying the carrying out of his sentence.

Under Adegbile's supervision, LDF lawyers fanned the flames of racial tension. Through rallies, protests, and a media campaign, all portrayed Mumia Abu-Jamal, an unrepentant cop killer, as a political prisoner.

For example, a 2011 LDF press release said: ``Abu-Jamal ..... is widely viewed as a symbol of the racial injustices of the death penalty.''

That press release also said: ``Mumia Abu-Jamal's conviction and death sentence are relics of a time and place that was notorious for police abuse and racial discrimination.''

LDF lawyers under Adegbile's supervision went farther than that. They held rallies and protests.

This is advocacy. This is political advocacy. This is extreme and radical advocacy. This is not legal representation. They even went so far as to travel to France to hold multiple rallies for Abu-Jamal. The French had already named a street after Abu-Jamal in a suburb of Paris.

This prompted the House of Representatives in 2006 to vote 368-31 to condemn the murder of Officer Daniel Faulkner and to urge the French town to change that street name.

After fanning those flames of racial tension in the court of public opinion, Adegbile pressed aggressive arguments on race in our courts of law. Thankfully, the State and Federal courts rejected those arguments.

Under Adegbile, the LDF initially argued in court that Abu-Jamal's death sentence should be overturned because he believed there should have been more African Americans on Abu-Jamal's jury.

During his Senate confirmation on January 8, Adegbile said the LDF filed a legal brief regarding merely jury instructions about the death penalty. LDF did make those arguments eventually, but Adegbile's initial arguments had nothing to do with jury instructions. They were arguments that Abu-Jamal's jury was unconstitutional because it didn't have, he argued, a sufficient number of African Americans serving in the jury.

The courts rejected those arguments. The jury that convicted Abu-Jamal had two African Americans serving on it. It would have had a third African American serving on it but Abu-Jamal instructed his lawyers to strike that person.

The Fraternal Order of Police vehemently opposes this nomination. According to a letter written by the president of the FOP, Adegbile's nomination only exacerbates the ``growing division and distrust'' toward local law enforcement agencies--a trend that has continued from the time now-Labor Secretary Thomas Perez was leading the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division.

Peter Kirsanow, a member on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, wrote:

Responsible people should agree that going out of your way to defend a convicted cop-killer long after it has become unequivocally clear that he was guilty and had suffered no violation of his civil rights disqualifies one from serving as the head of a division of the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Obama administration's message with the nomination is clear: It wants even more politicization of the Department of Justice. This is insulting to law enforcement officers everywhere. I stand with the Fraternal Order of Police and oppose Adegbile's nomination, and I urge my Democratic colleagues to join the Democratic senior Senator from Pennsylvania, Mr. Bob Casey, and vote no on this nomination.

This is not a matter of leftwing or rightwing. We all should agree that violent criminals should be punished, and we all should agree that those who go out of their way to advocate for, to celebrate, to lionize convicted cop killers are not suitable for major leadership roles at the U.S. Department of Justice.

I urge every Member of this body to oppose that nomination.

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