Did the DoJ lie about political interference in the New Black Panther Party dismissal?

We’ve followed the strange decision to dismiss a case of voter intimidation that the Department of Justice had already won, stemming from the 2008 election and which was caught on video.  However, we missed a rather interesting court ruling on the case last week, one that may end up taking the Philadelphia incident in the same direction as Operation Fast and Furious — potential perjury and obstruction of justice.  Ironically, the judge in this case is a familiar face in just these kinds of issues, too:

Obama’s DOJ had claimed Judicial Watch was not entitled to attorney’s fees since “none of the records produced in this litigation evidenced any political interference whatsoever in” how the DOJ handled the New Black Panther Party case. But United States District Court Judge Reggie Walton disagreed. Citing a “series of emails” between Obama political appointees and career Justice lawyers, Walton writes:
The documents reveal that political appointees within DOJ were conferring about the status and resolution of the New Black Panther Party case in the days preceding the DOJ’s dismissal of claims in that case, which would appear to contradict Assistant Attorney General Perez’s testimony that political leadership was not involved in that decision. Surely the public has an interest in documents that cast doubt on the accuracy of government officials’ representations regarding the possible politicization of agency decision-making.
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In sum, the Court concludes that three of the four fee entitlement factors weigh in favor of awarding fees to Judicial Watch. Therefore, Judicial Watch is both eligible and entitled to fees and costs, and the Court must now consider the reasonableness of Judicial Watch’s requested award.

Read more: http://hotair.com/archives/2012/07/31/did-the-doj-lie-about-political-interference-in-the-new-black-panther-party-dismissal/