Peter Welch Praises History Of DOJ's Civil Rights Division, Warns It Could Be Destroyed Under Trump

Forbes Breaking News

At today's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) praised the history of the DOJ's Civil Rights Division.

Transcript

00:00Thank you very much Mr. Chairman. I really appreciate you calling this

00:04hearing. The questions before us are absolutely profound. They're being

00:09tested and litigated and they're being contested politically. The question

00:14before this Congress is whether we're going to save the Civil Rights Division

00:20or we're going to destroy it. And I want to step back just a moment. The Civil

00:26Rights Division is a crown jewel in the Department of Justice of the United

00:31States of America. It was founded in 1957. It was founded by a Republican

00:38President Dwight D. Eisenhower. It was when we were beginning to come out of the

00:44dark days of legalized discrimination, the Jim Crow laws in the South, lynchings,

00:50denial of voting rights, discrimination and housing. The Congress began slowly to

00:58address this with laws. The Civil Rights Division in the Department of Justice in

01:05a very turbulent time had the responsibility to enforce the laws, the

01:11laws of the Congress that were passed by Congress, not the prerogatives of the

01:17President. And it did extraordinary work then, as it is doing now. They

01:24investigated assassinations of Martin Luther King, Medgar Evers. They brought

01:29landmark cases to desegregate school districts in the South against bitter

01:35opposition to allow the decision that separate and equal would not stand. It

01:46also took the lead in making voting a reality for folks who couldn't vote. You

01:56know, Mr. Chairman, I began my career and I guess it's in politics because of the

02:02Civil Rights era. I went to Chicago and was a community organizer and I was shocked

02:06as a young man to see that black folks in the west side of Chicago and Lawndale who

02:12had two jobs, who were struggling to pay their bills, who were looking to make

02:17their schools better. They couldn't buy a house and get a mortgage. It was legal to

02:23deny, for the banks to deny them a mortgage. It was legal for the Veteran

02:27Affairs Department to deny folks who served as soldiers in World War II to get a VA

02:33guarantee. It was legal under the Illinois law to evict folks who are paying on

02:39contract to buy a home. But if they missed the payment after ten years because

02:45somebody got sick or you got laid off from your job, legally they could have

02:49their entire house taken back and have no equity. It was Civil Rights Division

02:53folks who were in there fighting for the rights of those Americans. That battle

02:58continues and that's what we're going to be testifying about today. But the most

03:06important thing that we have to remember is that there was a congressional

03:10responsibility to establish laws about what rights individuals had regardless

03:16of their race, their gender, their sexual orientation. And those were the laws that

03:22were enforced by the Department of Justice through the Civil Rights Division. And I

03:27am so indebted to those lawyers who made a decision oftentimes to say no to a

03:33career on Wall Street or K Street or Market Street in San Francisco and to be

03:38here in the Justice Department to advocate and represent the rights of

03:42citizens as those were defined by the Congress of the United States. It's a new

03:49day and our witness here is going to testify. I look forward to hearing what her

03:54testimony is. But there's a profound difference in the Justice Department today

03:59than there was the day before the election. And that is the new policy

04:06directives that are being issued to DOJ attorneys is the zealous and faithful

04:13pursuit of quote the priorities of the President. No, it's the priorities of the

04:20Constitution. It's the priorities of the legislation passed by Congress. It is not

04:28the priorities of any person, even if that person is the President of the United

04:34States. That is not what the job of the Justice Department is to do. So today, Mr.

04:41Chairman, I so appreciate your statement. You're engaging this issue, but I'm gonna

04:46have to say we're gonna have some disagreement along the way. Thank you. I yield back.

04:51That's right. That's America, right? I'll introduce our witness.

Category

Transcript

Recommended