Democrat Memogate: Quiet Waters Run Quietly

There will be times like this; there are for any scandal. Nothing seems to be happening. Those who believe that investigations must move forward with all due speed and diligence become frustrated, not a unique emotion even for routine expectations of government, but palpable when wrongs must be righted.

We must also accept that as scandals go, Memogate isn’t very sexy. No graphic photographs. The perps are not walking, they are veritably strutting, without guards or ankle bracelets. Some of them think they have beat this rap, as they have beat others before. There is understandable hesitancy to investigate because one of the principal charges, attempting and possibly succeeding in fixing a federal court case, involves leaders of the civil rights movement.

Beneath the surface, however, the water, while not yet roiling, is neither still.

A handful of journalists — most notably Melanie Kirkpatrick of the Wall Street Journal, Charles Hurt of The Washington Times, the indefatigable Robert Bluey of CNS News and the ever persistent Robert Novak — continue to chase leads.

Peter Kirsanow, a commissioner at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, has requested that Commission staff actively monitor developments in the attempted manipulation of the University of Michigan affirmative action cases.

While Kirsanow, a successful labor lawyer and experienced intellectual pugilist, is a dynamic force to be reckoned with, he faces the dictatorial chairperson of the Commission, Mary Frances Berry. Berry is currently facing her own potential scandal, with the General Accounting Office pounding at her door to conduct an audit of the Commission’s finances.

Berry is on the Board of Directors of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF), the very organization at the center of the court fixing scheme hatched by the group’s former president, Elaine Jones. That Berry should recuse herself even from discussions of Kirsanow’s request is a given, but doing the right thing is almost never Berry’s first choice of action.

When President Ronald Reagan sought to have Berry removed from the Commission, now decades ago, she went to court and won. Now, she is believed to be maneuvering once again to extend her tenure beyond the legal expiration of her term this December.

The Civil Rights Commission meets on Monday, May 17, at which Kirsanow will discuss his request. While Commission meetings rarely get media attention, this one could throw off sparks.

On May 1, Theodore M. Shaw replaced Elaine Jones as president of LDF. Shaw, who has been LDF’s Associate Director-Counsel for more than a decade, may have his own questions to answer when investigations actually start rolling. Shaw, on leave–of–absence from LDF, worked at the University of Michigan in the early 1990s, and was a member of the committee that drafted the affirmative action plan.

Shaw then, on behalf of LDF, actually delivered the oral argument in the University of Michigan case now so tainted by evidence of attempted manipulation. At this point, no one at or associated with LDF has been willing to say anything at all about the charges — and Robert Bluey of CNS News has asked everyone he can collar, including Shaw. What Shaw knew and when he knew it about Elaine Jones’ scheme are pivotal questions in understanding the extent of her covert activity. The same is true of many other participants in the case, including counsel for the University of Michigan.

Finally, for now, U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has grown more and more disgusted by the Memogate abuses, and more and more frustrated by the lack of meaningful investigation. Unlike the rest of us, Senator Sessions has a way to get his questions answered. He chairs the Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts, the appropriate subcommittee to hold meaningful investigative hearings. His disgust and frustration may have finally reached that tipping point.

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