Tag Archives: Bloomberg Law

Don’t Let The Door Hit You On The Way Out

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On Friday, The Gateway Pundit posted an article about the departure of 300 of the 400 Civil Rights Attorneys at the Justice Department. I am not going to accuse the Justice Department of becoming political, but I was somewhat amazed when under President Obama the Justice Department dropped the charges of voter intimidation against some members of the New Black Panthers.

This is a picture of a Philadelphia voting location in 2008:

The case of voter intimidation was dropped by the Obama Justice Department.

The Gateway Pundit reports:

Assistant Harmeet Dhillon just confirmed what every honest observer already knew: the old Civil Rights Division was a woke fortress inside Main Justice.

When President Trump’s team told those lawyers the American people had voted to end illegal DEI discrimination and scrub dirty voter rolls, about 300 of the division’s 400 attorneys walked out.

Dhillon did not mourn them. She called it what it was.

In an interview this week with Col. Kurt Schlichter filling in on the Hugh Hewitt Show, Dhillon said the Civil Rights Division is one of the largest shops at Main Justice in Washington.

When she arrived, it had about 400 attorneys. After her office made clear it would implement the president’s , “prioritizing getting rid of DEI and cleaning up voter rolls,” “eventually about 300 of those attorneys quit, and so they self-deported.”

Then she rebuilt.

“We then had the task of, while we had DOJ restrictions and budgetary constraints, building back the Civil Rights Division,” Dhillon said. “And I’m really happy to say that I recruited over 100 great legal professionals here to the DOJ.”

The article notes:

The numbers line up with other reporting. Bloomberg Law reported this month that more than 300 of the division’s 400-plus lawyers departed over the past 19 months as Dhillon redirected the office toward voter-roll enforcement, campus discrimination, and religious-liberty cases.

What did those lawyers refuse to do?

They refused to treat race discrimination as race discrimination when the victims were Asian students, white applicants, or anyone else locked out by DEI. They refused to help states stop illegal voting. They refused to treat dirty rolls — dead registrants, movers, duplicates, and noncitizens — as a civil-rights problem for actual American citizens.

The Gateway Pundit has documented that fight for months. TGP reported last December that a limited review of 47.5 million records turned up more than 260,000 dead people still on the rolls and thousands of noncitizens registered for federal elections.

In March, Dhillon said a review of 50 to 60 million records had found hundreds of thousands of ineligible registrations, including more than 300,000 dead voters still listed. The division has sued states that stonewalled the data and put election officials on notice that knowingly leaving noncitizens on the rolls can be a federal crime.

It’s good to have impartial justice return to the Department of Justice.

Understanding Some Of The Logic

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The Trump administration seems to be targeting Venezuela for a number of reasons. One reason is to remove a dictator who is a threat to the western hemisphere. Venezuela is hosting a number of terrorists groups and other groups that have a goal of destroying America. They are also a source of drugs that have killed millions of Americans. But there is more to the story.

According to an Oil Price website article of December 22:

  • Trump’s rhetoric aligns closely with unresolved arbitration rulings over Venezuela’s 2007 seizure of U.S. oil assets.
  • The dispute, long confined to courts and asset seizures, is now being reframed as a matter of U.S. foreign policy.

According to a Bloomberg Law article from January 23, 2025:

Venezuela must pay an $8.7 billion claim to ConocoPhillips stemming from asset seizures during the reign of the late Hugo Chavez after an international court rebuffed the South American nation’s final appeal.

The World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes upheld a 2019 ruling in favor of the US oil explorer’s demand for compensation for seizures more than a decade ago, ConocoPhillips announced Thursday.

The Oil Price article states:

The Legal Case Behind the Rhetoric

ConocoPhillips pursued international arbitration for years and ultimately won multiple awards. Most recently, in January 2025, arbitration rulings were upheld totaling approximately $8.7 billion plus interest. Venezuela has consistently refused to pay.

The U.S. Treasury has authorized ConocoPhillips to pursue enforcement actions worldwide, including the seizure of Venezuelan assets held abroad. Some assets have been targeted over the years, but full recovery has remained elusive.

Trump’s framing of Venezuela as having “stolen” American oil aligns directly with this legal history. While Venezuela claims sovereign authority over its resources, international tribunals ruled the expropriation illegal under international law. Trump appears to be elevating that unresolved legal judgment into a matter of U.S. foreign policy enforcement.

I don’t recommend toppling foreign governments. Historically we have done more harm than good when we have done that. However, the people of Venezuela have been protesting the Chavez and Maduro regimes for a number of years. If the people who could create a democracy or a republic are still alive and able to do that, it would be good news for everyone.