Debo Adegbile gives up on getting a job that was made for him and returns to private practice.
Shot down in March by a Senate vote that included seven Democrats, Debo Adegbile
announced Monday that he has withdrawn his nomination for Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, the chief of the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division, and returned to the private sector. He is joining the law firm of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP. Another talented person lost to government service for no good reason other than the joy it brings to ideologues and cowards.
Adegbile, previously litigated for the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison and then worked for more than a decade at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. From March 2012 to January 2013, he served as the fund's acting president and director-counsel. While there, he wrote an appellate brief in the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, who had been convicted of the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner and sentenced to death.
The NAACP's intervention in the case led in December 2011 to the commutation of Abu-Jamal's sentence to life without parole. According to the fund, however, Adegbile's role was minimal in the long-running case.
Subsequently, Adegbile became senior counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Last year, President Obama nominated him for the top civil rights post.
The smearing didn't take long for the right-wing media machine to get underway. For instance, Fox News' Greg Gutfeld called him a "cop killer coddler." But since he's neither a lawyer nor a lawmaker, Gutfield had an excuse for not understanding the role of defense attorneys. The same cannot be said for the senators, including seven Democrats, who expressed their disgust that Adegbile had done what defense lawyers do: defend.
Republicans tried to paint Adegbile as an extremist because of the Abu-Jamal case. In fact, he was just doing what, say, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts did pro bono in the case of John Ferguson, the mass murderer convicted in 1978 of killing eight people in Florida.
Most Democrats gave a thumbs-up to Adegbile. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, for instance, said in the debate before the vote: “I think the accusation is that the president is picking someone for the Division of Civil Rights who has been a leader in civil rights.” He pointed out that Republicans have “historically been troubled by […] appointments [to the post] no matter who they are.” But the final vote was 47-52.
There's more below the fold.
So, the post remains empty. One of the tasks of the person who fills that job is to oversee civil rights investigations such as the one the DOJ is now running in Ferguson, Missouri, as a consequence of the police shooting of unarmed, 18-year-old Michael Brown and the militarized police response to community uproar over what many protesters said was long-standing racism in the police department.
Said Adegbile of his new job:
“Once I decided to return to private practice, Wilmer Hale was a natural fit. I was drawn to the firm’s exceptional attorneys, superb reputation and strong culture of public service. WilmerHale leverages that culture for the benefit of its clients in cutting edge cases that lie at the intersection of business, government regulation and public policy.”
A White House spokeswoman
told the Huffington Post: "We are actively working toward announcing a new nominee for the post." She did not say whether a nominee would be presented this year for confirmation or when the 114th Senate gets underway next year.