What are Feds hiding in Shirley Sherrod case against Breitbart?
Did White House order Sherrod fired? “This is horrible. Video just posted on Hotair.com”
We have written many times about the Shirley Sherrod case against Andrew Breitbart (now his wife is substituted as defendant) and Larry O’Connor over an “edited” video which Sherrod alleges unfairly depicted her as racist leading to her firing by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Sherrod’s claim, repeated mindlessly by the media, is that the full video showed that Sherrod was not racist, but merely relating a story about how her initial ill-will towards a white farmer decades ago was overcome by the realization that race should not be a factor.
I have analyzed the video frame by frame, and in fact Sherrod’s alleged revelation that she overcame those racial feelings was in the “edited” video, as this screen capture shows:
Sherrod was fired precipitously by the USDA, despite her telling USDA that she felt the “edited” video was misleading.
In emails produced in the case, USDA pretty much took the position that it didn’t care, the political blowback was too strong not to fire her. (These emails were obtained from the public court docket via PACER.)
But there is a treasure trove of emails that have not been produced so far, including emails involving the White House.
USDA has been stalling, to the extent that the Judge recently lambasted the government in open court about its failure to cooperate. Both Sherrod and the defendants agree that the goverment should produce all the emails — as it is essential to an understanding of the politicial involvement in the firing.
From the defendants point of view, presumably, if Sherrod was fired for political expediency and not because she was unfairly portrayed as racist, then Sherrod cannot make the connection between the “edited” video and the firing. The emails already released strongly suggest political motivation and a lack of concern for the full context (which was of course in the “edited” video anyway).
Sherrod has filed a motion for a discovery order requiring the feds to produce all the emails, and O’Connor has filed a similar motion to enforce a subpoena for emails.
Will the White House claim executive privilege or in some other way try to bury its involvement in Sherrod’s firing?
We’ll find out soon enough, when the government responds to the pending motions.
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Comments
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I can’t find any video or even a mention of this at HotAir.
What is the headline of the story on Hotair?
The video on Hot Air is from 2010, not recent.
Thank you very much
I remember this very well and thought maybe HotAir had a new story on it
again
thank you!
Ginger
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/07/19/breitbart-hits-naacp-with-promised-video-of-racism/
One quick note to provide context here. Sherrod making her statements the meeting was not a legitimate point of angst and outrage. Even her abrupt firing was not a legitimate point of contention, as she was a presidential appointee, and as such can be fired by the President for any or no reason at all.
Where the actual legitimate outrage should be is over the sudden bursts of lying that came out from all levels of the administration after the firing. First A said that they fired her, then she ‘resigned’ or ‘quit’, before B said, no, they were the ones who fired her. Then she tried to sue, which any judge would have laughed her out of court for, but then she got rehired at a higher salary in a different position for several years. No responsibility was taken at any level for the chaos and never will be.
“The Buck Stops… Over there! No, over there! Wait!”
Attkisson had “grown frustrated with what she saw as the network’s liberal bias, an outsized influence by the network’s corporate partners and a lack of dedication to investigative reporting,” reports Politico.
She began discussing her early departure with CBS New president David Rhodes last April.
David Rhodes’s brother, Ben, is President Obama’s deputy national security adviser for strategic communication, and he was involved in the writing of the Benghazi talking points.
—NRO
Yeah. Nothing to see here. Just another witch hunt by you dishonest wing-nuts, trying to smear our heroic and honest pres-e-dent.
/sarc
Guess after we brush all the mumbo jumbo aside the question is will the Judge enforce the subpoena and grant the discovery order? If not will Breitbart move to have the case tossed out?
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