Obama DOJ official threatens to suppress speech critical of Muslim immigrants in Idaho rape case

Joe NewbyJune 28, 2016

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On Sunday, Breitbart.com reported that Obama’s top legal appointee in Idaho is threatening to prosecute those who criticize federal immigration policies that led to an alleged sexual assault against a five-year-old girl in Twin Falls by refugees from Sudan and Iraq.

According to Breitbart:

A 14-year-old Sudanese refugee in Idaho coached a 10-year-old Sudanese and a 7-year-old Iraqi boy during the June 2 attack on the girl. The younger boys stripped the white five-year-old girl naked, touched her, and urinated on her clothes and in her mouth, while the older boy also took pictures. Their primitive abuse of the child might have continued, had it not been stopped by an elderly American who saw the older boy taking pictures at the laundry room where the boys had cornered the little girl.

Since then, locals have begun to furiously criticize the federal program that is sending migrants into their formerly peaceful city.

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On Friday, U.S. Attorney Wendy J. Olson, an Obama appointee, issued the following statement (Emphasis added):

The United States Attorney’s Office extends its support to the five-year-old victim of assault, and her family, at the Fawnbrook Apartments in Twin Falls. The United States Attorney’s Office further encourages community members in Twin Falls and throughout Idaho to remain calm and supportive, to pay close attention to the facts that have been released by law enforcement and the prosecuting attorney, and to avoid spreading false rumors and inaccuracies.

“Grant Loebs is an experienced prosecutor, and Chief Craig Kingsbury is an experienced law enforcement officer. They are moving fairly and thoughtfully in this case,” said Wendy J. Olson, U.S. Attorney for Idaho. “As Mr. Loebs and Chief Kingsbury informed the public, the subjects in this case are juveniles, ages 14, 10 and 7. The criminal justice system, whether at the state or federal level, requires that juveniles be afforded a specific process with significant restrictions on the information that can be released. The fact that the subjects are juveniles in no way lessens the harm to or impact on the victim and her family. The spread of false information or inflammatory or threatening statements about the perpetrators or the crime itself reduces public safety and may violate federal law. We have seen time and again that the spread of falsehoods about refugees divides our communities. I urge all citizens and residents to allow Mr. Loebs and Chief Kingsbury and their teams to do their jobs.”

When this assault was first reported, some got the details incorrect, claiming, for instance, that the alleged perpetrators were Syrian refugees.

But this statement appears to go too far, said Eugene Volokh, who teaches at the UCLA School of Law:

This, it seems to me, goes beyond calling for accuracy (and trying to deter threats, which are indeed criminally punishable). The prosecutor — a prosecutor backed by the might of the federal government — is not just condemning “threatening statements.” She is equally condemning “inflammatory” statements “about the perpetrators or the crime,” as well as “the spread of false information.”

There is no First Amendment exception for “inflammatory” statements; and even false statements about matters of public concern, the Supreme Court has repeatedly held, are an inevitable part of free debate. While deliberate lies about particular people may lead to criminal punishment in some states that have carefully crafted “criminal libel” statutes, that would be under state law, not federal law; and though Idaho still has an old criminal libel law, it is almost never used, and is likely unconstitutionally drafted given modern First Amendment standards. Moreover, honest mistakes on matters of public concern are often constitutionally protected, especially against criminal punishment.

The federal prosecutor surely knows how to speak carefully and precisely about what very limited sorts of speech she can prosecute. Yet she chose to equally threaten federal prosecution not just for the punishable true threats — or for the deliberate lies that may be punished under state but not federal law — but also for an unspecified range of “inflammatory … statements about the perpetrators or the crime itself,” as well as for “the spread of false information” (with no limitation on the spread of deliberate lies). It looks like an attempt to chill constitutionally protected speech through the threat of federal prosecution.

How does Olson plan to prosecute those critical of the regime’s policies? That’s not exactly clear, but the statement echoes one made by Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who threatened to take “aggressive actions” against those who criticize Muslims.

WND said it contacted other First Amendment attorneys who also condemned Olson’s statement:

“Ms. Olson’s not-so-veiled threat is closer to illegal speech by a government official than the speech she threatens,” said David Yerushalmi, who has represented Pamela Geller and other prominent activists. “But this abuse of government power is no surprise coming from the political hacks this president has appointed in the U.S. attorneys’ offices.”

…

Daniel Horowitz, who represents WND on First Amendment issues, went one step further. He suggested Olson’s words, insinuated that “false or inflammatory” speech could get an American citizen arrested, consisted of a terroristic threat.

“Wendy Olson should be arrested for making terrorist threats against American citizens,” Horowitz said. “She has abused her position and threatened to use the power of the United States government to punish citizens in the exercise of their constitutional rights.

Horowitz went even further:

“She is a criminal terrorist who silences Americans through threats of arrest just as violent terrorists seek to silence us by threats of murder. She should lose her job and be jailed and when Trump builds his wall, her prison work gang should help build it.”

Ouch…

One thing is certain. The Obama regime has absolutely no regard for the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.