At a time when bipartisanship is needed more than ever, President Trump and Senator Lindsey Graham, in announcing their pallid responses to police abuse of black citizens, persisted in their untruthful assault on the nation’s only black president.
Their specious claim, that the Obama administration did nothing to prevent racial inequities in policing, is not merely false, it is grossly hypocritical. President Obama, in the wake of the killing of Michael Brown, created a task force of experts to examine and recommend changes to policing in the 21st century. That body issued reports which made major proposals for reform, none of which were acted upon by Mr. Trump (though his just issued executive order borrows some concepts from those proposals),
The Obama Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division launched numerous investigations into police abuse of minorities, threatened or brought lawsuits and exacted consent decrees which required significant reforms. The Trump administration effectively dismantled the Civil Rights Division and discontinued the use of consent decrees.
President Obama, by executive order, foreclosed the transfer of surplus military equipment by the Pentagon to local police departments.Mr. Trump reversed that order.
Mr. Trump blatantly encouraged police officers to roughly handle those they arrest. Mr. Trump, Sen. Graham, stop lying and dividing, start producing.
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