President Obama is set to nominate Justice Department official Thomas Perez for Labor secretary Monday -- but the candidate could be haunted by a newly released report that found he gave incomplete testimony on the controversial decision to drop charges against members of the New Black Panther Party.
Perez, an assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, would replace Hilda Solis at Labor if confirmed by the Senate.
The new report by the Justice Department's inspector general, though, is likely to provide fodder for Republicans. The report challenged testimony Perez gave to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, when he claimed in 2010 that no political leadership was involved in the decision to dismiss three of the four defendants in a lawsuit the George W. Bush administration brought against the New Black Panther Party. The high-profile case involved allegations of voter intimidation outside a Philadelphia polling place in the 2008 election.
The IG report found that, despite Perez' testimony, top political appointees were looped in on the decision-making. Further, the report said Attorney General Eric Holder "was briefed and generally indicated his approval" of a decision to dismiss some of the defendants.
"We found that Perez's testimony did not reflect the entire story regarding the involvement of political appointees," said the report.
"We did not find that Perez intentionally misled the commission," said the IG. "Nevertheless, given he was testifying as a department witness before the commission, we believe that Perez should have sought more details ... about the nature and extent of the participation of political employees in the NBPP decision in advance of his testimony before the commission."
The report said Perez left out from his testimony that Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli and a deputy associate attorney general were involved in consultations about the decision.
IG Michael Horowitz said there are no rules prohibiting political appointees from participating in such decision making and that Perez did not know about the incidents when he testified to the commission in May 2010.
Separately, the wide-ranging IG report also concluded that deep ideological polarization in the Justice Department's voting rights section in both the Bush and Obama administrations fueled disputes that in some instances harmed the office's proper functioning. The department's inspector general said that on some occasions the disputes involved harassment of employees and managers.
Despite the polarization, the IG said its review did not substantiate claims of political or racial bias in decision-making.
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said Perez appeared to be "woefully unprepared to answer questions" from the Civil Rights Commission.
But Lynn Rhinehart, general counsel at the AFL-CIO, said the report shows that Perez, who was first hired by the civil rights division as a career attorney under President George H.W. Bush, restored integrity to the voting rights program at the Justice Department.
The White House stressed Perez's accomplishments in the Civil Rights Division, including the settlement of three major fair lending cases.
"Tom is a dedicated public servant who has spent his career fighting to keep the American Dream within reach for hardworking middle class families and those striving to get into the middle class," a White House official said.
In choosing Perez, the son of immigrants from the Dominican Republic, Obama would be placing an already high-ranking Hispanic official in a Cabinet slot. Perez, a lawyer with a degree from Harvard Law School, would replace Solis, a former California congresswoman and the nation's first Hispanic labor secretary.
Before taking the job as assistant attorney general, Perez was secretary of Maryland's Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, which enforces state consumer rights, workplace safety and wage and hour laws.
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