Politics

Biden to NAACP: ‘Imagine what a Romney Justice Department would look like’

Matthew Boyle Investigative Reporter
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Vice President Joe Biden pushed NAACP convention attendees to contrast President Barack Obama’s Department of Justice with a potential Mitt Romney DOJ.

“Imagine what the Romney Justice Department will look like,” Biden told the NAACP audience on Thursday. “Imagine when his senior advisor on constitutional issues is Robert Bork. Imagine those incredibly important positions of justice. Imagine, and I mean this, this to me is one of the most critical issues in this election, imagine what the Supreme Court will look like after four years of a Romney presidency.”

The Biden comment likely sits well with NAACP members as, on Tuesday, the NAACP unanimously passed an “emergency resolution” calling the bipartisan votes to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in criminal and civil contempt of Congress a “travesty of justice.” The resolution is meant for the NAACP to “express their outrage at the treatment of the first African-American and one of the best attorney generals in history.”

As the resolution passed, Holder got rock-star treatment, walking around shaking the hands of many of those in attendance.

During his speech at the NAACP on Wednesday, Romney avoided justice issues to focus instead on the economy and education.

Romney hasn’t said much on what his DOJ would look like if he wins the November election, but he has criticized Obama’s DOJ, especially Holder. “There’s not very much that Eric Holder does that I agree with,” Romney said at a campaign event late in 2011 in New Hampshire. “I have to wonder how it is that the president continues to support him, and the answer must be the president agrees with him.”

“Eric Holder would be long gone by the time I came around [as president of the United States],” he added.

Romney has called for Holder’s resignation over Operation Fast and Furious, too. He joins 130 House members, eight U.S. senators and two sitting governors in demanding Holder’s resignation over the scandal. (SEE ALSO: TheDC’s complete Fast and Furious coverage)

“Either Mr. Holder himself should resign or the president should ask for his resignation or remove him,” Romney said in early December 2011. “It’s not acceptable for him to continue in that position given the fact that he has misled Congress and entirely botched the investigation of the Fast and Furious program.”

Romney also supports voter ID laws — something Holder and Obama’s administration vehemently oppose.

The former Massachusetts governor has also made Obama’s decision to assert executive privilege over Fast and Furious documents a bit of a campaign issue lately. On Sean Hannity’s radio program and on Neil Cavuto’s Fox News Channel show this week, Romney responded to Obama’s “transparency” attacks on him by pointing out how the president is concealing Fast and Furious documents.

Romney campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul didn’t immediately respond to The Daily Caller’s request for comment in response to Biden’s remarks.

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