WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama says the Senate’s failure to move ahead on his choice to run the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division is a “travesty based on wildly unfair character attacks against a good and qualified public servant.”
The controversy over Debo Adegbile (DAY-bow uh-DAYG-buh-lay) stems from his legal representation of a man imprisoned in the murder of a Philadelphia policeman decades ago. Adegbile failed a test vote Wednesday and his confirmation is now in jeopardy.
Obama says Adegbile played by the rules as a lawyer but that Washington’s political system has used the rules against him.
Obama says Adegbile’s nomination was defeated solely because of his legal representation of a defendant, and that that is contrary to the American system of justice.
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