WASHINGTON - Lawyer Christopher Coates has sent a letter to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights offering to testify Friday on the controversial New Black Panthers voter-intimidation case. A copy of the letter appears below:
Coates, former chief of the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division, was subpoenaed by the Commission to testify about the case last year. He was instructed by DOJ officials to ignore the subpoena. The Commission will it's ongoing hearing at 9:30 a.m. on Friday to hear Coates’s testimony.