Demand Justice Launches New Ad Campaign Against Controversial Trump Nominee With Ties To Racist Organizations
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 22, 2018
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DEMAND JUSTICE LAUNCHES NEW AD CAMPAIGN AGAINST CONTROVERSIAL TRUMP NOMINEE WITH TIES TO RACIST ORGANIZATIONS
Thomas Farr Has Been Vigorously Opposed by Civil Rights Group For Spending Career Trying To Disenfranchise African-American Voters
WASHINGTON, DC – In its first campaign against one of Donald Trump’s judicial nominees, Demand Justice announced a new ad Tuesday opposing Thomas Farr over his work to suppress African-American voters and his ties to racist organizations.
Farr is Trump’s controversial pick to fill a judicial vacancy in the Eastern District of North Carolina. Farr has been vigorously opposed by civil rights groups, primarily for his role in helping to draft and defend North Carolina’s voter suppression law that was struck down by a federal court. Rev. William Barber, the former top official with the NAACP’s North Carolina chapter, has called Farr an “advocate for … segregationist causes.”
Demand Justice’s ad against Farr will run in eight states: Maine, Alaska, Tennessee, Arizona, Georgia, Mississippi, Colorado and Louisiana.
“Even by the low standards of other Trump nominees, Thomas Farr stands out as uniquely unfit for a lifetime appointment. Farr’s ties to racist groups are disturbing, and he has spent his career working to deprive African Americans of their right to vote. It is shameful that Senate Republicans are even considering bringing this nomination to the floor,” said Brian Fallon, Executive Director of Demand Justice.
Farr twice served as the top attorney for the campaigns of the late Jesse Helms, the former U.S. Senator from North Carolina. Helms’ 1990 campaign was the subject of a complaint by the U.S. Justice Department for a threatening mailing that was sent to African American voters in North Carolina. Farr, in his testimony to the Senate, initially denied being part of any discussions related to the mailing. But he was later challenged on that part by the former federal investigator who handled the case, and he has since been forced to correct his previous testimony.
Farr also has troubling ties to longtime Helms fixer Thomas Ellis. An admitted opponent of integration, Ellis is a onetime director of the Pioneer Fund, a hate group that has funded research claiming to prove blacks were genetically inferior to whites. Farr has admitted giving a speech in 2007 in honor of Ellis, and his law firm has represented groups financed by the Pioneer Fund.
The seat Farr would fill is the longest-running vacancy in the United States, in part because Senate Republicans blocked two African-American women that President Obama had previously nominated for the post. The jurisdiction’s population is 27 percent black, but has never been served by an African-American judge.
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