A THREAD on this tweet released by DOJ yesterday. I presume they think it shows an AG hard at work. But on a day when the country was fracturing amid protests over racism & police violence, the photo is a reminder of the absence of civil rts leadership in this DOJ. By contrast..

In 2014 while protests continued in Ferguson after #MikeBrown, an unarmed teenager was killed by police ofcr Darren Wilson, then Attorney General Eric Holder visited Ferguson, meeting with community groups and local law enforcement to signal the dept’s engagement.

Similarly, in 2015 Attorney General Loretta Lynch visited #Baltimore to meet with the family of #FreddieGray, community groups, civic leaders and local law enforcement.

Who can forget Deputy Assistant AG John Doar (a Republican, btw) standing between an angry, grief-stricken crowd of Black protesters and heavily armed Mississippi law enforcement facing off after the funeral of Medgar Evers in 1963.

Or then- Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach confronting a bellicose Gov. George Wallace “in the schoolhouse door” in 1963 demanding that Vivian Malone and James Hood be permitted to register at the University of Alabama.

The point is that we have the right to expect more from the DOJ and the Attorney General than sitting at a desk talking with his colleagues - especially in moments of great civil rights strife. But we don’t have that kind of leadership at DOJ. And that photo is very revealing.