Today, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) and the Leadership Conference sent a letter to Attorney General William Barr requesting information about what steps the DOJ has taken undertaken, or intends to take, to address the Russian government’s ongoing efforts to to influence the 2020 presidential election by inciting violence and spreading hate messages through direct funding of white supremacist groups, as alleged by a New York Times article released today.
Our letter urges the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) take immediate steps to combat voter suppression tactics from both foreign and domestic powers. The DOJ’s obligations include the critical necessity of enforcing the nation’s civil rights laws and protecting the populace against actors – foreign and domestic – who seek to interfere with the voting rights of racial minorities, stoke racial division, and incite racial violence and intimidation.
Read the full letter here.
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Founded in 1940, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) is the nation’s first civil and human rights law organization. LDF has been completely separate from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1957—although LDF was originally founded by the NAACP and shares its commitment to equal rights. LDF’s Thurgood Marshall Institute is a multi-disciplinary and collaborative hub within LDF that launches targeted campaigns and undertakes innovative research to shape the civil rights narrative. In media attributions, please refer to us as the NAACP Legal Defense Fund or LDF.
