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E-Mail Shows White House Lied About Firing Shirley Sherrod
American Thinker
Rick Moran
You may recall the controversey over remarks by the USDA’s director of rural development in Georgia, Shirley Sherrod, at a meeting of the NAACP about the black farmer’s suit against the government. Sherrod claimed in a video that she was the victim of racism by a white farmer. The resulting firestorm concluded with Sherrod being fired from her position.
The left claimed that Breitbart had heavily edited the video and that Sherrod was really talking about overcoming her own racism. Sherrod then sued Andrew Breitbart for defamation.
The White House and USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack claimed at the time that it was Vilsack’s decision alone to fire Sherrod. But an e-mail made public in the court case on Monday gives the lie to that statement.
The email, which was made public Friday in an ongoing federal court case over the matter, shed more light on the evening of July 19, 2010, when the USDA hastily asked Sherrod to resign after a video showing her making supposed racist remarks surfaced on a conservative website. Her dismissal turned into a racial firestorm after it became clear that the video had been edited and her remarks were meant to tell a story of reconciliation.
Both the White House and Vilsack have repeatedly said the agriculture secretary made the decision to ask for Sherrod’s resignation without White House input. The emails, along with earlier emails obtained by The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act in 2010 and 2012, make it apparent that Vilsack wanted Sherrod to leave the department and ordered her resignation. But a newly-released email sent by Vilsack himself suggests he was awaiting a decision from White House officials on how to proceed.
