Fox News revives Black Panther conspiracy to smear Obama's labor nominee

Thomas Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, is likely going to face some jaw-droppingly dumb questions in the Senate if he is nominated to become President Barack Obama's next labor secretary.

That's because one of the conservative media's favorite conspiracy theories is that the Obama Justice Department protected members of the New Black Panther Party in Philadelphia after they stood outside a polling place intimidating voters in 2008. Although there were no actual complaints of voter intimidation to begin with, Fox News and conservative media made it into their own version of a scandal in 2010.

That scandal was revived by Fox News on Monday in a discussion about the likelihood of Perez's nomination -- namely, why Republicans should worry about him.

Fox News, and particularly host Megyn Kelly, have for years hyped the allegations of former Justice Department official and current Pajamas Media blogger J. Christian Adams, who insists that Perez lied under oath when he testified about the investigation into allegations of voter intimidation outside a Philadelphia polling place in 2008.

Adams was the attorney who originally tried to bring a case against a group of Black Panthers members, but it was dropped. One person ultimately faced a criminal charge stemming from the incident, but that wasn't enough to dissuade Adams that some kind of racially-motivated conspiracy was taking place before his eyes.

Kelly brought that back up on Monday and wondered whether Perez should be trusted. Chris Stirewalt, host of FoxNews.com's "Power Play," added that Perez is likely to face more questions about the case in the Senate because "Mr. Perez's nomination to be in his current position was held up for many months as a consequence of that case and some other things."

This video is from Fox News, aired Monday, March 11, 2013.