How close are the ties between Barack Obama and the New Black Panther Party?

Andrew Breitbart of Big Government released shocking photos of candidate Obama campaigning and marching with members of the radical group in Selma, AL, in 2007.

The images show Obama sharing a podium with Malik Zulu Shabazz, one of the defendants in the voter intimidation case that was dismissed by Attorney General Eric Holder.

Breitbart reports the photos were "captured from a Flickr photo-sharing account before it was scrubbed," and proves - again - that the so-called mainstream media (known here as the Democrat-media complex) failed to "examine Obama’s extremist ties and radical roots" in the 2008 campaign.

He adds:

In addition, the new images raise questions about the possible motives of the Obama administration in its infamous decision to drop the prosecution of the Panthers for voter intimidation.

A new book by former DOJ attorney J. Christian Adams, Injustice: Exposing the Racial Agenda of the Obama Justice Department (Regnery), is scheduled to be released Tuesday.

The book, according to Breitbart, "exposes Obama administration corruption far beyond the Panther dismissal, and reveals how the institutional Left has turned the power of the DOJ into an ideological weapon."

Adam's book also describes, in detail, the Selma march at which then-Senator Obama was joined by a group of Panthers who had come to support his candidacy.

Conservative columnist Michelle Malkin wrote an endorsement of the book praising Adam's patriotism and courage:

“Christian Adams is a truth-teller, whistle-blower, and American patriot. With great courage and investigative skill, this former Department of Justice attorney single-handedly exposes how Barack Obama and Eric Holder have systematically perverted the rule of law—for patently unjust, un-American, race-based ends. Adams witnessed first-hand the hijacking of the DOJ by radical leftist ideologues and interest groups. Now he reveals everything: the full story of Holder’s coddling of New Black Panther Party poll thugs, corruption run amok in the Civil Rights Division, open borders advocacy, selective law enforcement, and much more. If you care about justice for all, Injustice is hands-down the most important book you’ll read this year.”

Breitbart says there are even more photographs.

One of the photos included in Injustice shows the Panthers marching behind then-Senator Obama with the raised-fist "Black Power" salute.

In December 2010, Attorney General Eric Holder called the voter intimidation case a "made-up controversy" and claimed the department acted within the law.

“The notion that this made-up controversy leads to a belief that this Justice Department is not color-blind in enforcement of civil rights laws is simply not supported by the facts,” he said. “All I have on my side with regard to that is the facts and the law.”

Adams, however, strongly disagreed, and resigned from the department.  In June 2010, he wrote:

On the day President Obama was elected, armed men wearing the black berets and jackboots of the New Black Panther Party were stationed at the entrance to a polling place in Philadelphia. They brandished a weapon and intimidated voters and poll watchers. After the election, the Justice Department brought a voter-intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party and those armed thugs. I and other Justice attorneys diligently pursued the case and obtained an entry of default after the defendants ignored the charges. Before a final judgment could be entered in May 2009, our superiors ordered us to dismiss the case.

The New Black Panther case was the simplest and most obvious violation of federal law I saw in my Justice Department career. Because of the corrupt nature of the dismissal, statements falsely characterizing the case and, most of all, indefensible orders for the career attorneys not to comply with lawful subpoenas investigating the dismissal, this month I resigned my position as a Department of Justice (DOJ) attorney.

While Holder maintains there's "no there, there," the photos certainly suggest the opposite.

Breitbart adds:

Obama seems not to be reviled by the Panthers in any of the video or photographs. And Obama’s own campaign website would post an endorsement by the New Black Panther Party in March 2008.  As Adams writes in Injustice:

Somehow, the fact that the future President of the United States shared a podium with leaders of the New Black Panthers, marched with them, and received a public, formal greeting from their party has vanished from the history of Obama’s campaign. Apart from [Juan] Williams’ single dispatch, no other media outlets ever reported it.

After NPR initially reported that the Panthers were present at the event with Obama, subsequent reports from Selma omitted any mention of the hate group appearing with the future President.

Malkin adds that had a conservative done what Obama did, the media's reaction would have been much different:

As Adams, who dug up video and photographic evidence of the Obama/NBPP event at the National Voting Rights Museum, observes in Injustice: “One can only imagine the media firestorm that would have erupted if a Republican presidential candidate had marched next to a racist hate group.”

Yes, there would have been a veritable stoning.

Breitbart notes that no one is suggesting "Obama is a secret member of the New Black Panther Party."  But the photos do raise several questions.  He concludes:

What did he and Malik Zulu Shabazz say when they conversed that day–something that Shabazz has said happened?

Did the Obama campaign play any role in having the Panthers travel to support his presidential ambitions?

Who posted the Panthers’ endorsement on the Obama campaign’s website, and at whose instructions?

Who–finally–was the Malik Shabazz who visited the White House residence on July 25, 2009?

Inquiring minds deserve to know the answers to these questions.

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