America has had its fair share of bad presidents. Woodrow Wilson was a racist. FDR made the Great Depression last longer than it should have (and expanded the entitlement welfare state), and Jimmy Carter allowed the Iranian regime to blossom into the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism on his watch.
But they all pale in comparison to Barack Obama, whose Leftist ideology fundamentally transformed and damaged America. You can draw a direct line from Obama's presidency to the chaos we see with the defund the police movements, Black Lives Matter/Antifa, the explosion of illegal immigration under the Biden administration, and even the expansive fraud scandals embroiling Minnesota and California.
And it's the illegal immigration and fraud I want to talk about here, because it was the Obama Justice Department that set the stage for guys like Tim Walz and Gavin Newsom to not only ignore the fraud, but to attack and even prosecute those who tried to investigate it, all against the backdrop of protecting illegal immigrants.
In 2009, the Obama DOJ — under the direction of Attorney General Eric Holder — launched a sweeping investigation into the East Haven, Connecticut, Police Department. That investigation led the DOJ to criminally prosecute for East Haven officers: Jason Zullo, John Miller, David Carl, and Dennis Spaulding.
Spaulding and the others discovered a widespread ring of vehicle-related fraud, where undocumented immigrants allegedly bought fake out-of-state license plates (often from Pennsylvania), fraudulent insurance cards, and registrations—paying premiums like $1,500 for documents that should cost far less.
Rather than thank Spaulding and his colleagues for their work breaking up crime, the Obama DOJ accused them of being racist and discriminatory, said they violated the civil rights of the criminals they investigated, and prosecuted the four men.
Spaulding also sat down with the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund (LELDF) to explain the story on their podcast.
ON THE PODCAST: Dennis Spaulding exposed a $2 million fraud by organized crime and hundreds of illegal immigrants who used fraudulent license plates and licenses.
— Law Enforcement Legal Defense (@LELDF) March 11, 2026
The Obama DOJ put him and 3 other cops in prison for it. pic.twitter.com/8Z8ue7JJOi
"When we move into the Pennsylvania license plates, we come to find out that there was over 1,500 plates involved in this large-scale organized crime, involving thousands of illegal immigrants and a person in Philadelphia who was the mastermind behind this whole scam," Spaulding said. "She and a partner ended up being arrested by the State Police in Pennsylvania. Turns out that they were sending the registration, plates, fake insurance cards and then they were charging approximately $1,500 for these plates. And I believe at the end of the investigation there were over 1,500 plates canceled."
You can listen to the podcast here:
These men were committed, decorated professionals engaged in the unglamorous work of enforcing the law in a community plagued by fraudulent vehicle registrations, gang activity, and illegal enterprises.
— Law Enforcement Legal Defense (@LELDF) March 11, 2026
They became scapegoats of the Obama DOJ and lost EVERYTHING—their careers,…
As we mentioned, the Obama DOJ labeled Spaulding a criminal and sent him to prison for five years. He was found guilty just two days after his youngest daughter was born.
PART TWO is live now!
— Law Enforcement Legal Defense (@LELDF) March 17, 2026
Former East Haven police officer Dennis Spaulding is one of four officers indicted by the Obama DOJ in 2012 after he and his fellow officers uncovered a massive illegal immigrant fraud network in their small Connecticut town.
Listen:… https://t.co/MbJLgpAjpE
There's no other way to put it than the Obama DOJ destroyed these men's lives.
“My daughter was two days old the day the guilty verdict came back.”
— Law Enforcement Legal Defense (@LELDF) March 17, 2026
Dennis Spaulding and his team uncovered a massive illegal immigrant fraud network in their small Connecticut town.
Instead of thanking them, the Obama DOJ destroyed their lives. pic.twitter.com/15EWZ1vfke
In a 2014 letter, Spaulding denied the accusations:
During the course of this trial, I have been portrayed as a bully and a racist. I would like to use this opportunity to give the court, in my own words, a more complete picture of who I really am and a deeper understanding of my actions.
Since the time I was 16 years old, I have worked side-by-side with undocumented immigrates in the restaurant business. They have shared their stories and their struggles to enter this country, most times coming through the desert with little food or water. They have shared their struggle to continue to live in the shadows. As I told Father Manship numerous times, I applaud his efforts to push for immigration reform. The undocumented population, which I have met, truly are hardworking people who struggle every day for the betterment of their lives and the lives of their families. I hope the federal government will soon address these issues.
One of my good friends, Edison or as we call him, MO, is an undocumented immigrant. I had the pleasure of working with Mo for almost 3 years and have been friends ever since. When I formed a softball team, I asked Mo if he wanted to play, although he was more of a soccer player, I offered to teach him. I met with him and some of his Ecuadorian friends several times a week, at a baseball field down the street from work. When the season started Mo played left field, although he wasn’t very good, he loved putting on the uniform and just being on the field. Mo and his wife, Johanna, have two children together and it was my wife, who is a nurse and a board certified lactation specialist, who took care of them in the hospital when they had their second child. It was also my wife that they called afterward for breastfeeding advice.When another co-worker and friend, Fernando who is also undocumented, told me that he wanted to go to a New York Mets game, but was afraid to drive there because he didn’t have a valid license, I bought us two tickets to a double header and together we went. I will never forget the look on his face when we entered that stadium, the old Shay Stadium, a place that he had only seen on TV. It was a truly breathtaking experience for him as it was his first Major League baseball game.
I am not a racist, nor do I use racist language. When others use it, it makes me uncomfortable and I do my best to ignore it.
This was not justice. This was a political prosecution — persecution — from Barack Obama's DOJ, and one that sent a clear message to law enforcement across the nation: expose fraud or hold illegal immigrants accountable for your crimes, and you could be next.
The Obama DOJ broke this man. And they broke him *specifically because* he was uncovering fraud and crime.
— Lyndsey Fifield (@lyndseyfifield) March 17, 2026
This happened in 2012.
Imagine how many more men like him were silenced—or decided to turn an eye to crime to avoid the same fate. https://t.co/IFAShUWyAw
LELDF is calling for Spaulding and the others to be fully exonerated by President Trump.
Officer Jason Zullo and the three other East Haven officers who were railroaded by Obama’s DOJ deserve a FULL exoneration.https://t.co/C9fR1IgG8t pic.twitter.com/y7JPISal7K
— Law Enforcement Legal Defense (@LELDF) December 1, 2025
Last month, Spaulding's wife, Nicole, penned an op-ed detailing what the last 12 years of her life has been like, thanks to the Obama DOJ, and what a pardon could mean:
All that ended with my dad’s phone call. What followed were 12 years of shame and embarrassment, tears and holidays missed, all punctuated by monthly 12-hour drives to Dennis’ prison in Michigan.
To save money, my in-laws moved their recreational vehicle to within 5 miles of the prison. That way, there was no need for expensive hotel rooms.
My mother-in-law helped me on those journeys (imagine 12 hours in a car with a newborn and a toddler), but nothing prepared me for the exhaustion of it all.
I was and still am a nurse. During Dennis’ incarceration, I advanced my studies to become a doctor of nursing practice to make up for the loss of Dennis’ income, and so I could schedule my work to take the children to visit their dad.
...
It has been more than 12 years since I got that phone call from my dad, but the pain is still just as raw.
No police officer should ever have to go through what my husband and the East Haven Four have sustained. We can never have justice if cops are afraid to investigate crime because of the perpetrator’s ethnicity or the color of their skin.
President Trump, you have the power to bring justice to my family and to those of Dennis’ three fellow officers. Please, sir, exercise your presidential pardon power on behalf of my husband and the East Haven Four.
Remember: Democrats say we cannot deport illegal immigrants, because it "tears families apart." Yet the Obama DOJ tore four families apart because they didn't like the work that Dennis Spaulding, Jason Zullo, John Miller, and David Carl did. And there hasn't been a peep from the mainstream media or the Left about this miscarriage of justice.
President Trump can, and should, pardon all four of them and set right what the Obama DOJ made so horribly wrong.
