Eric Holder’s glaring conflict of interest, Senate Dems’ complicity, and GOP blindness
I don’t get it.
Barack Obama’s Attorney General candidate Eric Holder hires two Senate staffers, still working on the public’s dime, to guide him through the Senate nomination process — yet we haven’t heard one word of objection about the clear conflict of interest from the GOP (non)-leadership.
Holder’s handholders are Democrat operatives Ron Weich and Ed Pagano.
Weich is Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s chief counsel. His fiscal year 2008 salary subtotal is $81,000-plus through March 31, 2008. (Here’s the record).
Pagano is Senate Judiciary Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy’s current chief of staff. Through March 31, 2008, he’ll also earn $81,000-plus. (Here’s the record.)
Since when do current, sitting Senate staffers get to shepherd presidential nominees through the confirmation process? Where are the checks and balances on the ability of two top Senate aides to advise Holder at the same time they are expected to assist their bosses in providing independent assessments of their client’s qualifications? The nomination will go through the very Senate Judiciary Committee panel that Pagano’s boss chairs.
Here are some relevant excerpts from the Senate’s standing rules on conflict of interest:
1. A Member, officer, or employee of the Senate shall not receive any compensation, nor shall he permit any compensation to accrue to his beneficial interest from any source, the receipt or accrual of which would occur by virtue of influence improperly exerted from his position as a Member, officer, or employee.
2. No Member, officer, or employee shall engage in any outside business or professional activity or employment for compensation which is inconsistent or in conflict with the conscientious performance of official duties.
…5. (a) No Member, officer, or employee of the Senate compensated at a rate in excess of $25,000 per annum and employed for more than ninety days in a calendar year shall (1) affiliate with a firm, partnership, association, or corporation for the purpose of providing professional services for
compensation; (2) permit that individual’s name to be used by such a firm, partnership, association or corporation; or (3) practice a profession for compensation to any extent during regular office hours of the Senate office in which employed. For the purposes of this paragraph, “professional services”
shall include but not be limited to those which involve a fiduciary relationship.
Is GOP Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s view on this fundamental conflict of interest the same as Eeyore the jackass’s? “No matter.”
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Jennifer Rubin at PJM adds:
A Capitol Hill insider had this to say:
I can’t think of another example of a current Senate staffer facilitating a nominee’s confirmation. If the Senate is really conducting an independent review of the nominee, doesn’t this arrangement undermine it? Would you ever let a judge’s legal clerk act as the lawyer for a defendant? That’s why we have conflict of interest restrictions for lawyers.
It only adds to irony that it is Holder’s own alleged conflicts of interest which will be at issue in his hearing.
As for President-elect Obama this will only add to the sense that the “Chicago Way” — an embrace of questionable characters and an aversion to real reform — remains his Achilles heel. And should Holder fail to get confirmed, or emerge so damaged from the hearing to be of reduced stature and influence, the Obama team will have to explain how yet another nominee with ethical concerns made it through its vetting process. The question looms: Is the Obama team tone deaf when it comes to ethics?
Another question looms: Is the GOP leadership dumb and blind?
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Had I not been present for the last few years, the conflict of interest, it’s absence in old media, and the GOP’s gutlessness might surprise me.
I guess I’m getting desensitized.
My guess is that the gop senators don’t want to be disinvited from any of next week’s parties.
All “rules” and “laws” are now suspended if they are considered inconvenient. Welcome to Reid, Pelosi and Obama’s age of “hope and change”. GOPers are joining the frenzy. Does it surprise you?
A new low.
You said GOP leadership! Heh! Heh! Heh!
This is going to be SOP for at least 2 years, possiably 6.
They didn’t drain the swamp of coruption, they built a dam to create a lake of coruption.
Holder was dirty even before this. Holder, Clinton, and Panetta should never make it throught the confirmation process.
Rogue Chedder nailed it.
Hey graysonret (comment #2), I have the same sinking feeling. In addition to Reid, Pelosi, Obama, and other Obamabots ignoring inconvenient rules and laws, it also appears that our Constitution is now “inconvenient” and can be safely ignored. Many state and federal office holders who have sworn to uphold the Constitution are behaving as if it doesn’t exits, or that perhaps it is just a quaint concept no longer of interest. And yes, even our judges all the way up to and including the Supreme Court, whose raison d’être should be to uphold the Constitution, seem dead set on finding ways to suppress or side-step it.
I agree with graysonret (#2) and muss (#7). If the Democrats and their willing dupes across the aisle ignore the Constitution–and they already tend to–what are a few internal Senate rules? Mere words to fool the masses.
Nothing is gonna happen because:
A) Ron Weich and Ed Pagano are connected to the Dems.
B) Rules are for losers.
Now, on the other hand, if the Dems had wanted to put into action those millions of emails in their contact list to “encourage” them to contact,say McConnell, something would have been done yesterday.
After that last mailing from McCain, wonder if the RNC has any emails left in their contact list?
Now, now, now…
Let’s be reasonable. You know that rules and laws are only in place to let the MSM have a field day when a Republican breaks them.
How many times do you have to learn this lesson?
SOS, different year.
I am so sickened by all of this. The only thing I can think of to do is promise to not vote for ANY incumbents in the next election. Unfortunately, that is not going to be enough. How many Bobby Jindahls and JTPs are out there? Not nearly enough! Corruption seems to have become so much the norm that it is now totally acceptable…by BOTH parties! And there aren’t enough honest people out there to fight it.
Ya know - it’s similar to juries who are reluctant to convict on DUI charges. They know that one day THEY or a friend/relative may well be sitting behind the defendants table.
Look … whatever the party, they are mostly LAWYERS, and have done similar things during their careers.
“Don’t make waves!”
Now let’s talk about something the Founders never envisioned … politics as a life-long OCCUPATION.
Not just the leadership. Remember, the members of the Permanent Minority Party (formerly known as the GOP) re-selected them after the electoral disaster.
Most GOP Senators and Congress people are deaf, dumb, and blind! I am sick of these weaklings. Please…some strong leadership!!
The GOP “leadership” in the Senate and House are not deaf, dumb, and blind. They are almost all complicit in the pork barrel ripoffs, and are there to enrich themselves at our expense.
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Don’t worry about any filibusters in the Senate–with the RINO’s and “reach across the aisle” McCain votes they are up to 65 votes or more already. The rubber stamp in the oval office is inked up also.
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The American Taxpayer and our country are TOAST for the next 2 years or more. Wait until the first 100 days of the liberal / socialist / marxist agenda goes into high gear in congress and the white house.
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John Bibb
We have a “living, breathing” Constitution which, in layman’s terms, means we can do anything we want, regardless of the “Supreme Law of the Land”. So say our elected politicians. Of all of the laws/rights, the 10th amendment, under the “Bill of Rights” is the most ignored.
Yes, yes, a million times YES!!
Nails it. The corruption is just going to be more institutionalized, people.
And BTW, anybody who owns a gun better be worried about Holder. He’s no friend of the Second Amendment.