Corruptocrat AG Eric Holder still covering up
For more than year, I’ve been writing about AG Eric Holder’s conflicts of interest as former partner at Gitmo detainee law firm Covington and Burling. GOP Sen. Charles Grassley has pressed DOJ for more transparency on Holder’s recusal policies regarding DOJ staff involved in terror-related work.
Holder has been doing his usual stonewalling.
On Friday afternoon, Byron York at the Examiner reported that Holder has acknowledged that “nine Obama appointees in the Justice Department have represented or advocated for terrorist detainees before joining the Justice Department.”
But he’s still covering:
But he does not reveal any names beyond the two officials whose work has already been publicly reported. And all the lawyers, according to Holder, are eligible to work on general detainee matters, even if there are specific parts of some cases they cannot be involved in.
Holder’s admission comes in the form of an answer to a question posed last November by Republican Sen. Charles Grassley. Noting that one Obama appointee, Principal Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal, formerly represented Osama bin Laden’s driver, and another appointee, Jennifer Daskal, previously advocated for detainees at Human Rights Watch, Grassley asked Holder to give the Senate Judiciary Committee “the names of political appointees in your department who represent detainees or who work for organizations advocating on their behalf…the cases or projects that these appointees work with respect to detainee prior to joining the Justice Department…and the cases or projects relating to detainees that have worked on since joining the Justice Department.”
In his response, Holder has given Grassley almost nothing. He says nine Obama political appointees at the Justice Department have advocated on behalf of detainees, but did not identify any of the nine other than the two, Katyal and Daskal, whose names Grassley already knew. “To the best of our knowledge,” Holder writes,
during their employment prior to joining the government, only five of the lawyers who serve as political appointees in those components represented detainees, and four others either contributed to amicus briefs in detainee-related cases or were otherwise involved in advocacy on behalf of detainees.
Holder says other Obama appointees, like Holder himself, came from law firms which represented detainees but did no work on behalf of the terrorist prisoners. But other than Katyal and Daskal, Holder does not reveal any names of any Obama appointees, nor does he mention the cases they worked on.
As I noted in Culture of Corruption, the White House built loopholes into their vaunted ethics law big enough to drive an 18-wheeler through:
The White House says that Holder will formally recuse himself from charging decisions and prosecutions affecting any of Covington & Burling’s clients, but he will have unfettered oversight over Obama’s order to close the facility within a year. Moreover, there’s a gaping loophole in the Obama administration ethics rules that will allow Holder to participate in decision-making despite his conflicts of interests if he can show that his participation in a matter outweighs an appearance or actual conflict of interest…
The GOP needs to go to the mat on this issue — and the public can help. Bombard the DOJ:
Show us the money. Cough up the information. Stop the cover-up. Name the names. The public has a right to know.
AskDOJ@usdoj.gov
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
Office of the Attorney General Public Comment Line – 202-353-1555
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Categories: Corruption,Eric Holder
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I think the real conflict of interest is that we have people that believe in liberation theology responsable for defending the constitution.
But, they are leftists so they are exempt from laws…
When we win back the country-the first one indicted should be HOLDER!
Unfortunately, no takers in GOP, yet. Also, no protest on O’s islamist envoy. Shame!
Now THAT is brass! Knowingly hiring nine attorneys with blatantly disqualifying conflicts of interest and then only disclosing that under political pressure.
It is impossible IMPOSSIBLE to expect the public to have faith in its government and business leaders so long as conflicts of interest, opaque accounting and and shady pasts including tax-dodging and criminal convictions abound.
These people aren’t just slipping through the cracks, they are the norm!
Like his boss.
Guess which former head of Homeland Security was on TV as a talking head for “Gitmo detainee law firm Covington and Burling”? The door swings both ways when money is involved.
MSM: So, what did you think of Tiger’s apology?
After listening to the donks jumping up and down about how the Bush administration was “politicizing the justice department” before quadrupling down on the same thing, I’m reminded of an old Twilight Zone episode in which an alien comes to Earth and threatens to destroy humanity because of its “Small talent for war.”
So the humans all put their heads together and deliver world peace in 72 hours — only to discover that what the alien was criticizing was that we weren’t warlike enough.
What probably upset the donks from 2001-2008 was George Bush’s small talent for politicizing the Justice Department: and now they’re going to show us how it’s really done.
Rogue cheddar Exactly. We should all have faith in a judiciary that is written by crooks, scoundrels and tax cheats, and implemented by agenda driven idiots bent on communism, and interpreted by lifetime appointed professors who have never dealt with reality in their long and sheltered lives.
We’re not supposed to pursue Holder since he has good intentions.
I will email DOJ and “carbon” copy (cc) my useless congressman demanding answers! Marked urgent with “read receipt” option checked…
To understand why the attorneys at Covington and Burling were so eager to do “pro bono” work for terrorists, you have to understand the psychology of these lawyers. They see themselves as cutting edge, dashing, masters of the universe. Yet their daily work, while highly lucrative, is dry as dust. Appearing before an administrative agency to demand an arcane change in an FTC regulation that will benefit one of their corporate clients, is not something that these lawyers can brag about down at the yacht club. But when these WASP lawyers go down to Gitmo, where they can sneer at American soldiers and high five the Islamic terrorists, these lawyers are in hog heaven. Now they have something to brag about down at the boat basin. So for the lawyers at C&B, the motivation is not primarily ideological. It is all about the feeling of being fully alive, of being cool, of being hip.
Of course when I think of the Covington lawyers wearing their khaffiyehs at Gitmo, I think of the old Huey Lewis song: “It’s hip to be square”.
Holder, Nappy, the czars, and all of MO’s attendants (6 mil per year for a 1st lady who should only have a social secretary and at her personal expense!) should be gone!!!
Reason #2,572 to take back on houseo of Congress, so Mr. Holder can stand tall in front of an oversight committee and justify his conduct.
My specualtion is if they do lose one of the Congressional houses in November, Holder will leave by January 1.
I’m still wondering about his refusing to prosecute those Black Panthers intimidating voters in Philidelphia.
I’d think that alone would be enough to boot him from office.
“Buff” is what they do to her tiarra and shoes – not her bare arms.
And Belt Lady – who’s gonna keep track of the belts withour her?
How can these people continue to get away with their corruption when Bernie Kerik is jailed for 4 years for what he did? I am not condoning what he did, but come on, folks!! Compared to what Schumer, Dodd, Pelosi, Reid, Rangel, Geithner, Frank, etc. have been getting away with, Kerik is a Boy Scout. Where is justice in this country??
No, you don’t, Mark. All you need to understand is … they are LAWYERS.
’nuff said.
Thant’s either a joke, or a rhetorical question, right?
There is no justice system.
There is only a legal system.
Dude, take another look at Holder. I don’t believe he qualifies as a WASP.
Not to mention the fact that race plays no part in stupidity.
When Holder dropped the lead-pipe case against the New Black Panther thugs, that told me all I needed to know about this guy. I CAN’T WAIT until we vote his boss out!
Holder is much too smart to directly defend Gitmo detainees. He has planned to be AG for years and he knew that having his fingerprints on the terrorists’ defense team would torpedo his chances for AG. So he sat idly by and let his country club law partners do the job. Holder, of course, supports giving these terrorists every possible constitutional right but he won’t say so directly. Better to allow the blue blood country club types who dominate at Covington and Burling to actually go down to Gitmo and chill with the terrorists.
This is all about country club lawyers attempting to be cool and hip and stylish. You have to understand that these lawyers generally wear black oxfords and a starched white shirt with a rep tie underneath a Brooks Brother’s blue pin striped suit. And the lawyers know that this outfit just ain’t cool. But to go down to Cuba and chill out with cool dudes like Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, now that is chill. These lawyers now have something to brag about on the squash court. I mean, you really can’t brag about getting an expansion of CFR 12c3 can you?
One thing many overlook is, if any of these former defense attorneys are even remotely connected to the prosecution, in a civilian court that is a Mis-Trial.
You cannot defend, then prosecute, or assist the prosecution. It is not only unethical, it is a violation of rights.
I know, since when did rights or ethics matter to this bunch. But, the majority of judges, esp at the appeals level, are radical in their beliefs of criminal rights.
Any defense attorney is going to hammer the fact that the same justice department that is prosecuting, has previously defended his/her client and therefore has an unfair advantage.
The whole process is just a waste of time and public tax dollars.
My cat does the same thing in the flower bed.
Pi$$es me off.