Corruptocrat Eric Holder’s national security cover-up
My column pounds again on Eric Holder over his jihadi lawyer stonewalling. Question: Where’s Mass. GOP Sen. Scott Brown? Remember when he made this one of his key campaign agenda items and carried the banner on the issue during his election night speech:
“And let me say this, with respect to those who wish to harm us, I believe that our Constitution and laws exist to protect this nation – they do not grant rights and privileges to enemies in wartime. In dealing with terrorists, our tax dollars should pay for weapons to stop them, not lawyers to defend them.”
Get on it.
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
Related must-read: Andy McCarthy on the “Gitmo 9″ and the DOJ cave of darkness.
2nd related must-read: John Yoo in the WSJ – My Gift to the Obama Presidency.
***
Corruptocrat Eric Holder’s national security cover-up
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2010
The White House wants to play Transparency Olympics with the Tea Party movement. President Obama’s Chief Technology Officer Andrew McLaughlin dared Tea Party activists and conservatives last week to “push the administration to make its policies more open” and make it a “political competition…to see who can be more radical in their openness,” The Hill reported. So, let’s start by knocking down Attorney General Eric Holder’s national security stonewall at the Department of Justice, shall we? Let the sun shine in.
For more than a year, I’ve been writing about the looming national security and conflict-of-interest problems posed by Holder’s status as former partner at prestigious law firm Covington and Burling. The company currently represents or has provided pro bono representation and sob-story media relations campaigns in the past to more than a dozen Gitmo detainees from Yemen who are seeking civilian trials on American soil.
The firm wasn’t just a bit player. It led the charge contributing more than 3,000 hours on Gitmo litigation in 2007, according to The American Lawyer. At least one known Covington & Burling bigshot and fellow former Clintonite, Lanny Breuer, now works for Holder as head of the DOJ’s criminal division. Though he himself did not participate in the detainee cases, Holder’s celebrity undoubtedly boosted company-wide prestige.
How many of Holder’s former colleagues and associates are now on the DOJ payroll? How many like them who worked at other law firms or left-wing lobbying groups now inhabit DOJ offices? How many of them have been allowed to work on government terrorism cases related to their past crusading for al Qaeda-tied clients? How many have had to recuse themselves – and have those recusals been full and forthcoming? How can the public judge whether these lawyers are truly representing America’s best interests – or the jiahdis’?
GOP Sen. Charles Grassley has been trying to get answers. He has been snubbed repeatedly by the information suppressors at DOJ. As the Washington Examiner’s Byron York reported on Friday, Holder has now acknowledged that “at least” nine Obama appointees in the Justice Department “have represented or advocated for terrorist detainees before joining the Justice Department.” But the tight-lipped, taxpayer-funded litigators at the agency won’t name names or cough up any relevant details.
Sen. Grassley had asked for “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.” Beyond two DOJ appointees whose work for jihadi defendants had already been made public, Holder gave up nothing. Zip. Zilch.
It’s not even clear that the unnamed Gitmo Nine are the end of the line. The list is not a comprehensive tally of DOJ appointees, Holder told Grassley and other GOP senators who pressed for public disclosure. Why not? What are they trying to hide? Who are they trying to spare?
Americans have a right to know whether they are subsidizing jihadi sympathizers and whether their Justice Department is now a sanctuary for human rights transnationalists and little terrorists’ helpers in the mold of Lynne Stewart, who was convicted of abetting Muslim terrorist mastermind Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman and spreading messages inciting violence on his behalf while representing him.
Americans have a right to know whether Holder – who put political interests ahead of security interests at the Clinton Justice Department in both the Marc Rich pardon scandal and the Puerto Rican FALN terrorist debacle – has made hiring decisions that provide the common defense and promote the general welfare.
Tellingly, Holder has treated the GOP’s national security concerns dismissively. He’s hoping his non-response blow-off of Sen. Grassley’s request dies on the vine. And just as he used his own past lapses in judgment during the Clinton era to argue that they made him more qualified for the job he holds now, Holder argues that the phantom jihadi lawyers on the DOJ payroll are a good thing for the country, so we should just shut up:
“A prosecutor of white-collar fraud cases may have previously represented defendants in such cases. This familiarity with and experience in the relevant area of law redounds to the government’s benefit.”
As usual, Holder puts ordinary civilian crimes on the same footing as terrorism plots and acts of war against our country. But why not let the people decide for themselves whether his staff decisions redound to their benefit? “The American people have the right to information about their government’s activities,” Holder himself said in a press release trumpeting new freedom of information rules last year. Put up or shut up, Mr. Attorney General.
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Categories: Corruption,Eric Holder,Gitmo
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Eric Holder has got to go and take his jihadi defenders with him.
One day (in my fantasy world), attempts to cover up political mistakes by claiming national defense will be met with a term of no less than 5 years in prison. This will include all refusals of Freedom of Information properly requested and ruled as such.
Some issues do require protection…political emabarassments do not.
As most liberals believe, policy is based on “feeling good”, rather than logic. Consequences aren’t taken into consideration; they have to think for that. This is why our country is in such a turmoil today.
How many Republican Senators voted for his appointment to AG? All these Senators need to go, we can’t afford to keep them. Everybody knew this idiot was a left wing activist, but in our corrupt government, they didn’t give a damn.Now be are stuck with a racist and corrupt DOJ.
Let’s just hope the next administration has the BALLS to release to the public the info and then charge holder with all the crimes he is committing against America.
How can anyone have any trust or confidence in their government when it is riddled with disgusting cockroaches like Eric Holder? Holder is just one example of many whom Obama has chosen to be “in charge” of the United States of America. These people didn’t just show up and accidentally get past the vetting process. Obama sought them out, and, knowing their background full well, wanted them to be in his administration. This is what we have come to at this point in our history. Look around at what kind of corruption is currently permeating the WH. Picture every one of Obama’s thugs in mafia garb, including the POTUS himself. They are straight out of Central Casting. There will be no justice in this country until this corrupt administration is toast. If we can’t get rid of them before they destroy us, there will be civil war here once again. I see no other choice.
As vile a person as the Attorney General is he is but doing what President Obama promised his fellow travelers during the campaign. Their hatred for all thing Bush and sympathy for terrorist/revolutionaries of every stripe made all this a given.
If not for a fear of a horrible public backlash they would embrace the jihadist. I am still amazed at New York’s reaction to the trials–it was what Obama promised.
Eric Holder is not having a good news day:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704188104575083473537079844.html
Michelle, I think you need to expand each chapter in Culture of Corruption into separate volumes. There’s so much material.
Well said happyscrapper!
+1000
Given the choice, I rather suspect he will go with the latter. These folks are about as transparent as a brick.
Time to waterboard Eric Holder and make him talk.
I have some other questions for him too, starting with the Black Panther thug voter intimidation dismissals.
I volunteer for this duty.
Why, thank you!
John Yoo has some stones and actually knows of which he speaks–anathema to Liberals of every stripe. When Obama and his Attorney General spoke of punishing the lawyers who advised President Bush John Yoo was their primary focus; his is just another banana wandering off the plantation. Faculty at University of California, Berkeley HATE Mr. Yoo but his classes are immensely popular with the students.
Yoo didn’t waste any time coming out swinging. He must have been smoldering throughout this whole witch hunt.
I see it as this – they could not care less, they do not care. They do not care what the majority of Americans think, they only care about the agenda they have formulated over the last 30 or 40 years and capitalizing on the groundwork laid out in past years.
Meanwhile back at the newsroom, the MSM continues to send more “passes” in the direction of the Obama administration then the total of all pass attempts this year by NFL quarterbacks.
I truly believe that if the Obama Administration set up a Buchenwald, the MSM’s response would be, “Smell? I don’t smell anything coming from there. Smoke, what smoke?”
Their complicity is truly disgusting.
It is a mistake to think that the lawyers at Covington and Burling are motivated primarily by ideology. They are motivated primarily by a need for adventure, by a need to be cool and hip and with it. The lawyers at Covington and Burling don’t do anything exciting or dangerous in their daily lives. You can’t brag at the country club about nearly being hit with a falling easel at the FDIC hearing office. But you can brag about going down to Gitmo, wearing your battle fatigues and shades and talking smack to US soldiers, who have to be polite. Then the Covington and Burling lawyers have lots of adventures to tell their staid friends down at the boat basin. The usual chatter at Covington and Burling is about the America’s Cup yacht racing or who was elected chairman at the Greenwich yacht club. But going down to Gitmo, putting on the khaffiyeh and standing shoulder to shoulder with Khalid Sheikh Muhammed, now you’re cooking. These lawyers have total disdain for the American soldiers that are at Gitmo. But they have a romantic view of the terrorists that are there. And what stories to tell the C&B lawyers who stayed in Washington and didn’t get down with the struggle.
The MSM is paying for their treason every day. They are losing audience and money in droves. They will be punished even more as these stories unfold and they will realize they have taken part in what is happening.
There’s a particular kind of person who makes a living defending terrorists and other kinds of depraved scumbags. It goes beyond the standard issue criminal defense attorney whose clients are drunk drivers, shoplifters, and burglars. We’re talking about the kind of person who got drawn to “rebellious lawyering,” the middle-aged guy who’s got the ponytail or the old radical chick with the mannish hairdo. These people are committed ideologues, always out for the “underdog.” Now, Marc in the above post may have a point: some of it is fun and adventure for these kooks. But you have to be a kook to begin with. Otherwise, Covington’s got you doing the boring corporate/government crap. I’ve worked in the D.C. legal biz. Every big prestige firm has its activist wing, and many of those activists are leftists.
With regard to Sen Elect Brown’s statement, like it or not, Military Tribunals or Civilian Trials, we the taxpayers will be pay for the terrorists’ lawyers. Further, we are currently paying for the killing and capturing terrorists.
Sen Grasley’s question are good, and he should get answers.
Questions like the following have obvious answers -
“How can the public judge whether these lawyers are truly representing America’s best interests – or the jiahdis’?
Because the lawyers are sworn to uphold the law. We are a Nation of laws. We are civilized.
A lawyer advocates for their client and are subject to sanctions when they violate that principle (law). Yep, a lawyer could advocate for a drunk driver one day, and then advocate for a victim of a drunk driver the next.
It is our system.
I am sure this guy and his cohorts have committed some sort of crime in their shady, double-dealings within this Gitmo debacle – can anyone say, “conflict of interest?”
So far, this applies to all of the Obama administration…and his past…
You are lgm’s little brother.
This is all part and parcel of the liberals view of terrorists and terrorism as a nuisance and not as acts of war.
When Kerry said it outright in the 2004 elections he was rightly blasted. It was too much truth too soon after 9/11.
What they are doing now is conditioning the American people to accept their view.
Gawd I wanna hurl. Absolutely unreal that a lying crook like Holder is the top prosecutor in the US of A. Not to mention the traitor in the white house. How far we have fallen.
Nope. Not true. And as usual the facts of my statement, that you cut and pasted, were not challenged, or proven incorrect.
I’ve thought for some time that that poster is nothing more than yet another new personality of old Sybil.
That poster’s comments remind me of a cartoon about Kurt Waldheim that came out about 25 or so years ago, when:
Link: http://www.answers.com/topic/kurt-waldheim
The cartoon had Waldheim and a few other Wehrmacht and ?SS? officers standing near an airplane, looking at some documents/reports.
Waldheim’s character says, “It vould be wrong, dat’s for zure.”
One of the other officers replies, “Oh, shut up, Waldheim!”
Sometimes, that simple three-word expression wants to be uttered in reply to Sybil’s posts.
Z is correct. They are. You know… like William Kunstler.
Yeah.
And Lynne Stewart.
Riiiigghhtt!
Fool.
(Not you, Flyover!)
I left some out for my little joke, but ok…you claim the obvious answer is that lawyers are sworn to uphold the law, so they couldn’t possibly be representing the jiahdis’ best interests. So I mocked you. You’ve never heard of dishonest lawyers? Lawyers who lie about their interests? Lawyers who take a public-sector job to influence the business at the firm where they will return as partners one day? Lawyers with ideological reasons to obfuscate?
If you are not in fact an actual child, you need to work on your reasoning skills. Childish reasoning in a dangerous world is a risk for all of us.
Reading John Yoo’s article almost (and quite perversely) leaves me wishing for Obambi to get re-elected in 2012.
Why? So he can directly suffer the consequences of the abject treason and incompetence he is actively promulgating in his current term.
The way things are degrading now, the more likely outcome is that Obambi’s successor will have to deal with the catastrophic debris which will inevitably occur due to Obambi’s present treachery.
I say again, Holder takes his orders directly from Obeyme – and he is his most devoted servant. In addition to his obfuscation of his cronies at the law firm, Holder is a die-hard “progressive” with the NRA and the 2nd Amendments on his hit list. This entire administration has been given its mission statement: destruction of the Constitution of the U.S. We must be prepared to fight back, literally.
Get your head out of your a$$, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz! That was just plain dumb. You can’t possibly believe that lawyers are civilized!! Have you ever talked to Chap?? Most lawyers have been taken over by zombies from Iceland.
Don’t forget John (commit adultry while your wife has cancer, have a love child, deny your own child, have someone else take the blame) Edwards. Yeah, lawyers are just the models of virtue and integrity. Spit.
Not only are you now still not challenging the facts, but you are now hiding behind saying that you were joking. Who’s being childish?
What is childish is saying the second time around is that you were only kidding, joking, ya’ know . . . in your first response to my post. If you are joking say so at the time and/or make it more obvious.
NO. The lawyers are representing the jihadi’s ‘best interest’ . . . when they are clients. And now, the lawyers are representing the ‘best interest’ of the Justice Department . . . who they work for, presently.
Yes, there are dishonest lawyers and my original post (#21) says that they face sanctions for violating the law. Among the questions being asked by Sen Grassley do not include whether the lawyers being discussed are dishohest, or lying. Though I think those questions are fair to ask, as well.
I like questions being asked and answered.
Reasoning skills are a non-issue, the facts are the issue and you have yet to adequately challenge the facts.
Is what I said untrue? If so, prove it. Or, just agree with me. Lawyers do their jobs with the interests of their clients (or employers) first, or face sanctions.
OK, a bit of humor. LOL.
But, you are supposed to be ignoring me. Aren’t you a person of your word? Believe your own posts?
Ummmm, since you are violating your suggestion that I should be ignored, saying something is dumb, is not an intelligent argument. How about challenging the facts of my statement?
Two posts? Two posts, back to back, referencing me? So much for ignoring me, and saying this blog is not about me. You are making it about me.
When will you take you own words to heart, and actually ignore me?
I never said, lawyers are the models of virtue and integrity. My original post said they would face sanctions for violating the law.
C’mon, just admit you agree. It will you do you some good.
Thank you for agreeing.
Absolutely, like Thomas, Alito, Roberts, Yoo, Bibby, Gonzales, Mukasey, Ashcroft, etc. Lawyers all.
I am not suggesting that all lawyers are models of integrity and virture. In all professions there are the good, the bad and the ugly.
Holder’s choice of music reveals a wild, childlike mindset. The LSD druggy anthem “Purple Haze” is one of his favorite songs. Hendrix had outgrown it and was sick of the gimmickry of his career by the time of his death at age 27. We’re in trouble –Holder is 59:
This.is.going.to.hurt, but…
I actually agree with what I think “Z” is trying to say. That is, I get where he (or she?) is coming from.
Lawyers represent their clients before the bar and if they commit some illegal act while doing so, they face punishment for it.
That said, I totally feel what others are saying, to wit: why do we have a (growing?) cadre of lawyers who always seem willing–even EAGER–to run off and defend every Tom, Dick, and Abdul terrorist, according them the same rights as US citizens? To many of us, it seems that this is beyond trying to ensure a “fair trial” for the accused and more like sticking it to the US for some as yet unexpressed dislike for the country. What is it that drives this desire to seemingly always side with our enemies? (By “side” I mean, a disposition to explain away their evil)
Thank you.
The truth should not hurt. The truth shall set you free.
For the money. Public defenders are given a stipend to do the work. Yes, the words ‘pro bono’ are often mentioned, but all that means is that instead of $1,200 per hour they are getting $200 per hour, paid for by us, the taxpayers.
And, it isn’t about the ‘same rights’, it is about how we conduct ouselves as a nation. Could we make all of Afghanistan inhabitable for the next 1,000 years? Could we depopulate Iran? Iraq? Like it or not, we are a good people and like all civilized nations we conduct war according to established rules. Yep, I am laughing too. Such an oxymoron.
Yes, we have the ‘final solution’, for every foreign issue, in our back pocket but we practice self restraint. I think that is a good thing. Though I am glad there are others to hold me back.
Believe me, I get it, too.
It says more about us than it does about them, that we aren’t going around incinerating people. It says more about us when we help Indonesia after a Tsunami, or Haiti after an eartquake.
Our better angels are always standing ready to be judged, even though sometimes we (and I) believe that we should kick butt, write down names, and let Allah sort them out.
I get it. We have rules, laws and societal ethics.
Ummm….
I still like to listen to “Purple Haze” more than 40 years after it came out – even have it as the ringer on my cell phone from time to time.
And, I am quite a boring person – I’ve never done any drugs.
And I think that Holder is a member of the domestic enemy cadre.
But, what does a song have to do with the mortal, existential danger America presently faces?
The reason these lawyers represent Gitmo detainees is because they’re high profile cases and give them a lot of publicity, which results in more clients and more money.
The reason they take jobs with the DOJ is because it’s uber prestigious and they make a lot more money when they return to private practice.
It’s as simple as that.
Can you imagine how WW2 might have turned out if the DoJ had 9 or more lawyers on staff that had represented members of the German Nazi Party before they declared war on us?
I’m sure the writer put this music incident in her piece because it was revealing as to his character or “take” on life. I bought several Hendrix albums in the ’70s. Hendrix’s music was becoming mellower as he aged. Biographers have shown he no longer wanted to burn and bang guitars. To my mind, “Acid rock” on a favorites list of an AG who is 59 years old is weird.
Before bashing all lawyers, I need to remind people that my hero and a man who would have and still would be a great president is a lawyer. His name is Edwin Meese.
He is still younger than President Reagan was in his second term so he is still perfectly suited for a run for the presidency.
I beg to differ. They are more interested in prosecuting the pro-life and one-man-one-woman marriage proponents than they are Islamic jihadists. It’s indeed a culture war…their war on people of faith, prosperity and freedom.
I will not caste my vote for any presidential candidate that will not prosecute to the fullest extent of the law each and every member of Obama’s administration! If ANY presidential candidate states that they will prosecture I will closely consider them. If ANY candidate states that they will NOT they have just lost my vote!
prosecute! not prosecture….
(slapping mysself in the forehead)
sheesh!
This administration and everyone in it from the top down are part of a boiling nest of vipers that destroy this country every day they are in office. What part of “We do not want to be a socialist country” don’t they get? Take them damned ear plugs out of your ears and listen up. Socialism does not work and we in the United States of America do not want it. GET IT! ARE YOU LISTENING! I only hope that it will not be too late to clean up this horrific mess when a new administration is ushered in 2012.
Michelle, being a member of the media, you should send a FOIA to the DOJ demanding documentation of any jihadi defending hack.
Use the Cloward-Piven strategy. Pass the FOIA around to all conservative media and let everyone submit the same FOIA.
If Holder wants to keep it secret, then he can either defend his decision to ignore the FOIA publicly, or in court if he just ignores the request.
Either way it’s a win-win.