Holder Could Be GOP Target
Before nominating Eric Holder to be his attorney general, President-elect Barack Obama quietly asked key Senate Republicans if there would be any potential confirmation problems with Holder's nomination. Holder is his first cabinet pick and Obama wants to make sure that the pick will be hailed as a good one. The last thing he needs is a bitter, partisan, and contentious scuffle over Holder.
Holder's legal credentials, administrative experience, and accomplishments are impeccable. As Clinton's Deputy Attorney General, he got high marks for initiating community outreach programs to address domestic violence, hate crimes and child abuse, devising standards for criminal prosecution of corporations, and handling civil health care matters. He's also touted for encouraging greater diversity and more pro bono work by attorneys. Holder drew loud cheers from civil libertarians when he told the American Constitutional Society in a speech earlier this year that he would restore the "rule of law" to the Justice Department; meaning that he'd reverse the worst civil liberties abuses by Bush's Justice Department in the terrorism war.
Yet Holder's sterling credentials are one thing, but politics is another. A political appointment to a top spot is generally a pro forma affair; it may be anything but that with Holder.
The immediate cause for some worry is Holder's role in Clinton's pardon of outlaw financier Mark Rich in 2001. Holder reportedly green lighted the pardon, but soon regretted it. He says he never would have said anything favorable about Rich if he had known the full details of the case. Prosecutors, the GOP and even Democrats pounded Clinton for the pardon. But Holder's input on Rich was only one factor in Clinton's decision to pardon Rich, and it was ultimately Clinton's call.
That probably alone won't assure a smooth sail for Holder through the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Holder nomination gives a badly mauled GOP a chance to show that it still has some fight in it and that it will not simply be a rubber stamp for Obama. Some conservatives indeed have said that picking a fight over some of Obama's top picks might be a good way to show the troops that the party can regain some of its political footing.
The Rich issue is not the only skeleton that the GOP could attempt to rattle in Holder's closet to get that footing. One is the claim that Holder routinely cleared Clinton's brother Roger of any wrongdoing when he lobbied brother Bill to grant pardons for a drug trafficker and other high level crime figures. This charge will also go nowhere. Clinton did not grant the pardons. And Holder did not solely make the call absolving Roger Clinton of wrongdoing in the pardon cases. Top FBI officials and then independent Counsel Robert Ray also said that Clinton did not do anything illegal.
Another possible hit point is Holder's lobbying on behalf of telecom giant Global Crossing after the company went belly up in 2002. Global Crossing incurred millions in debt. Back in June, the Republican National Committee first brought this up and claimed it would push to make it a campaign issue. The RNC didn't say just what the issue was. It didn't matter. The charge also went nowhere.
Then there is the Elian Gonzalez case. In 1999 Cuban leaders in Florida were furious at Clinton Attorney General Janet Reno for enforcing a court order requiring that the six year-old Gonzalez be removed from his relatives' home in Miami's Little Havana and returned to Cuba. As Deputy Attorney General, Holder took some heat for enforcing the court order.
The same year Holder drew more fire for his role in approving the clemency request for 16 members of the radical Puerto Rican independence group FALN convicted of a string of terrorist bombings and murders. The FBI, Bureau of Prisons and U.S. state attorneys opposed clemency for the 16. Holder refused to comment on what part he played in the clemency action.
Silence on the part of government officials is always taken as a sign by politically driven inquistors that an official has something to hide or is trying to dodge culpability for their actions when things go wrong. The FALN clemency issue could prove to be even more an irritant for Holder than the Rich case. In June, the RNC tried to stir up the pot on the FALN issue when it issued a press release urging the FALN clemency be made a campaign issue. There were no bites and the issue quickly died.
Then Holder was not an elected official, held no government office, and was only one of several top advisors to Obama. The talk of him being Obama's pick as attorney general was just that, talk. However, he now is Obama's pick and a GOP thirsting for anyone to target to make trouble for Obama may just see Holder as that target.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book is How Obama Won (Middle Passage Press January 2009)
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most of the time,when someone gets pardoned ,justice gets boinked.
After eight years of Scooter-Libby-Justice, Gonzalez and wiretapping, I don't think that the GOP has any right to question any AG pick for the next 100 years.
Transcript from 2004 ACS Convention - Eric Holder, Jr.
[PDF] - http://www.acslaw.org/files/2004%20convention_Lewis_speech%20transcript.pdf
Let's just hope we get at least another senate seat. Then we will need only one Repub.
How bad could it be to get 2 vote from some moderate republicans?
If the GOP manages to defeat this particular nomination, they will be doing a huge favor for everyone - not least for President-Elect Obama himself - no matter what their immediate motive is.
No matter who President Elect Obama chooses there will be some drama!! I trust Obama will make all the RIGHT choices for his cabinet!!So far SO GOOD!! CONGRATS TO ERIC!!
Of course he is a target; the "GOP" is corrupt. They will attempt to protect George W. Bush until the day he leaves office, and beyond. The other worst fear that the republicans have is that President-Elect Obama will succeed in his presidency. With that thought in mind, they already "protest" to much. It is more than obvious. And when Obama succeeds, there goes the voting block of the republicans needed to regain the white house. Let them fight; as they are so stubborn and remain clueless as to where the American voters are in this financial atmosphere, they are loosers before they start. Add to that, they have no message except that of the Evangelical bigoted right wing fringe. The republicans still refuse to believe that Sarah Palin tore that party down to the nubs with her rabid hate speeches at rallies and her "dumbness". They think she is the best thing since sliced bread. If the republicans ever snap out of denial, they will be embarassed to be called republicans. No one wants their right wing religous policies written into law; IT IS UN-CONSTITUTIONAL; WE HAVE A RIGHT TO SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE; THEY HAVE GONE TOO FAR THIS TIME.
"Could Be"?
If he wasn't before. He will be now.
Thanks .
oh so what. the wingnuts will always find something. i for one am finished trying to avoid their idiocy. we have already had the country almost run into the ground trying to cater to or avoid the "wrath" of this screeching minority. i say let them screech. the sooner they start being treated like the tiny fringe group they are, the better off we will all be.
If Republicans know what's good for the party, they'd know the last thing they need is to pick fights. It is, after all, one of the reasons they've lost so big lately...far to partisan.
Of course, odds seem to indicate they have no idea what's good for the party!
i completely agree, if they oppsoe him they will regret it I promise you!!! they better their battles wisely.
I really don't like all these Clinton retreads and government insiders.President-Elect Obama's "Change Is Coming" appears to morphing into "More Of The Same"-
Oh change is coming. It going to be a problem for some whomever O choses. He need people with experience. Old Clinton staff got things done and knew the ways of Washington. O can choose whomever he wants and he they don't fall in line with his vision, he can get rid of them. Think outside the box for a change.
The Republicans PROVED they CANNOT GOVERN and that they are
AN OBSTACLE to governing well!
It's time for them to STEP ASIDE and face the PUNISHMENT
they deserve!
If Republicans CONTINUE TO OBSTRUCT, then Americans will
most certainly DESTROY THE REPUBLICANS once and for al.
The'll NEVER have a Majority.
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