Attorney General-designate Eric Holder testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, January 15, 2009, before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on his nomination. (Associated Press - Evan Vucci)
Posted on 01/25/2009 4:24:53 AM PST by TexasCajun
U.S. Attorney General-designate Eric Holder was prepared to be bombarded during his Senate confirmation hearings Thursday with a host of questions about a variety of topics, including his role as acting attorney general during a special investigation into the 1993 Branch Davidian debacle.
While he fielded questions about waterboarding terrorist suspects and the 2001 pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich, Senate Judiciary Committee members didn’t get around to asking about the Branch Davidian investigation.
Former Attorney General Janet Reno recused herself from a special investigation that was conducted by former U.S. Sen. John Danforth into how the fire started in April 1993 in which Branch Davidian leader David Koresh and 75 of his followers perished.
Reno’s recusal left Holder, then No. 2 at the Justice Department, as acting attorney general for the purposes of Danforth’s 14-month, $17 million investigation.
Sen. Arlen Specter — ranking Republican on Senate Judiciary — indicated earlier this week that the Branch Davidian siege and Holder’s involvement in Danforth’s investigation might be a topic discussed during Holder’s confirmation hearings. Internet blogs have been rife with speculation about possible Holder testimony on the siege.
Danforth said this week that he supports Holder’s nomination and thinks he will be an excellent attorney general. He said as acting attorney general, Holder was the person to whom Danforth and his investigators submitted requests for information.
“He was very good and played it straight,” Danforth said. “I think that, oftentimes, the reaction to people in agencies or departments where there is an investigation going on is to circle the wagons. But that was not him at all. He was very forthcoming and very cooperative with us and provided the information we needed.”
Waco attorney Bill Johnston, a former assistant U.S. attorney who helped prosecute 11 Branch Davidians on murder charges, was the only person prosecuted as a result of Danforth’s investigation.
Johnston admitted that he failed to turn over his personal notes to investigators that they said revealed Johnston knew at least by 1994 that the FBI used tear-gas devices capable of sparking a fire on the final day of the 51-day standoff with Koresh.
They said Johnston also lied to a special grand jury in St. Louis about his level of cooperation.
Johnston said Thursday that he never had any direct contact with Holder during Danforth’s investigation and never met him.
Johnston, who was placed on two years’ unsupervised felony probation, is seeking a pardon from President Bush.
Attorney General-designate Eric Holder testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, January 15, 2009, before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on his nomination. (Associated Press - Evan Vucci)
The lunitics are running the asylum.
RINOS at work.
Holder has also said that he favors a permanent “assault” weapons ban. Are their more Waco’s in our future with this one?
Holder has also said that he favors a permanent “assault” weapons ban. Are their more Waco’s in our future with this one?
Ugh.
The Republican party in Congress in now an official branch of the Democrat party.
No doubt. Our current GOP is so emasculated it is pathetic. Hillary should NEVER have been allowed to serve with Billy’s foundation raising money from such questionable people. And Holder is so weak sauce it is a tragedy. Lets see how fast he takes up the Bush/Cheney war crimes issue.
I suppose relaying this information and all the other communist activities has a purpose, but I have yet to see why. It is apparent America as we knew it is no more. I guess we have a morbid curiosity about our future in the hands of these friggin animals.
They might be laying low becaouse they have the inside scoop on the coming financial system utter collapse and want no part of the blame.
Not to ding you personally, just something to think about.
A thing, or a person or an organization is what it does.
These people are not RINOs. They are Republicans. Republicans have always been liberal, big spending, big government.
Coolidge, not big government.
Hoover, big
Eisenhower, big.
Nixon, big
Ford, big
Reagan, not big, but it got bigger.
Bush the First, Big
Bush the Second, Big.
McCain/Romney/Huck, would of been big.
You can not call Republicans that behave as liberal, big spending, government growing Republicans, ‘RINO’s’.
RINO’s ARE Republican through and through.
It is US that are the RINO’s. We. You Me.
We are conservatives and only call our selves Republican, because there is no conservative party. We are not Republican. We are the Republicans in name only.
Is it possible to do a gonads/spinal transplant at the same time?
The GOP remnant needs one—badly.
The next Republican letter I get asking for money is going to sizzle.
Essentially there is already an assault weapons ban that took place in 1934. That plus 1986 which further reduced the ability of Americans to keep up with police, and military weapons, and caused the price of machine guns to go into the stratosphere of unaffordability are already considered by many to be an assault weapons ban.
More, of this would be a semi-automatic weapons ban which was in effect during the Clinton administration and called by many the ugly weapons ban. Flash hiders, bayonet lugs, multi round magazines, folding stocks, pistol grips, all came under the scrutiny and banning pen of unelected organizations such as the BATF.
It was mostly smoke and mirrors, and political do good for the purpose of appeasing the anti gun crowd. It did not do much to curtail the sale of semi automatic weapons other than ban the ugly parts as mentioned above.
Friends of the second amendment will recognize that a permanent ban this time, will likely be much more restrictive and ultimately lead to complete bans of certain weapons. This will be followed by complete bans of the entire class of semi-auto weapons.
A scenario that would lead hopefully to a more vigorous defense of the second amendment by the owners of the millions of semi-automatic weapons already in the hands of law abiding citizens of the United States of America.
These new laws will accomplish a great deal in keeping such weapons out of the hands of children and criminals. It is reported that criminals are crying their eyes out at the possibility of losing their gun show loophole and straw man purchasing ability.
When one considers the constitutionality of denying the vote to convicted felons who have served their time, one needs to consider the constitutionality of denying weapons to children and unconvicted felons. After all what crimes have they committed that would deny them of their right to keep and bear arms. Need we mention that the majority of law abiding citizens ought to be the focus of of such unconstitionality, and believe me they are.
I recently divested myself of all weapons and ammunition in the likely hood of just such a circumstance.
RINO’s ARE Republican through and through.
Here, here. I see the GOP as merely the second worst major party which is the only reason they get votes.
Any small amount of testosterone would kill most of them in days.
No doubt you hit the nail. I am Not a Republican. I want small government and real money. I want borders. I do not like the UN. I want to ELIMINATE Programs agencies and stupid laws. I am obviously not a Republican.
Of course he wasn’t. That’s the scandal the Dems just want to go away.
I think political conservatism is recently new. Say the last twenty years.
Now we realize that we can not have a conservative life in America. We can not own our land, farm it, build it and live it, except if we have the wealthy and money to go to the Supreme Court. There fore for most people, we have no effective rights. Theoretical rights, off in the either, are not real, tangible rights.
We also have the Communist era Federal Reserve Act. I write communist era because that was the time it came into being when world wide, the idea of elites, using pseudo scientific notions, had in many forms take hold in the world. Progressives, socialism, fascism and in the US a sort of scientific managerialism that would, supposedly, in the hands of an elite managerial class, collect power and use it more efficiently, more honestly, more productively and safely then in the many hands of the many ignorant superstitious people ( Mind you these/us/you superstition ignorant people where the ones who scrapped, dug, made and served up the excess money to be concentrated in the elites hands. Which raises the question, who really needs who? I know I can find people all day long to be ‘elites’ and to accept my money )
We are not safe in our lands and trades, and now the script, paper, money that they and they alone have power over, isn’t safe either.
When you work, they take by taxes.
When you profit in your work, they take that by taxes.
When you buy, you have to pay a permission tax.
Now they are devaluing the dollar, another tax to clean up their buddies problems.
It is really gross, and immoral.
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