Posted on 01/10/2009 10:36:45 PM PST by george76
Chiquita was facing the prospect of federal charges for paying protection money to Colombian terrorists to safeguard its banana crops, and the company needed help. It turned to Eric H. Holder Jr., an elite Washington lawyer well versed in the ways of the Justice Department.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is to begin confirmation hearings on Mr. Holder on Thursday...
When the National Football League was facing a legal and public-relations disaster in 2007 over a dogfighting scandal involving the Falcons quarterback Michael Vick, it turned to Mr. Holder to help navigate the maelstrom and represent the league. The pharmaceutical giant Merck tapped him as its lawyer in a Medicaid overbilling case that ended in a $671 million civil settlement. And Rod R. Blagojevich, the now-impeached governor of Illinois, picked him, albeit briefly, to investigate for the state a controversy over a casino development and its possible ties to organized crime.
Already, Mr. Holder’s brief association with Mr. Blagojevich has drawn scrutiny ...
Holder ... has entered a group of A-list lawyers in the capital who reportedly earn $800 to $1,000 an hour.
Last spring, when Mr. Holder was traveling extensively to campaign for Mr. Obama, he joked to The American Lawyer magazine, “I hope the management committee is going to be real understanding when they see my billable hours this year.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
After what they put Sarah Palin through, they have the audacity to claim Private issues?
I’m almost speechless at the blatant bias and hypocrisy.
These people think that they’re really hot stuff, and I assume that the old, spent, grey whore thinks so too. Hopefully, they’ll get a good cold blast of reality very soon.
Some lawyer on a government payroll does not qualify as a public servant. Ego does not count toward service in this situation.
Hillary was then-running for office in NY and she needed the votes of hyphenates to win. She and Bill apparently conducted surveillance on the NY electorate and "profiled" the hyphenated groups she needed to win. They then went down the list and handed pardons to individual connected with hyphenated groups to buy their votes.
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Pardoning Terror--How would-be attorney general Eric Holder won the release of 16 FALN terrorists
By John Perazzo, FrontPageMagazine.com
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=3BDF4733-1689-4B8A-B263-B119AD5407D9 ^ | John Perazzo
In 1997, Holder became President Clinton’s Deputy Attorney General in the Justice Department headed by Janet Reno. In this role, Holder was responsible for overseeing clemency investigations and determining which of those requests were ultimately worthy of President Clinton’s attention. As evidenced by a September 1997 memorandum from the Pardon Attorney, the Justice Department was, at this point, receiving numerous inquiries about the FALN and Macheteros—from the White House and from supporters of the prisoners. The aforementioned House Committee on Government Reform report stated:
“Throughout the closing months of 1997 it appears that Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder was active in the issue. The privilege log reflects at least two notes regarding his questions on the clemency or his thoughts on the matter.” On November 5, 1997, Holder met with Representatives Gutierrez, Serrano, and Velazquez to discuss the clemency issue. He advised the legislators that they might greatly increase the likelihood of a presidential pardon if they could convince the prisoners to write letters testifying as to the personal remorse they felt for their past actions. But no such letters would be produced for five months, during which time the clemency issue remained on hold.
Meanwhile, in a January 6, 1998 letter, a senior Justice Department official expressly referred to the FALN members as “terrorists.” Then on April 8, 1998, Holder again met with FALN supporters. This time, they finally delivered statements from the prisoners as Holder had advised in November. Once again, however, there was a problem: all their statements were identical, indicating that not one of the prisoners had made the effort to craft his own personal expression of repentance. Undeterred, Holder asked whether the prisoners might at least agree to renounce future violence in exchange for clemency.
One of the prisoners’ backers, Reverend Paul Sherry, made it clear that they surely “would not change their beliefs”—presumably about the issue of Puerto Rican independence—but was vague as to whether they would eschew violence altogether.
Over the next few weeks, Holder and the Justice Department continued to meet with clemency advocates. Holder was the point man for these negotiations. As Brian Blomquist wrote in the New York Post, “A list of FALN documents withheld from Congress shows that many memos on the FALN clemency decision went directly to Holder, while Reno’s role was minimal.” Similarly, New York Daily News reporter Edward Lewine wrote that Holder was “the Justice Department official most involved with this issue.”
It should be noted that throughout the clemency review process, neither Holder nor anyone else in the Justice Department contacted the FALN’s victims or their families. As a result, most were never aware that clemency for the terrorists was even being contemplated. Those few who were aware of the possibility were rebuffed in their efforts to participate in the review process.
On May 19, 1998, DOJ’s pardon attorney sent Eric Holder a 48-page draft memorandum “concerning clemency for Puerto Rican Nationalist prisoners.” Seven weeks later, on July 8, Holder sent President Clinton a “memorandum regarding clemency matter.” Behind the scenes, indeed, the Deputy Attorney General was methodically spearheading the march toward clemency—despite the fact that the sentencing judges, the U.S. Attorneys, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the Fraternal Order of Police, and the FBI were unanimous in their opposition to pardoning the FALN.
In late July 1999 an attorney from Holder’s office spoke to White House Counsel Charles Ruff regarding the clemency. On August 9, 1999, Holder’s office and OPA held one final meeting to hammer out the details, and two days later the President made his announcement: clemency had been granted to the 16 terrorists, most of whom had served only a fraction of their prison terms. Of the sixteen, twelve accepted the offer and were freed; two refused it; and two others, already out of prison, never responded.
Clinton, who previously had complied with just 3 of 3,229 requests for clemency, justified his decision by explaining that the prisoners already had served sufficient prison time for their crimes. He further cited executive privilege for his refusal to give Congress a number of documents related to his verdict. Congress, for its part, was not pleased—condemning the clemencies by votes of 95-2 in the Senate and 311-41 in the House.
In the aftermath of August 11, 1999, a report by the very same Justice Department that employed Eric Holder stated that the FALN posed an “ongoing threat” to national security. And in late October 1999 the Senate Judiciary Committee released a report from Attorney General Janet Reno stating that the FALN members’ “impending release from prison” would “increase the present threat” of terrorism. Dangerous terrorists had been set free, and Eric Holder had made it happen.
Holder’s response to the threat reports was unconvincing at best. In an October 20 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, and again with reporters the following day, Eric Holder denied that Reno was referring to the same FALN terrorists whose pardons he had worked so long and hard to secure. Yet, when Holder was asked to identify whom Reno was in fact talking about, his response amounted to little more than a pathetic stammer:
I don’t know, no, I don’t know that. We might be able to get you some more information on that, but, I mean, you know, there were certain people who are due to be released, or who were at least eligible for parole, had a release date in the next, as I said, three, four years. I don’t know exactly who they were. Maybe—we might be able to get you that information.
They never did. Neither Holder nor the Justice Department ever provided the names of any of these mystery men.
In the final analysis, Eric Holder was the individual most central to the Clinton White House’s dogged quest to pardon the FALN terrorists. His efforts toward that end can more accurately be characterized as partisan advocacy than as dispassionate dispensation of justice. As the December 1999 House Committee on Government Reform report put it:
The 16 terrorists appear to be most unlikely candidates. They did not personally request clemency. They did not admit to wrongdoing and they had not renounced violence before such a renunciation had been made a quid pro quo for their release. They expressed no contrition for their crimes, and were at times openly belligerent about their actions.
Notwithstanding the fact that the 16 did not express enough personal interest in the clemency process to file their own applications, the White House appeared eager to assist throughout the process. Meetings were held with supporters, and some senior staff [i.e., Holder] even suggested ways to improve the likelihood of the President granting the clemency. Overall, the White House appears to have exercised more initiative than the terrorists themselves.
Nearly ten years after the FALN pardons, Holder is once again set to enter the Attorney General’s office – this time as its head. But before assuming that important post, he owes the American people – and the victims of FALN terror – the explanation he failed to provide when the terrorists were set free.
(1) Branch Davidians
(2) Elian Gonzales
(3) Marc Rich Pardon
(4) Puerto Rican Terrorist Clemency
(5) Campaign finance abuses via Clinton & Al Gore
(6) Ruby Ridge
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Obama Attorney General Nominee Eric Holder Helped Enable 2000 Elian Gonzalez Seizure
Andrew Napolitano of Fox News charged that the early-Saturday seizure of the then 6 year-old Gonzalez from those who were taking care of him flagrantly disobeyed a ruling of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Napolitano: Tell me, Mr. Holder, why did you not get a court order authorizing you to go in and get the boy?
Holder: Because we didn’t need a court order. INS can do this on its own.
Napolitano: You know that a court order would have given you the cloak of respectability to have seized the boy.
Holder: We didn’t need an order.
Napolitano: Then why did you ask the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals for such an order if you didn’t need one?
Holder: [Silence]
Napolitano: The fact is, for the first time in history you have taken a child from his residence at gunpoint to enforce your custody position, even though you did not have an order authorizing it.
Napolitano: When is the last time a boy, a child, was taken at the point of a gun without an order of a judge. Unprecedented in American history.”
Holder: “He was not taken at the point of a gun.”
Napolitano: “We have a photograph showing he was taken at the point of a gun.”
Holder: “They were armed agents who went in there who acted very sensitively...”
About two weeks before the raid, Tim Russert asked Holder, “You wouldn’t send a SWAT team in the dark of night to kidnap the child, in effect?” Holder answered, “No, we don’t expect anything like that to happen.” Then the Department did precisely that. The day after the seizure, Holder appeared again with Russert, who asked, “Why such a dramatic change in position?” “I’m not sure I’d call it a dramatic change,” Holder answered. “We waited ’til five in the morning, just before dawn.”
******
Eric Holder, Ruby Ridge, Waco - said Davidians responsible for tragedy.
DONOR TO CLINTONS GETS MIDNIGHT PARDON
In 1983, Mark Rich was indicted in federal court of evading more than $48 million in taxes. He was also charged with 51 counts of tax fraud and with running illegal oil deals with Iran during the hostage crisis. Rich gave a million to Hillary's campaign and 1/2 million to Bubba's Library to pay for his pardon and dismissal of his evasion of US taxes. He's also a friend of Clintonista Terry McAuliffe- Rich is just a regular guy (/s).
CIRCA 2001 Emails prove that Eric Holder lied when he said he only heard about the Rich pardon in November of 2000. The emails prove he was involved as early as March of 2000. Holder's mission was to help Mark Rich evade Justice Dept procedure. According to testimony given to the House Government Reform Committee hearing on Clinton's 11th-hour pardons, Israeli PM Barak called Clinton at least three times to urge him to pardon Rich. Three witnesses gave the exact same testimony - former White House chief of staff John Podesta, former White House counsel Beth Nolan, and former Clinton adviser Bruce Lindsey.
Somebody coordinated the testimony of the Clintonista witnesses. Could that have been Holder? Of course, Clinton or somebody else might have lied to them about the number of the calls at the time. Most suspect they were all coached into this particular lie.
REFERENCE Yoav Appel and News Agencies
FR Posted on 03/04/2001
JERUSALEM (March 4, 2001)
Despite congressional testimony to the contrary, the Prime Minister's Office yesterday refuted the claim that Prime Minister Ehud Barak made three calls to then president Bill Clinton in a bid to gain a pardon for fugitive financier Marc Rich. According to testimony given Thursday to the House Government Reform Committee hearing on Clinton's 11th-hour pardons, Barak called Clinton at least three times to urge him to pardon Rich. Three witnesses gave the same testimony - former White House chief of staff John Podesta, former White House counsel Beth Nolan, and former Clinton adviser Bruce Lindsey.
But last night the Prime Minister's Office was still standing by its the statement that Barak gave following the pardon. "The prime minister made one call and the matter was only raised at the end of the phone call, where Barak stressed Marc Rich's contribution to Israeli society," a source at the Prime Minister's Office said.
A source close to Barak expressed great surprise that people close to Clinton have passed the responsibility for Rich's pardon on to Israel. "It is obvious that a marginal telephone mention did not play a deciding role in the granting of the pardon. Even if it is convenient to say so, it is untrue, especially when other requests by Barak in which he invested much greater effort, like [Jonathan] Pollard, were not granted," said the source.
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NEW MARC RICH LINK STINK--NYPOST--- By NILES LATHEM January 3, 2005
WASHINGTON - New details of billionaire trader Marc Rich's shady oil deals under the UN oil-for-food program are emerging, The Post has learned. These include deals with front companies that have connections to Saddam Hussein's underground financial network. In particular, prosecutors are probing four suspicious deals that took place in February through April 2001. In these cases, Rich was listed as a secondary buyer of oil contracts originally allocated by Saddam to mysterious French and Egyptian companies.
The questionable deals began a month after sanctions-buster Rich, a convicted tax dodger, received his midnight pardon from then-President Bill Clinton. They took place during a period in which major Western oil companies were shying away from directly buying from Iraq because Saddam was demanding surcharges and kickbacks.
The NY Post has previously reported that Rich has been identified as a primary target of oil-for-food probes by the US attorney in New York and Manhattan DA Robert Morgenthau. Rich, who lives in Switzerland and has not returned to the United States despite the pardon, denied in a statement issued by his company last week that he was involved in any illegal activities.
Iraqi shipping records, originally published in the Middle East Economic Review, a respected oil-industry database, provide an intriguing glimpse into some of Rich's oil dealings with the U.N. program and appear to bolster prosecutors' suspicions that he was a key figure in many of Saddam's moneymaking and global influence-peddling schemes. Investigators say they believe it is significant that the companies with which Rich was apparently doing business in the oil-for-food deals appear to have directors with secret financial connections to Saddam's brutal regime. http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/37665.htm
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