Holder Hearing ( Obama's choice for Attorney General of the United States )

For much of the day the Eric Holder confirmation hearing was a sleepy affair. Early on there was some minimal questioning on the Marc Rich (with appropriate contrition) and the FALN terrorist pardons (less apologetic on that front), but frankly the questioning was unfocused and ineffective. The highlights: Holder’s admission that DC v. Heller leaves little room for gun regulation, and his extreme position that even if tens of thousands of Americans lives were at risk he would not waterboard a terrorist. ( Is he serious?)

Late in the day however Sen. Grassley pushed Holder on the Marc Rich pardon. Holder sought to deny that his actions helped get the pardon through. His claim that he didn’t do anything “affirmatively” to make the pardon happen is belied by the record, I think. (There is credible evidence that he directed Rich to find his lawyer, provided that lawyer with advice, steered them around the Justice Department and gave them a “neutral, leaning favorable” recommendation.)

Sen. Specter then followed up with some fairly sharp queries. Holder denied that he had aided Rich’s attorney or ever received a briefing on the facts. Specter laced into him about overriding the career attorney’s recommendation on the FALN terrorists, but Holder insisted he was just telling his subordinate to “do his job.” It is unclear if Specter changed any minds, but at least things perked up.

From the sleepy times link enbedded in the article ( Blog at the New York Times:

Live Blogging Holder’s Confirmation Hearing

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More on Torture | 3:20 p.m. Torture — and waterboarding in particular — have so far dominated several of the exchanges between senators on the Judiciary Committee and Mr. Holder this afternoon. And even though Mr. Holder had emphatically declared that waterboarding is torture earlier today, Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, tried to push the point a bit further with a hypothetical scenario.

Imagine, Mr. Cornyn suggested, a “ticking time bomb” scenario — terrorists were about to unleash chemical, biological or nuclear weapons that would cost “tens of thousands of lives,” and a detainee had information that would save those lives, would Mr. Holder still refuse to condone the use of waterboarding even if it were the only way to avert such a disaster?

While saying he was comfortable with Mr. Cornyn’s hypothetical, he disagreed with the premise that waterboarding would necessarily elicit reliable intelligence, citing many conversations he had had with experts in this area.

Separately, Senator Dick Durbin asked about other interrogation methods, like mock executions, in terms of whether they should be deemed torture. Mr. Holder said he wasn’t as conversant, but didn’t approve of tactics that would be construed as inhumane. (We’ll come back with a transcript on this exact exchange because Mr. Durbin cited specific techniques.)

Update from the transcript: The other techniques Senator Durbin inquired about were painful stress positions, threatening detainees with dogs, forced nudity, mock execution. He said that judge advocates generals had told me they would be illegal and violated the Geneva Conventions.

” When I asked Attorney Generals Gonzales and Mukasey the same question, they refused to respond,” Mr Durbin said. And then he asked Mr. Holder: “Would it be illegal for enemy forces to subject an American detainee to painful stress positions, threatening detainees with dogs, forced nudity, or mock execution?”

Because he wasn’t as familiar, Mr. Holder said he wouldn’t go so far as “to say that those constitute torture.” But, pointing again to the articles pertinent within the Geneva Convention, Mr. Holder noted they required for humane treatment of prisoners. That prompted Mr. Durbin to ask: “So in your mind they cross that threshold and become inhumane?”

And Mr. Holder replied, “I believe that’s right.”

On the practice of rendition, which gained considerable notoriety through the use of secret prisons abroad, Senator Ben Cardin, Democrat of Maryland, asked Mr. Holder his views: He said, “It simply should not be the policy or the practice of the United States of America to turn over a prisoner or captured person to a nation where we suspect or have reason to believe that person will be tortured.”

More from the blogging at post #6:

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Reckoning | 12:20 p.m. Words do often come back to haunt public officials, and Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama has just asked Mr. Holder for a better parsing of statements he made in a speech to the American Constitution Society last year.

In a section critical of some Bush administration practices, Mr. Holder was quoted as saying, “We owe the American people a reckoning.” Mr. Sessions wanted to know whether those words indicated a willingness to prosecute government officials without knowing all the facts. “No senator, actually when I used that term — that’s gotten a lot more attention than I think it deserves,” Mr. Holder said in disagreement, adding that he wasn’t thinking about prosecutions but about “information-sharing” with the public.

From the Blogosphere....Powerline:

Holder's disgrace

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January 17, 2009 Posted by Scott at 7:50 AM

Eric Holder illustrates the dangers of ambition married to weak character. His subservience to the interests of Bill Clinton in approving the corrupt pardon of Marc Rich and the indefensible pardons of the FALN terrorists was a disgrace. His role in these pardons should disqualify him for higher office.

Holder himself does not defend his role in the Rich pardon. He concedes it was a mistake. He claims somewhat paradoxically that he learned so much from his mistake that he will be a better Attorney General. Holder makes no such concession or claim in the case of the FALN terrorists. Joseph Connor is the son of one of their victims. He testified against Holder in the confirmation hearing yesterday. In "Terrorists killed my father," Connor writes:

At the time of the [FALN] pardons, Eric H. Holder Jr. was deputy attorney general. In considering his department's recommendation on clemency, he met with supporters of the terrorists but ignored their victims. He pushed staff members to drop their strong opposition to a presidential pardon for the FALN members and alter a report they had prepared for the president recommending against clemency. Today, although two turned down their pardons because they were unwilling to renounce violence, many of the convicted FALN members walk free. And a man who was instrumental in their release may become the highest law enforcer in the land.
Holder said at his confirmation hearing Thursday that he thought Clinton's decision to pardon the FALN members was "reasonable." But they were bad people. During their Chicago trial, some of them threatened the life of Judge Thomas McMillen, who was hearing the case. Carmen Valentin, one of those later pardoned by Clinton, told the judge, "You are lucky that we cannot take you right now," and she told other officers of the court, "You will be walking with canes and wheelchairs. ... Revolutionary justice can be fierce." She also declared war against the United States. Dylcia Pagan, another recipient of Clinton's gift, warned the courtroom: "All of you, I would advise you to watch your backs." McMillen was convinced the defendants would continue being terrorists as long as they lived. "If there was a death penalty," he said at their sentencing, "I'd impose the penalty on you without hesitation."

In its editorial today supporting the confirmation of Eric Holder as Attorney General, the Washginton Post adopts Holder's defense of the FALN pardons:

Mr. Holder defended his support for Mr. Clinton's commutation of the sentences of 16 members of a Puerto Rican terrorist group based on the facts that none of the 16 had been convicted of murder and that most had served almost 20 years in prison. There is still much to dislike in the commutations themselves. But no new evidence emerged to challenge Mr. Holder's assertion that the recommendation was based on his best judgment.

This defense of the FALN terrorists lacks a certain logic.

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