Free Republic

The modern-day John Adams brigade down at King & Spalding has finally found a client too unpopular to merit representation: the American people. That is exactly the same conclusion drawn by Eric Holder’s Justice Department. Like the DOJ, the Atlanta-based white-shoe law firm asks “How high?” when left-wing agitators tell it to jump. In this instance, the agitators were gay-rights activists. They were in a snit because K&S — in particular, K&S partner Paul Clement, the former Bush-administration solicitor general — agreed to represent the American people in litigation involving challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). DOMA denies...

The Journal Editorial Report discusses whether it is fair to attack the Obama administration for hiring lawyers who represented terrorists in private practice.

Why the al-Qaeda Seven MatterIn counterterrorism, personnel is policy  My flight had been delayed, so I arrived late to a 2004 academic conference, a law school gab-fest exploring legal issues in the War on Terror. The professor giving the keynote address was well into his remarks when I sheepishly entered the rear of the hall, trying to muffle the creaky door. I wasn’t paying Professor Keynote much mind until I heard him begin to inveigh against the “American Taliban.” That was an attention grabber. Righteous rage was not the usual tone of discussions about John Walker Lindh on college campuses....

Would most Americans want to know if the Justice Department had hired a bunch of mob lawyers and put them in charge of mob cases? Or a group of drug cartel lawyers and put them in charge of drug cases? Would they want their elected representatives to find out who these lawyers were, which mob bosses and drug lords they had worked for, and what roles they were now playing at the Justice Department? Of course they would -- and rightly so. Yet Attorney General Eric Holder hired former al-Qaeda lawyers to serve in the Justice Department and resisted providing...

ustice Department on So-called ”Al Qaeda Seven”: We Will Not Participate in An Attempt to Drag People’s Names Through the Mud March 03, 2010 4:19 PM For several weeks, Republican lawmakers and a conservative group have been attacking the Justice Department for refusing to reveal the names of nine officials who have in some way advocated for or represented detainees at Guantanamo Bay. "The administration has made many highly questionable decisions when it comes to national security, " Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said in a recent statement, arguing that the public has “a right to know who advises the Attorney...