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Politics : I Will Continue to Continue, to Pretend.... -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (33113)	2/24/2010 11:26:14 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

GOP Seeks More Answers on Justice Officials Who Defended Terror Suspects By Stephen Clark FOXNews.com At least nine Justice Department lawyers formerly represented terrorist detainees before joining the Obama administration, raising Republican concerns that there may be conflicts of interest among top officials in the department. The disclosure in a letter sent last week by Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich, which was provided to FoxNews.com, came three months after Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, led by Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, asked Attorney General Eric Holder to provide information on lawyers who have represented terror suspects. Weich confirmed press reports that Neal Katyal, principal deputy solicitor general, once defended Usama Bin Laden's driver, who was detained at the Guantanamo Bay prison, and that Jennifer Daskal, an official in the National Security Division, represented detainees as a lawyer for Human Rights Watch. Weich said Katyal has not worked on any Gitmo cases, but he is allowed to work on other detainee cases, as is Daskal. Weich did not reveal the names of the department officials involved. He assured Grassley that "all department appointees understand that their client is the United States." But that didn't satisfy Republican lawmakers. "I think it's absolutely essential he disclose the names of anyone in the Justice Department who represented in any way Guantanamo detainees," Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., told Fox News. "Obviously, a lawyer has the right to take on an unpopular client or unpopular cause," King said. "But we are involved here in a war for survival -- a struggle really for the survival of our civilization - -and I believe the American people are entitled to know what role these lawyers now have." "I don't see what Eric Holder's trying to hide," he added. Grassley told Fox News on Wednesday that the lawyers pose a risk to national security. "We're not talking about a murderer or bank robber, defending them," he said. "We're talking about the defense of our country." He said he is still seeking answers about the lawyers, including whether they are stepping away from advising the president and Holder on the terrorist detainees, including the decision to try detainees in federal or military courts. "Some of these folks take the view that terrorists are nothing more than just common criminals," Grassley said. "Well, we know different. And they're treated different. And we ought to know their names, and we ought to know if they're recusing themselves when they advise the attorney general." Grassley said he wants to know the names of the other attorneys, what causes they represented for the terror suspects and to what extent they are advising Holder on national security issues and detainee cases. Grassley noted that the suspects being tried in federal court will have more constitutional rights than members of the U.S. military do in military commissions. The Justice Department rejected the notion that lawyers who have represented terror suspects have a conflict of interest in their new positions. "It is quite common for lawyers who enter Government service, whether at the Department of Justice or elsewhere, to work in issue areas that overlap with their prior practice," Weich said in his letter. "This familiarity with and experience in the relevant area of law redounds to the Government's benefit." He said the department's standards are "designed to prevent attorneys from participating in particular matters in which they have actual conflicts of interest, or in which their participation would give rise to the appearance of an actual conflict of interest." At least one attorney has recused himself on detainee cases. Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli, the No. 3 official in the Justice Department, had to recuse himself on at least 13 active detainee cases and at least 26 cases listed as closed or mooted, the Washington Times has reported. Perrelli's former firm, Jenner & Block LLP, worked on behalf of detainees while he served on the firm's management committee and on its appellate and Supreme Court practice groups, the newspaper reported. The controversy began in November during a Justice Department oversight hearing when Grassley asked Holder for a list of attorneys who may have conflicts of interest with detainee issues -- a request Holder said he would "consider." In a letter to Holder, signed by all Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, Grassley asked the attorney general to provide information on the attorneys and the cases they're working on. "It is imperative that the Committee have this information so we can assure the American people that the department is in fact formulating terrorism and detainee policy without bias or preconceived beliefs," the letter reads. In his response, Weich said, "No appointee in this administration would permit or has permitted any prior affiliation to interfere with the vital task of protecting national security, and any suggestion to the contrary is absolutely false." foxnews.com

To: Sully- who wrote (33113)	2/26/2010 4:03:18 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Terrorists' Lawyers at the DOJ By: The Editors National Review Online The Obama administration promised Americans an era of unprecedented transparency in the operations of government. At his confirmation hearing and in subsequent testimony, Attorney General Eric Holder professed a desire to work openly and cooperatively with Congress. Given all that, why is Holder stonewalling Senate Republicans on their demand that he identify the political appointees in his Justice Department who have represented or advocated on behalf of the terrorists detained at Guantanamo Bay? After months of delay, Holder finally deigned last week to provide a response that was more like a rebuke. He conceded that “at least nine” Justice Department officials had formerly represented the detainees. But even Holder admitted he was low-balling. He hadn’t, he said, made a complete survey of DOJ political appointees (i.e., the thing he was asked to do). Even if he had made the rounds, moreover, the number nine would have been an understatement. It counts only lawyers who directly represented the terrorists, not lawyers -- like Holder himself -- whose former firms volunteered their services to the detainees even if they did not personally do the work. Holder was a senior partner at a Washington firm (Covington & Burling) that proudly boasts of having represented 18 enemy combatants. Working for America’s enemies was its most heavily resourced “pro bono” (no-fee) project, to which it donated thousands of hours of work (3,022 hours in 2007 alone). Holder did not directly handle the cases. Yet, while his firm banged away on them, he made public statements accusing the United States of having “denied the writ of habeas corpus to hundreds of accused enemy combatants and authorized the use of procedures that violate both international law and the United States Constitution.” Holder has chosen to staff his Justice Department with lawyers who not only voluntarily represented the detainees but tirelessly advocated for them. To help shape detainee policy, for example, he brought in Jennifer Daskal, a lawyer with no prosecutorial experience. Daskal’s apparent qualification for the job was her work on behalf of the detainees as the “senior counterterrorism counsel” at the leftist Human Rights Watch. There, when not citing the United States to the U.N. for our nation’s purportedly inhumane operation of supermax prisons and the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, Daskal spoke on behalf of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other terrorists, insisting they’d been tortured (an allegation Holder echoed in his public statements), that their confessions had been coerced, and that their rights to due process had been grossly violated. The Republican senators had asked Holder to identify: the DOJ lawyers who had represented detainees, the names of those detainees, and the duties those lawyers currently have at DOJ -- including any responsibility for terrorism and detainee policy. Holder coughed up only two names: Daskal, who is already notorious, and Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal, whose work was already well known because it involved representing Osama bin Laden’s personal driver and bodyguard, Salim Hamdan, in one of the Supreme Court’s most important terrorism cases. Holder refused to give any more names or details. He gave no explanation for the refusal to disclose this information. Indeed, he was glibly dismissive, telling the lawmakers not to be concerned because “all department appointees understand that their client is the United States.” We’re sure they do, but they’re not serving their client well by returning our country to the September 10 approach to counterterrorism, meaning prosecution in the civilian courts. In such an approach, the Justice Department is the most significant agency. With the United States still at war and our enemies still plotting to carry out more 9/11s, the American people are entitled to know what attorneys at the Justice Department worked for the enemy combatants detained at Gitmo. article.nationalreview.com

To: Sully- who wrote (33113)	3/11/2010 10:22:35 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

We only hear paeans to the "American tradition of zealous representation of unpopular clients" when it's being used to defend causes popular with liberals WHAT'S ARABIC FOR 'YOU'RE NO ATTICUS FINCH'? Ann Coulter March 10, 2010 A group of "leading conservative lawyers" -- a phrase never confused with "U.S. Marines" -- has produced an embarrassingly pompous letter denouncing Liz Cheney for demanding the names of attorneys at the Justice Department who formerly represented Guantanamo detainees. The letter calls Cheney's demand "shameful," before unleashing this steaming pile of idiocy: "The American tradition of zealous representation of unpopular clients is at least as old as John Adams' representation of the British soldiers charged in the Boston Massacre." Yes, but even John Adams didn't take a job with the government for another 19 years after defending the British guards -- who, in 1770, were "the police." He also didn't take a position with the U.S. government that involved processing British murder suspects. I'd be more interested in hearing about the sacred duty of lawyers to defend "unpopular clients" if we were talking about clients who are unpopular with anyone lawyers know. Every white shoe law firm in the country has been clamoring to take the cases of Guantanamo detainees, while young associates line up to be put on the case. This is even more fun than defending Ted Bundy! As The Wall Street Journal put it in a 2007 article, a list of the law firms representing Guantanamo detainees "reads like a who's who of America's most prestigious law firms" -- which conveniently doubles as Santa's "naughty" list. The terrorists' lawyers have included Shearman and Sterling, Arnold & Porter; Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr; Covington & Burling; Hunton & Williams; Sullivan & Cromwell; Debevoise & Plimpton; King & Spalding; Cleary Gottlieb, Morrison & Foerster; Jenner & Block; O'Melveny & Myers and Sidley Austin. At least 34 of the 50 largest firms in the United States have performed pro bono work on behalf of Guantanamo detainees. Years ago, when I nearly died of boredom working for a law firm, I heard whispered rumors about a partner, Michael Tierney, whom none of the female associates wanted to work with because his pro bono work included defending -- gasp! -- pro-life groups. (There was at least one female associate who wanted to work with him!) I didn't hear a peep about the august "American tradition of zealous representation of unpopular clients" back then. Like Hollywood actresses, lawyers need to believe they're noble and courageous to help them forget that they are corporate drones doing soul-destroying work, which mostly consists of making photocopies. Defending terrorists gives status-conscious attorneys a chance to get standing ovations at the annual ABA convention -- much like promoting "global warming" makes climatologists feel like they're saving the world, rather than studying water vapor. It took me exactly one Nexis search for "ABA," "award" and "Guantanamo" to find that the 2006 "Outstanding Scholar Award" at the ABA annual banquet was given to New York University law professor Anthony G. Amsterdam for his "extensive pro bono practice, litigating cases that range from civil rights claims, to death penalty defense, to claims of access to the courts for the detainees at Guantanamo Bay." A rule I have is: You're not defending an unpopular client if you're getting awards from the ABA, particularly if the award mentions "courage." You'll never see a pompous letter like the one attacking Liz Cheney on behalf of any lawyer defending clients who are unpopular with lawyers, which terrorists are not. Ken Starr, a signatory to the "Please God, Let This Get Me a Good Obituary in The New York Times" letter, once, totally by mistake, had a case unpopular with the establishment: Bill Clinton's impeachment. He's shown his mettle by saying that if he met Clinton today, he'd say "I'm sorry." Because isn't that what Jesus said? Be very concerned with the opinion of the world! Speaking of which, I also never heard any testimonials to the sacred duty of lawyers to defend unpopular causes when every lawyer working on the Clinton impeachment was being smeared as a "tobacco lawyer." Tobacco companies, being wildly unpopular, are in need of a lot of legal services. Scratch any litigator from a big law firm and you'll find someone who, if necessary, could be slimed as a "tobacco lawyer." You will notice a pattern developing: We only hear paeans to the "American tradition of zealous representation of unpopular clients" when it's being used to defend causes popular with liberals -- serial killers, terrorists and a horny hick who promised to save partial-birth abortion. Lawyers want to be congratulated for their courage in defending "unpopular" clients, while taking cases that are utterly noncontroversial in their social circles. They'd be scared to death to take the case of an anti-abortion activist. Defending the guy who killed George Tiller the Baby Killer won't make them a superstar at the next ABA convention. Not only do Americans have a right to know the legal backgrounds of lawyers setting detainee policy at the Department of Justice, but I personally demand the right not to have to listen to Eddie Haskell lawyers constantly claiming to be Atticus Finch. anncoulter.com

To: Sully- who wrote (33113)	3/11/2010 1:01:37 PM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 35834

Corruptocrat AG Eric Holder’s “forgetfulness” strikes again By Michelle Malkin on Gitmo You know who should be feeling really, really stupid and sorry right now? The 19 Republican Senators who voted to confirm Eric Holder as the nation’s attorney general despite his long track record of putting political interests of the public interest at the expense of public safety, conflicts of interest, and his own admissions of screwing up, then moving up. Now, we learn that it just happened to conveniently slip Holder’s mind to mention during the Senate confirmation process that he had contributed to a legal brief with the use of federal courts in fighting terrorism on behalf of al Qaeda operative Jose Padilla: <<< “The brief should have been disclosed as part of the confirmation process,” Justice Department spokesman Matt Miller said in a statement. “In preparing thousands of pages for submission, it was unfortunately and inadvertently missed.” >>> Oopsy-doopsie! GOP Sen. Sessions is “deeply concerned.” Unfortunately, Sen. Sessions was one of the 19 GOP Senators who misguidedly gave Holder the benefit of the doubt and voted to confirm him. It’s not like they hadn’t been forewarned of Holder’s “forgetfulness.” Let me remind you that before his confirmation, Holder “forgot” to mention that disgraced former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich had appointed him to probe corruption in the state’s casino licensing decisions. Holder pocketed $300,000 and — surprise, surprise — concluded that no corruption existed. Refresher: <<< Before Eric Holder was President-elect Barack Obama’s choice to be attorney general, he was Gov. Blagojevich’s pick to sort out a mess involving Illinois’ long-dormant casino license. Blagojevich and Holder appeared together at a March 24, 2004, news conference to announce Holder’s role as “special investigator to the Illinois Gaming Board” — a post that was to pay Holder and his Washington, D.C. law firm up to $300,000. Holder, however, omitted that event from his 47-page response to a Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire made public this week — an oversight he plans to correct after a Chicago Sun-Times inquiry, Obama’s transition team indicated late Tuesday. “Eric Holder has given hundreds of press interviews,” Obama transition spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said in a statement. “He did his best to report them all to the committee, but as he noted in the questionnaire itself, some were undoubtedly missed in the effort to reconstruct a list of them.” Holder signed the questionnaire on Sunday — five days after Blagojevich’s arrest for allegedly putting Obama’s U.S. Senate seat up for sale. The Judiciary Committee asked him to provide lists and “copies of transcripts or tape recordings of all speeches or talks delivered by you” and “all interviews you have given to newspapers, magazines or other publications.” The March 2004 Chicago news conference where Holder and Blagojevich spoke was widely covered because of a controversial 4-1 Gaming Board vote earlier that month to allow a casino to be built in Rosemont. That vote defied the recommendation of the board’s staff, which had raised concerns about alleged organized-crime links to the Rosemont casino’s developer. >>> What else has Holder “forgotten” to tell us? *** Andy McCarthy: Zing! michellemalkin.com

To: Sully- who wrote (33113)	3/16/2010 12:23:35 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Do Terrorists Have a Right to an Attorney? By Mark Noonan on liberal lies This article from the Wall Street Journal details some of the insane, dangerous actions taken by US attorneys who were claiming to represent enemy combatants at Gitmo: <<< On the evening of Jan. 26, 2006, military guards at Guantanamo Bay made an alarming discovery during a routine cell check. Lying on the bed of a Saudi detainee was an 18-page color brochure. The cover consisted of the now famous photograph of newly-arrived detainees dressed in orange jumpsuits—masked, bound and kneeling on the ground at Camp X-Ray—just four months after 9/11. Written entirely in Arabic, it also included pictures of what appeared to be detainee operations in Iraq. Major General Jay W. Hood, then the commander of Joint Task Force-Guantanamo, concurred with the guards that this represented a serious breach of security. Maj. Gen. Hood asked his Islamic cultural adviser to translate. The cover read: “Cruel. Inhuman. Degrades Us All: Stop Torture and Ill-Treatment in the ‘War on Terror.’” It was published by Amnesty International in the United Kingdom and portrayed America and its allies as waging a campaign of torture against Muslims around the globe. “One thread that runs through many of the testimonies from prisons in Afghanistan and Iraq, and from Guantanamo,” the brochure read, “is that of anti-Arab, anti-Islamic, and other racist abuse.”… …Maj. Gen. Hood’s immediate concern about the magazine’s “propaganda and misinformation” was the strong potential that it would incite detainees to act out against U.S. personnel in his facility. The Islamic cultural adviser agreed, telling Maj. Gen. Hood that “the tone of the magazine was highly inflammatory” and “would cause a negative reaction, especially amongst the more hard-core terrorist factions within the camp.” >>> This Amnesty International slander piece was sent to Gitmo by lawyers working for Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, a firm which was claiming to represent Gitmo detainees. Here’s the nutshell of it: these attorneys sent a document in to Gitmo which could incite acts of violence which would endanger both prisoners and guards as well as provide a blueprint for how to claim abuse where none existed. In order to make some sort of stupid, anti-American point, these lawyers endangered lives. And now that some of these attorneys are working for the Obama Administration, there are claims that such actions are in the finest traditions of American legal practice! Dimwits who play with human blood are being congratulated for their “courage” in defending “unpopular” clients…as if their clients were actually unpopular in the social circles the attorneys lived and worked in. This is just insane. The men in Gitmo are dedicated killers – merciless men who will kill anyone, anywhere, if they think it advances their sick cause, These aren’t people who need lawyers – they need psychiatrists. This is akin to trying to defend Charles Manson – except, worse, because Manson doesn’t have anyone on the outside to commit hideous acts in his name. Its time we started looking at the world as it is, not through the eyes of ivory-tower, ignorant liberals. There are some people who have put themselves outside the protections of the law – they are called terrorists. When we capture them, they are to count their lucky stars if we don’t kill them – they are not to get attorneys to try and twist American law in to knots for the benefits of the enemies of all that is decent in the world. blogsforvictory.com

To: Sully- who wrote (33113)	3/18/2010 11:20:00 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

The Self-Righteous Haplessness Of Eric Holder By MICHAEL GERSON IBD Editorials Posted 06:59 PM ET Attorney General Eric Holder is controversial on the left for preserving much of the Bush administration's legal structure for conducting the war on terror. He is controversial on the right for overturning portions of that structure in ways that seem both clueless and reckless. But Holder is the most endangered member of the Obama Cabinet for a different reason: Just about everything he has touched has backfired. The list is oddly impressive. First, there was the decision to release Bush-era interrogation memos and reopen the investigation of CIA interrogators after they already had been cleared by career prosecutors. Holder assumed that these actions would rally public outrage. Instead, he started a national security debate he has pretty much lost. Seven former CIA directors — serving under Nixon, Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton and Bush 43 — sent Holder a letter warning that his actions could "help al-Qaida elude U.S. intelligence and plan future operations." Holder opened a serious, ongoing rift between the Department of Justice and the intelligence community. Trial Of The Century Second, there was Holder's repudiation in the matter of John Yoo and Jay Bybee — the Bush administration lawyers who provided the legal justification for enhanced interrogations. Holder appointees had determined the two lawyers guilty of professional misconduct. But the Justice Department's senior career attorney cleared Yoo and Bybee of the charge, embarrassing Holder in the process. Third, there was the handling of the underwear bomber case. It is fortunate that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab eventually resumed cooperation. It is also evident that Holder's decision to Mirandize him after 50 minutes was hasty and based on minimal consultation with intelligence officials. Holder treated a national security judgment as a purely legal one. Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair later told Congress: "That unit (the High Value Interrogation Group) was created exactly for this purpose — to make a decision on whether a certain person who's detained should be treated as a case for federal prosecution or for some of the other means. We did not invoke the HIG in this case; we should have." In fact, Blair was unaware that the High Value Interrogation Group did not yet exist. Fourth, there is the closing of the prison at Guantanamo Bay and the civilian trial for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other 9/11 conspirators in Manhattan. Under Holder's direction, this process has collapsed. There is no serious plan to close Guantanamo. Holder has been unable to articulate reasons why some terrorism cases are referred to civilian courts while others are tried in military tribunals. And his groundwork for a "trial of the century" was botched in almost every respect. The White House, having lost faith in Holder's ability to manage terrorism trials, has assumed direct control of the process. Civilian trials for the 9/11 terrorists now seem unlikely anywhere in the U.S. But backing down on that commitment will have a cost. "If this stunning reversal comes to pass," said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, "President Obama will deal a death blow to his own Justice Department, not to mention American values." While a military trial for KSM would hardly be a mortal blow to American ideals, Holder's initial announcement has created a political expectation on the left that may be impossible to fulfill. Finally, there are the Supreme Court briefs filed by Holder that he failed to disclose to Congress during his confirmation — likely to be the focus of a congressional oversight hearing in which Holder will testify on Tuesday. Public Blunders Holder's spokesman says this omission was inadvertent. But one of those briefs opposed the detention of Jose Padilla as an enemy combatant, leading Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., to wonder, "Are we expected to believe that then-nominee Holder, with only a handful of Supreme Court briefs to his name, forgot about his role in one of this country's most publicized terrorism cases?" Holder's briefs preview his later decisions on the underwear bomber and KSM. Few in Congress or the White House have leapt to defend Holder's convenient omission. Add to all of this a series of public gaffes. America is a "nation of cowards." The possibility of capturing Osama bin Laden alive "simply does not exist." Sometimes haplessness can provoke sympathy. But Holder mixes ineptness with self-righteousness. Critics of his questionable choices, he says, "cower." They lack "confidence in the American system of justice." But there is another possibility. Perhaps Holder's critics — in Congress, in the country and even within the White House — just lack confidence in his judgment. • Gerson, a syndicated columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group, was head speechwriter and a policy adviser for George W. Bush from 1999 to 2006. investors.com

To: Sully- who wrote (33113)	3/20/2010 4:56:48 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Is Eric Holder a coward? By Scott Power Line I thought I was being harsh in suggesting that Eric Holder might be a dope. Reviewing the same testimony that evoked my suggestion, Andrew McCarthy begins by observing: <<< "There is dishonest, and there is asinine. Combine them and you have Attorney General Eric Holder's congressional testimony on Tuesday." >>> McCarthy concludes: <<< Holder clearly believes -- as he argued in the amicus brief he withheld from the Senate before his confirmation hearings -- that our al-Qaeda enemies should be regarded as common criminals: given Miranda warnings upon capture and endowed with all the due-process protections of civilian defendants. This is an ill-advised position, but it's not an uncommon one. It is predominant on the academic Left. Yet Holder bobs, weaves, and contradicts himself on the question -- whatever it takes to avoid giving us a straight answer about his own beliefs. So who is the coward? >>> Let's just say that McCarthy does not mince words in "The corpse has the right to remain silent." .