Holder is likely to face tough questions

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http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/20...14-holder_N.htm

Holder is likely to face tough questions

By Donna Leinwand, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Eric Holder, President-elect Barack Obama's nominee for attorney general, faces a bruising confirmation hearing today as Senate Republicans prepare to question the former Justice Department lawyer about his role in several controversial presidential pardons and whether he will act independently of the White House. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the Judiciary Committee's top Republican, has said he will ask about Holder's "ability to maintain his independence from the president."

In a speech before the Senate last week, Specter compared Holder to former attorney general Alberto Gonzales, who resigned in 2007 amid investigations into whether he had politicized the Justice Department. Specter attributed Gonzales' "missteps" to "his eagerness to please the White House."

Holder's decisions as deputy attorney general during the Clinton administration "raised concerns about his ability to maintain his independence from the president," Specter said.

Committee Democrats will seek to demonstrate that Holder has widespread support from law enforcement and past Republican U.S. attorneys, such as Asa Hutchinson, who also is a former Arkansas congressman.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., plans to call former FBI director Louis Freeh and national president of the Fraternal Order of Police Chuck Canterbury to testify on one of two scheduled days of hearings. Once the committee votes on Holder's nomination, the full Senate will decide whether to confirm him.

Among Holder's decisions that Specter has questioned: his recommendation that President Clinton pardon fugitive financier Marc Rich, whose wife had contributed heavily to the Democratic Party. Holder has apologized and called his pardon recommendation a mistake. You think?

Witnesses called by Republicans on the Judiciary Committee also will focus on Holder's role in Clinton's clemency offer to 16 members of a Puerto Rican independence group who were convicted of conspiracy and bomb-making charges. Holder recommended pardoning the convicted members of the Armed Forces of National Liberation, a Puerto Rican group known as FALN.

One of the scheduled witnesses is Joseph Connor, the son of a victim in the 1975 Fraunces Tavern bombing in New York City that killed four people. FALN claimed responsibility for that action but no one was ever charged. Connor has criticized Clinton's pardon of the FALN members.

Holder carefully reviewed the FALN members' clemency request before concluding their sentences were "disproportionate," Obama transition spokesman Nick Shapiro said.

Democrats have responded to Republican charges with a public relations offensive. Leahy and other supporters attest to Holder's independence.

They cite his probe of former representative Dan Rostenkowski, D-Ill., who was chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee during the probe. In 1996, Rostenkowski pleaded guilty to mail fraud.

Hutchinson says he was "elated" by the nomination of Holder, who also is a former U.S. attorney. "There will be no confusion about the independent role and the important role that U.S. attorneys play," he said. Hutchison is totally correct. Justice will be for sale to the highest bidder as soon as Holder takes office. There wont be any confusion as to the role The Justice Dept will play.

I am totally baffled by Holder's nomination not being pulled by now. He is a partisan hack of nominal stature and a horrible record on decision making. Why pick him when there are literally hundreds of candidates with better records and experience?

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It's called government take over. Murder may not have kept Obama from getting his people.

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This congress is on cruise control right now. Whatever the ONE wants, he gets. He is ONE they have been waiting for. They will not disappoint him......

[autigeremt 7,551]

And he will return the favor.