I never thought I’d say it, but I miss Janet Reno. I never thought I’d ever again see an Attorney General of such incompetence, yet here we are.
In what CNN calls “A long line of Obama shifts” Eric Holder announced that Khalid Sheik Mohammaed would be tried in a military tribunal instead of a civilian court. The poor man whined about Congress interfering and forcing him to try KSM in the military rather than the civilian system. He made it clear that he believes he knows better than Congress what to do with KSM:
Expressing his disappointment in no uncertain terms, the attorney general said that as a native New Yorker, he knows as well as anyone the federal court’s capacity to try the suspects. He added that he’s intimately familiar with the cases, much more so than congressional members — or the public — who opposed allowing the cases to be held in the United States.
“Do I know better than them? Yes. I respect their ability to disagree but they should respect that this is an executive branch function, a unique executive branch function,” Holder said in a press conference.
Some of us doubt that more than a little.
First, there’s the cost of a civilian trial. Trying KSM in New York City in a civilian court is estimated to cost at least a billion dollars and take five years. It is no surprise that the wealthy Holder would have little regard for the burden of expense he would rest upon the country. This was to have been an ego trip for Holder at our cost.
Then there’s issue of Obama and Holder predetermining the outcome. Holder came right out and said that if somehow KSM was found innocent he would still not be freed.
Attorney General Eric Holder acknowledged on Wednesday a previously unspoken proviso to the controversial decision to try alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four co-conspirators in a federal court in New York: even if the defendants are somehow acquitted, they will still stay behind bars.
Obama played Carnac to Holder’s Ed McMahon and divined the outcome of the KSM trial:
Obama said that those offended by the legal privileges given to KSM won’t find it “offensive at all when he’s convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him.”
Heck, if the outcome is already determined, why have the trial?
If KSM was found innocent and ordered freed by a judge, Holder said that he’d then circumvent the law of the land
“Under the regime we are contemplating … the ability to detain under laws of war, we would retain that ability,” Mr. Holder added, meaning anyone freed by the courts could simply be returned as an enemy combatant to indefinite military detention.
In Bagram. Like in a military tribunal.
So Obama and Holder want to utilize the civilian judicial system unless they lose and then they’ll ignore the judiciary in favor of their own playground rules.
Now if that doesn’t inspire confidence in the US Judicial system, nothing does.
Holder has politicized the Department of Justice as never before.
Both in Congress and among a number of current and former Justice Department employees is a growing concern that the Obama administration is politicizing the department in ways the Bush team never imagined. A former Justice employee cautions that every administration has the right and the obligation to set policy. “Elections have consequences,” he affirms. But he thinks that the Obama administration has gone beyond policy reversals and is interfering with prosecutorial decisions, staffing the department with unqualified personnel, and invoking privilege to thwart proper congressional oversight and public scrutiny.
The DOJ under Holder is stonewalling FOIA requests:
Eric Holder’s Justice Department has even politicized compliance with the Freedom of Information Act. According to documents I have obtained, FOIA requests from liberals or politically connected civil rights groups are often given same day turn-around by the DOJ. But requests from conservatives or Republicans face long delays, if they are fulfilled at all.
The documents show a pattern of politicized compliance within the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division. In particular, I have obtained FOIA logs that demonstrate as of August 2010, the most transparent administration in history is anything but. The logs provide the index number of the information request, the date of the request, the requestor, and the date of compliance.
Then there was the Holder who could not make up his mind as to whether waterboarding was torture or not. Andy McCarthy pointed out that as far as Holder was concerned, it was all about intention.
The bottom line is, Rep. Lungren skillfully steered Attorney General Holder into the truth: As a matter of law, CIA waterboarding — like the same waterboarding actions featured in Navy SEALs training — cannot be torture because there is no intention to inflict severe mental or physical pain; the exercise is done for a different purpose. When Rep. Gohmert’s questioning made it crystal clear that Holder’s simplistic “waterboarding is torture” pronouncement was wrong, the attorney general — rather than admitting error — tried to change the legal definition of torture in a manner that contradicted a position the Justice Department had just urged on the federal courts. It seems that, for this attorney general, there is one torture standard for Bush administration officials, and another one for everybody else.
Then there’s the pardon potential.
Holder bent over backwards clearing the way for his pardons of the members of the Puerto Rican terrorist group FALN
New interviews and an examination of previously undisclosed documents indicate that Holder played an active role in changing the position of the Justice Department on the commutations.
Holder instructed his staff at Justice’s Office of the Pardon Attorney to effectively replace the department’s original report recommending against any commutations, which had been sent to the White House in 1996, with one that favored clemency for at least half the prisoners, according to these interviews and documents. . . .
and the pardon of Marc Rich
The entire matter was handled in an unorthodox manner – on a straight line from Rich’s lawyer to the White House, with a consulting role for Holder. Later, Holder said he told White House counsel Beth Nolan the day before the pardon was issued that he was “neutral, leaning toward favorable” in regard to the pardon. He said he and Nolan “never had a prolonged conversation about the matter.”
To make matters worse, Holder had asked Quinn for his help in becoming attorney general in the event then-Vice President Al Gore won the 2000 election. Rich did not even qualify for a pardon under Justice Department guidelines, which say no pardons can be requested until five years after completion of a sentence in a criminal case.
~~~~~
Members of Congress pointed out that Rich’s ex-wife, Denise, visited the White House more than a dozen times during Clinton’s presidency and contributed an estimated $450,000 to the president’s library foundation, $1.1 million to the Democratic Party and at least $109,000 to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s bid for the Senate.
In so many of these events the Stealth Democrat Lindsey Graham was present to ask all the right questions only to lose his spine and wind up voting exactly the wrong way.
One cannot help but wonder if Holder is angry because a military trial would make pardoning Khalid Sheik Mohamamed so much more difficult.
The. Worst. Attorney. General. Evah.
DrJohn has been a health care professional for more than 30 years. In addition to clinical practice he has done extensive research and has published widely with over 70 original articles and abstracts in the peer-reviewed literature. DrJohn is well known in his field and has lectured on every continent except for Antarctica. He has been married to the same wonderful lady for over 30 years and has three kids- two sons, both of whom are attorneys and one daughter on her way into the field of education.
DrJohn was brought up with the concept that one can do well if one is prepared to work hard but nothing in life is guaranteed.
Except for liberals being foolish.