[Infowarrior] - Holder Confirmed As Attorney General

[Richard Forno]

Holder Confirmed As the First Black Attorney General
Nominee Overcame Objections in GOP

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/02/AR2009020202581_pf.html

By Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 3, 2009; A02

The Senate confirmed Eric H. Holder Jr. as the nation's first African  
American attorney general by a vote of 75 to 21 yesterday, opening a  
new chapter for a Justice Department that had suffered under  
allegations of improper political influence and policy disputes over  
wiretapping and harsh interrogation practices.

Holder, 58, will arrive at the Justice Department headquarters in  
Washington today for a swearing-in ceremony and to greet some of the  
department's 110,000 employees.

"The need for new leadership at the Department of Justice is as  
critical today as it's ever been," said Senate Judiciary Committee  
Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.). "This confirmation is going to do a  
great deal to restore the morale and the purpose throughout the  
department."

The Senate vote occurred four days after Holder overcame concerns by a  
small but vocal group of GOP lawmakers about his position on national  
security and gun rights, as well as his recommendations in two  
controversial clemency decisions by President Bill Clinton.

Holder's advocates marshaled critical support from a broad base of  
federal and state law enforcement groups as well as a bipartisan  
coalition of former Justice Department leaders, including onetime  
deputy attorney general James B. Comey, former FBI director Louis J.  
Freeh and President George W. Bush's terrorism and homeland security  
adviser Frances Fragos Townsend.

By all accounts, Holder is among the most credentialed lawyers ever to  
become attorney general. He began his career as a public corruption  
prosecutor before serving as U.S. attorney in the District and as a  
Superior Court judge. Holder later operated as second in command at  
the Justice Department during the later years of the Clinton  
administration.

But his service in the Clinton years invited criticism from GOP  
lawmakers, who also questioned his approach to hot-button terrorism  
policies.

At a grueling seven-hour hearing last month, flanked by his wife and  
three young children, Holder labeled as "torture" the simulated  
drowning technique called waterboarding and vowed to make national  
security his top priority.

Holder also said that he would look askance at efforts to "criminalize  
policy differences" but did not conclusively rule out prosecution of  
Bush administration officials for their involvement in detainee  
questioning and warrantless surveillance operations. That issue  
emerged as a pivot point for conservatives such as Sen. John Cornyn (R- 
Tex.), who voted in opposition to Holder.

Another nay vote came from Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.). Coburn concluded  
that Holder's recommendation of "neutral leaning toward favorable" in  
the last-minute 2001 pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich "should  
disqualify him from higher office."

A significant number of Republicans disagreed and, along with all of  
the Democrats, cast their votes with the nominee.

 From Day One, Holder will have a full plate of work. President Obama  
already has put the attorney general in charge of a task force  
deliberating where to send nearly 250 terrorism suspects detained at  
the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Obama last month  
instructed officials to close the prison within one year.

Holder also will play a critical role in developing legal guidelines  
for interrogation practices and in deciding whether the Obama  
administration will adopt broad claims of executive power in court  
cases over warrantless eavesdropping and the firings of nine  
prosecutors during the Bush years.

Holder vowed to revitalize the department's civil rights division,  
which is supposed to enforce voting and employment laws for  
minorities. The Justice Department inspector general in January issued  
a report detailing hiring abuses and racial epithets that proliferated  
among some former officials there.

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