TGIF… Attorney General Holder Reveals That Justice Department Officials Have Worked for Terrorist Detainees
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on February 19, 2010
TGIF… this has been an exceptionally strenuous week keeping up with Team Obama.
This next story is truly appalling… is it even LEGAL??
From Publius at Big Government, via Washington Examiner’s Byron York, Holder Admits Nine Justice Dept. Officials Worked for Terrorist Detainees:
Attorney General Eric Holder says nine Obama appointees in the Justice Department have represented or advocated for terrorist detainees before joining the Justice Department. But he does not reveal any names beyond the two officials whose work has already been publicly reported. And all the lawyers, according to Holder, are eligible to work on general detainee matters, even if there are specific parts of some cases they cannot be involved in.
Holder’s admission comes in the form of an answer to a question posed last November by Republican Sen. Charles Grassley. Noting that one Obama appointee, Principal Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal, formerly represented Osama bin Laden’s driver, and another appointee, Jennifer Daskal, previously advocated for detainees at Human Rights Watch, Grassley asked Holder to give the Senate Judiciary Committee “the names of political appointees in your department who represent detainees or who work for organizations advocating on their behalf…the cases or projects that these appointees work with respect to detainee prior to joining the Justice Department…and the cases or projects relating to detainees that have worked on since joining the Justice Department.”
I smell a huge rat here… one reeking of conflict of interests, terrorist cronyism, potential Muslim affiliations, overseas monies, compromise of national security, and other putrid rubbish.
Remember, with Team Obama, whatever is revealed is like an iceberg: only 10 percent is presented, and the other 90 percent is concealed under murky waters. That’s the part you need to fear.
UPDATE… found this commentary at Another Black Conservative:
Byron York from the Washington Examiner reports that Holder has now given an answer. According to Holder there are nine lawyers who have worked for terrorist detainees before being appointed to the DOJ. Holder only provided the two names that were already known and did not give any information as to what cases these people maybe working on, which detainees they advocated for, or what organizations they previously worked through. Further, the nine attorneys that Holder cites is only from a cursory look at the DOJ, there could be more.
In his response, Holder has given Grassley almost nothing. He says nine Obama political appointees at the Justice Department have advocated on behalf of detainees, but did not identify any of the nine other than the two, Katyal and Daskal, whose names Grassley already knew. “To the best of our knowledge,” Holder writes,
During their employment prior to joining the government, only five of the lawyers who serve as political appointees in those components represented detainees, and four others either contributed to amicus briefs in detainee-related cases or were otherwise involved in advocacy on behalf of detainees.
Holder says other Obama appointees, like Holder himself, came from law firms which represented detainees but did no work on behalf of the terrorist prisoners. But other than Katyal and Daskal, Holder does not reveal any names of any Obama appointees, nor does he mention the cases they worked on.
And what are they recused from, anyway? Very little. Holder writes that Katyal has not worked on any Guantanamo detainee matters but has participated in litigation involving detainees who continue to be detained at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan and in litigation involving [Ali Saleh Kahlah] al-Marri, who was detained on U.S. soil.” As for Daskal, “she has generally worked on policy issues related to detainees,” Holder writes. “Her detainee-related work has been fully consistent with advice she received from career department officials regarding her obligations.”
As for everyone else, Holder lists no names and no cases, but in a paragraph filled with modifiers, he makes it clear that all the lawyers who had advocated for detainees are free to work on general detainee matters…
Additional reading:
Frugal Café Blog Zone: New Offense to Jihadists: Secret Bible Messages on Advanced Optical Scopes Used by Our Military Against Terrorists and Sudden POTUS Flip-Flop: Obama Hasn’t Ruled Out NYC Trial for 9/11 Terrorist Planner KSM
Stop The ACLU: Anti-Gun Government Tyranny in Canada and Oops! Americans Overwhelmingly Disagree With Obama On Civilian KSM Trial
Patterico’s Pontifications: Millennium Bomber’s Lenient Sentence Reversed . . . By the Ninth Circuit? and Thank God Goodness None of the Pagans Were Vampires
Nice Deb: Was The Intelligence Gained By The Obama Administration From The Xmas Panty Bomber, “Actionable” or “Perishable”?
Gateway Pundit: Dems Admit They’re Worried About Obama’s Horrid Track Record and Sarah Palin Calls for Eric Holder & Rahm Emanuel to Resign (Video) and He Won’t Listen… Obama Says KSM May Still Be Tried in NYC and Weak. Obama Says It Was Holder’s Decision to Send Terrorists to New York For Trial (Video) and 9-11 Terrorists Ready to Rock New York City In Terror Show Trials and Flashback: Obama Says KSM Will Get “Full Military Trial” (Video)
Weasel Zippers: Obama Retreats: No KSM Trial In NYC…
Gathering of Eagles: NY: Barack Obama: Terrorists are Just “Folks”
John M. O’Hara, Big Government: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: Terror Trials in the Big Apple
Ace of Spades HQ: Traitorous Bastard…”Hey Sorry That We In Al Qaeda Are Cowards And Kill Lots Of Muslims”
Flopping Aces: More CYA From The Obama White House…Christmas Day Bomber Now Talking Because Of Family
And so it goes in Shreveport: Eric Holder Defends His Decision to Bring KSM to New York City
Stop The ACLU: Oops! Americans Overwhelmingly Disagree With Obama On Civilian KSM Trial
Charles Krauthammer, Real Clear Politics: Explaining Away Mass Murder
Andrew McCarthy, National Review Online: ‘Bring my lawyer! — That’s what’s so beautiful about America.’
About the author
Ah, the power of asking just the right question. Few have had these quality results since “what did he know…and etc.” Glad I caught this.
Just thinking, speculating.
What if we had had the internet, and all of the communication ability we have today in 1776?
Would it be the same ?