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Holder Confirmed As Attorney General
The Senate confirmed Eric H. Holder Jr. as the nation's first African American attorney general by a vote of 75 to 21 yesterday. The Senate vote occurred four days after Holder overcame concerns by a small but vocal group of GOP lawmakers over 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. 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." Posted by: Steve White 2009-02-03 |
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