Wonder why Holder is holding out on this issue. Seems like it should
be a real priority especially since the admin screwed the pooch on the
NY trials.
*From Terrorist Mouthpieces To Department Of Justice Officials: *At
least nine lawyers have made that transition. Iowa Senator Grassley is
trying to find out more about them; Attorney General Holder is
stonewalling
<http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Eric-Holder-stonewalls-Congress-on-terror-lawyers-85000577.html>.
A number of lawyers who work on terrorist issues at the Justice
Department represented terrorist detainees before joining the Obama
administration. At a hearing three months ago, Sen. Charles
Grassley raised the possibility of a conflict with Attorney General
Eric Holder.
Grassley, a senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee,
posed three simple questions: Who are they, who did they represent,
and what are their duties at the Justice Department today?
. . .
Finally, last week, Grassley and his colleagues got a response --
they wouldn't really call it an answer -- from the attorney general.
Holder told Grassley that at least nine department officials
formerly represented detainees. (It is "at least" because Holder
conceded that he did not make a complete survey of DOJ's political
appointees.) Holder confirmed that Katyal and Daskal worked on
detainee issues -- something Grassley already knew -- but did not
reveal the names of the other department officials involved. He did
say that they are allowed to work on detainee issues.
There may be conflicts of interest:
Some of the department's critics see things this way: There are
lawyers who specialize in defending organized crime figures. That's
fine; mafia dons have a right to legal representation. But should
the attorney general hire a bunch of those lawyers to staff the
department's organized crime section? And if he does, shouldn't we
know about it?
Attorney General Holder has assured Senator Grassley that these
terrorist lawyers "understand that their client is the United States".
Now. But at the same time he is unwilling to tell us who these lawyers
are, and what they are doing. It is almost as if he has something to hide.
(The mafia analogy is weaker than it could be. Most of us would assume
that most lawyers for mafia dons are in it for the money, that these
lawyers usually don't have much sympathy for their clients. But the
terrorist lawyers /volunteered/ to work for the terrorists, and there is
every reason to think that they may have some sympathy for their
clients, or at least some dislike for those who pursued the terrorists.)
- 7:00 AM, 23 February 2010 [link]
<http://www.seanet.com/%7Ejimxc/Politics/February2010_3.html#jrm8414>
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