Legal News

Pre-Gaming Eric Holder?s Senate Confirmation: A Yes-Man or a No-Man?

By Dan Slater

For Eric Holder, the nominee for Attorney General, will the Marc Rich pardon be the gnat that won’t go away?

Attorney General-designate Eric Holder, left, meets with the Senate Judiciary Committee’s ranking Republican, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., Dec. 8, 2008. (AP/Susan Walsh)

Perhaps, if Arlen Specter, the Senator from Pennsylvania who’s the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, has his way. In yesterday’s swipe, Specter questioned Holder’s independence and pointed to three controversies from Holder’s past role as deputy AG during Clinton’s second term. In addition to Clinton’s 11th hour pardon of Rich, the fugitive financier, Specter pointed to the president’s decision in 1999 to grant clemency to members of a Puerto Rican militant nationalist group called FALN, and the DOJ’s rejection in 1997 of an independent counsel to examine accusations of campaign finance abuse by VP Gore and the White House.

Here are reports on Specter’s criticism of Holder from the NYT and the BLT blog.

“He’s had an outstanding academic and professional record, and I acknowledge that early on,” Specter reportedly said during his speech on the Senate floor. “But aside from these qualifications on Mr. Holder’s résumé, there is also the issue of character, and sometimes it is more important for the attorney general to have the stature and the courage to say no instead of to say yes.”

Specter, according to the BLT blog, said he also plans to ask Holder his views on journalists’ privilege, the Bush administration’s surveillance policies, and the Justice Department’s evolving view of corporations’ attorney-client privilege.

A spokesman for the Obama transition team responded: “From prosecuting corrupt officials from both parties to supporting the appointment of independent counsels to investigate Democrats, Eric Holder has demonstrated throughout his career that he has the integrity and independence to be an outstanding attorney general.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on January 07, 2009 (boomark / email).