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Is this "CHANGE?" Or SLEAZE?

Texan

Well-known member
The more you read about Eric Holder's role in the Rich pardon, the sleazier it sounds. This was much worse than a case of Eric Holder not spending enough time reviewing a pardon - much worse than him simply being incompetent.

Eric Holder made a deliberate attempt to hide his behind-the-scenes work for Marc Rich from his own people - the U.S. Attorney's office in the state of New York. The very people who worked for justice in this case were thwarted by their own boss - Eric Holder.

This is an op-ed piece from the liberal New York Times - written by a man who covered the Rich pardon for the equally liberal Washington Post - so I don't think that anyone could consider this a partisan hit-piece. I'd like for you Obama supporters to read it carefully and answer a a couple of questions for me:

How can you Obama supporters - the ones who voted for "CHANGE" - how can you not be outraged over this? How can you support this man for Attorney General? How? :???:


================================================


A Pardon to Remember

By GEORGE LARDNER Jr.
Published: November 22, 2008

Washington

WHEN President Bill Clinton pardoned a billionaire fugitive from justice on his last day in office, even usually loyal Democrats were dismayed. Representative Henry Waxman of California called it “bad precedent” and “an end run around the judicial process.” He said it appeared to set a double standard for the wealthy and powerful.

The billionaire was Marc Rich, a commodities trader, and his pardon is a subject of discussion again because Eric Holder, Mr. Clinton’s deputy attorney general at the time and a key figure in the clemency process, is reported to be Barack Obama’s choice for attorney general. In the years since the Rich pardon, Mr. Holder has said he “never devoted a great deal of time to this matter.” He also told an interviewer that, in hindsight, he wished that the Justice Department had been “more fully informed” about the case. As someone who helped cover the story for The Washington Post, I think the issue is far more complicated and deserves more scrutiny if Mr. Holder is to become our top law-enforcement official.

A little history first. In 1983, Marc Rich was indicted along with his partner, Pincus Green, and their companies on 65 counts of defrauding the I.R.S., mail fraud, tax evasion, racketeering, defrauding the Treasury and trading with the enemy. (The last of these was for an oil deal with Iran while it held American hostages.) On hearing that they were about to be prosecuted, they fled to Switzerland. For the next 17 years, Mr. Rich ducked extradition requests as well as attempts by federal marshals to arrest him in France, England, Finland and elsewhere.

Mr. Rich’s lawyers tried repeatedly to reach a deal with federal prosecutors in New York that would keep him out of jail if he returned. Though his companies pleaded guilty and paid $200 million in fines and other penalties, Mr. Rich insisted that the case against him was weak. The prosecutors offered to drop the racketeering charges and to let Mr. Rich free on bail (without a passport) if he would return. Mr. Rich refused.

The story of how the fugitive came to be pardoned by President Clinton was the subject of a painstaking study by the House Government Reform Committee. While the committee’s report is the subject of some controversy — its Republican chairman, Dan Burton of Indiana, was accused of partisanship — the staff that compiled the documentation was thoroughly professional. All the citations and facts that follow are supported by testimony before the committee or its staff’s documentary evidence.

In 1999, Mr. Rich hired Jack Quinn, who had been Mr. Clinton’s White House counsel from 1995 to 1996, to help him advance his cause. The Rich team was still hoping to strike a deal with federal prosecutors in New York, who were in charge of the case. An e-mail message to Mr. Rich from one of his New York lawyers said that Mr. Quinn felt “he could convince Eric that it made sense to listen to the professors and that he could convince Eric to encourage Mary Jo to do the same.” The “professors” were two tax experts paid more than $96,000 for a study based solely on statements provided them by the Rich legal team; “Mary Jo” was Mary Jo White, the United States attorney in New York.

Mr. Holder was not unsympathetic. He told Mr. Quinn in November of 1999 that he considered the New York prosecutor’s persistent refusal of a meeting “ridiculous” and that “the equities” were on Mr. Rich’s side. Mr. Holder told Mr. Quinn to write a letter to Ms. White with a copy to him, and promised to call her when it arrived. Mr. Holder then called Ms. White personally and, after that conversation, told Mr. Quinn she “didn’t sound like her guard was up.” But New York stood firm.

On Nov. 18, 2000, Mr. Quinn told Mr. Holder that Mr. Rich was going to go for a pardon, a step his team had been contemplating for months. After the conversation, Mr. Quinn told colleagues that Mr. Holder had advised him to “go straight to” the White House and that the “timing is good.” On Dec. 11, just over a month before Mr. Clinton was to leave office, Mr. Quinn delivered the pardon papers to the White House. “The greatest danger lies with the lawyers,” Mr. Quinn wrote in an e-mail message to an aide to Mr. Rich, referring to the prosecutors in New York. “I have worked them hard and I am hopeful that E. Holder will be helpful to us.”

Under the rules governing pardon petitions — rules that were approved by Mr. Holder’s office — the views of United States attorneys “are given considerable weight” because of the “valuable insights” they have. And yet Mr. Holder did not consult Ms. White and her colleagues about the Rich pardon petition; they did not know of it until it had been granted.

Then, on Jan. 19, 2001, Mr. Holder delivered his pardon assessment to the White House, telling Beth Nolan, the White House counsel, that he was “neutral leaning favorable” on the Rich pardon. His decision, he added, was influenced by the support of Ehud Barak, the Israeli prime minister.

The people in the United States attorney’s office in New York weren’t the only ones surprised by Mr. Holder’s decision. Deborah Smolover, his top deputy for pardon cases, did not find out about the pardon for Mr. Rich until the White House called to inform her of it after midnight on Jan. 20. (Mr. Green won a pardon, too.) After the pardon was signed, Mr. Quinn has testified, Mr. Holder called him to commend him on “a very good job.” Mr. Holder also asked Mr. Quinn to consider hiring two former aides, one of whom had already contacted Mr. Quinn on Jan. 2 “at Holder’s suggestion.”

The precedent against pardons for fugitives was set more than 200 years ago by President John Adams. The charge, brought in 1799, was murder on the high seas against a ship’s captain who was clearly trying to put down a mutiny. But the mutineers made it back to the States, ready to testify against the captain, while his supporters were still at sea. The captain was afraid to return. Asked to approve a nolle prosequi (a notice that prosecution won’t be pursued, a procedure then treated as part of the pardon power), the president consulted his cabinet, which concluded that a trial should come first and a pardon, if justified, after that. Clemency, wrote Secretary of War James McHenry, should be exercised only with “great caution and on the fullest information.”

Mr. Holder never came close to meeting that standard. He had the last word at Justice on clemency petitions and he saw to it that he had the only word. He brokered one of the most unjustifiable pardons that an American president has ever granted.



http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/22/opinion/22lardner.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=opinion
 

Texan

Well-known member
There's more - this from the Seattle PI - liberal by anyone's estimation. If some of these liberals in the media can see Eric Holder for the scumbag that he is, why can't you libs here admit it?

What about you Oldtimer? You're supposed to be a big law-and-order man. Is Eric Holder your idea of a stand-up guy? Does he meet your approval for Attorney General?

The silence from some of you liberals on this is disgusting...

=================================================

A former FBI official close to the case at the time called Holder's participation "a disgrace."


Obama's tabbing Holder not without peril

By DAN K. THOMASSON

WASHINGTON -- Barack Obama's apparent decision to ask Eric Holder to be his attorney general is not without peril for a young president-elect who has repeatedly promised to clean up the scandal polluted, partisan atmosphere of Washington.

Senate Republicans will lack the strength to deny confirmation to Holder, the former deputy U.S. attorney general under Bill Clinton. But they certainly can make his nomination their first big challenge of the new administration and in the process give Obama some very bad moments by resurrecting one of the more questionable last minute actions by an outgoing president in recent history.

In the waning days of the Clinton administration, Holder was a key participant in awarding clemency to fugitive billionaire financier Marc Rich and some 139 others in a process that short circuited the Justice department clearance process and looked, in Rich's case, very much like a quid pro quo for financial support from the convicted felon's wife for Clinton's presidential library. The highly controversial pardons took place just two hours before Clinton left the White House for the last time.

A congressional report noted that Holder worked closely with a White House aide to make certain that neither concerned parties in the Justice department nor federal prosecutors in New York responsible for the Rich case would have a chance to protest the clemency. They weren't notified that it was pending. The report said that Holder also did not present any credible evidence supporting the presidential action on Rich, who for some time had managed first to elude authorities and then to avoid extradition on a federal fugitive warrant.

A former FBI official close to the case at the time called Holder's participation "a disgrace." He said the bureau had spent time, money and effort unsuccessfully to arrest Rich.

"If the new president is serious about clearing the air of a foul smell in Washington, how can he nominate someone who lent himself to clemency for a convicted felon who fled the country to avoid prison and used his money to stay out and ultimately buy a pardon? "

Holder, a key adviser to Obama, seems otherwise qualified for the nation's top law enforcement job and he has bipartisan support in the legal community. He is a former U.S. Attorney and superior court judge for the District of Columbia and is a member of a top Washington law firm.

However, Senate Democrats, who have been so aggressively pursuing allegations of improper White House influence at Justice under President Bush, must now anticipate revisiting the same charges made against Clinton. So far Democrats on the Senate Judiciary committee unsurprisingly have cheered Holder's potential nomination, choosing to ignore the appearance of impropriety in the clemency matter.

So how does Holder survive the now famous vetting process for Obama hires, which demands explicit answers to 63 questions covering every aspect of a person's life from inception through adulthood? No one should doubt that the Rich incident would be the kiss of death if the nomination were being made by a Republican administration. Democrats on Capitol Hill would be gleeful.

There is another question here that goes to Obama's pledges of a new, improved regime. How many former FOB's (Friends of Bill) does he plan to name? He is considering Sen. Hillary Clinton for the State Department and already has placed several others from her husband's White House in key spots, including Rep. Rahm Emanuel, who will be the incoming chief of staff. This is change?

Clinton may have moved one step closer to the Secretary of State nomination with her husband's agreement to reveal his list of donors. He probably would also have to pledge to curtail overseas activities that might pose a serious conflict of interest for her. Certainly, Clinton would be the chief diplomat with far more experience abroad than her boss and it seems inevitable there would be a test of wills at some point. For that reason alone he might wish to reconsider.

With two controversial appointments -- Holder and Clinton -- the new president might just get an early lesson or two about Washington that he missed while spending so much time stumping for the job.


http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/388665_thomassononline21.html
 
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Anonymous

Guest
There's more - this from the Seattle PI - liberal by anyone's estimation. If some of these liberals in the media can see Eric Holder for the scumbag that he is, why can't you libs here admit it?

What about you Oldtimer? You're supposed to be a big law-and-order man. Is Eric Holder your idea of a stand-up guy? Does he meet your approval for Attorney General?

The silence from some of you liberals on this is disgusting...

After the crew we've had in the AG's office- anyone is a refreshing change....I read an article the other day- where morale across the country with the US attorneys was the lowest it had ever been- even with Mukasey (good man- just too little, way too late) trying to hold things together...

I'll wait and see how he runs his operation- before I pronounce judgement...God knows it needs a massive change in direction.....
 

Texan

Well-known member
Oldtimer said:
After the crew we've had in the AG's office- anyone is a refreshing change....I read an article the other day- where morale across the country with the US attorneys was the lowest it had ever been- even with Mukasey (good man- just too little, way too late) trying to hold things together...

I'll wait and see how he runs his operation- before I pronounce judgement...God knows it needs a massive change in direction.....
Just stand by your man, huh? Support your cultist idol? Isn't that what you bitch about Republicans doing all the time? And now the truth comes out - you're nothing but a partisan clown. Willing to support a sleazy scumbag for the top law enforcer in the country. Disgusting.
 
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Anonymous

Guest
Texan said:
Oldtimer said:
After the crew we've had in the AG's office- anyone is a refreshing change....I read an article the other day- where morale across the country with the US attorneys was the lowest it had ever been- even with Mukasey (good man- just too little, way too late) trying to hold things together...

I'll wait and see how he runs his operation- before I pronounce judgement...God knows it needs a massive change in direction.....
Just stand by your man, huh? Support your cultist idol? Isn't that what you bitch about Republicans doing all the time? And now the truth comes out - you're nothing but a partisan clown. Willing to support a sleazy scumbag for the top law enforcer in the country. Disgusting.

Well- I stood behind every one of GW's appointments until I saw what kind of job they were doing- so I'm not changing- and some of them came in packing a lot of baggage too...
 

Texan

Well-known member
You don't think we should have standards for integrity in an Attorney General? Or maybe Eric Holder meets your standards for integrity?
 

Texan

Well-known member
Stumped? Maybe this will help:

in⋅teg⋅ri⋅ty
   /ɪnˈtɛgrɪti/ [in-teg-ri-tee]

–noun
1. adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty.


http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/integrity
 
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Anonymous

Guest
Texan said:
Stumped? Maybe this will help:

in⋅teg⋅ri⋅ty
   /ɪnˈtɛgrɪti/ [in-teg-ri-tee]

–noun
1. adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty.


http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/integrity

Gonzales and GW couldn't even find that word in the dictionary :wink: :p
 

Hanta Yo

Well-known member
Texan, so far IMHO Obama is sleazy change . Now the drive by media are trying to downplay the high expectations voters have with Obahmah. Obahmah said what people wanted to hear just to get elected. Period. Now he can't produce.
 

kolanuraven

Well-known member
Hanta Yo said:
Now he can't produce.


Here's one good reason he can't ' produce' now....HE'S NOT IN OFFICE YET!!!! DUH!!!!


Since you never heard the term " President elect" used in a sentence before, that means that you are not aware that a newly elected President takes office JANUARY 20TH


So , save up your biatchin' till Jan 21st!
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
kolanuraven said:
Hanta Yo said:
Now he can't produce.


Here's one good reason he can't ' produce' now....HE'S NOT IN OFFICE YET!!!! DUH!!!!


Since you never heard the term " President elect" used in a sentence before, that means that you are not aware that a newly elected President takes office JANUARY 20TH


So , save up your biatchin' till Jan 21st!

Kola- this is not surprising as some of these right wingnuts are still trying to pretend that George W Bush and his 8 years of incompetency, with 6 years of rubberstamping by a Repub Congress didn't occur :???: They have been trying to put all the current problems blame on the Clinton administration- and now already before he takes office- it will all be the fault of Obama :roll: ...

Reality and the Real World have not been seen by some of these KoolAid fanatics for years.... :wink: :lol: :( :p
 

Hanta Yo

Well-known member
kolanuraven said:
Hanta Yo said:
Now he can't produce.


Here's one good reason he can't ' produce' now....HE'S NOT IN OFFICE YET!!!! DUH!!!!


Since you never heard the term " President elect" used in a sentence before, that means that you are not aware that a newly elected President takes office JANUARY 20TH


So , save up your biatchin' till Jan 21st!

'Scuse me, I should rephrase my opinion. He won't be able to produce. Period. I know what President-Elect is, and the drive by media is playing it up BIG.
 

Sandhusker

Well-known member
Texan said:
You don't think we should have standards for integrity in an Attorney General? Or maybe Eric Holder meets your standards for integrity?

Look into Obama's past and you see Rezko, Ayers, Wright, Acorn, etc...... Obama clearly has no integrity, I'd be surprised if integrity has any bearing on any of his choices.
 

Mahoney-Pursley Ranch

Well-known member
Texan said:
What about you Oldtimer? You're supposed to be a big law-and-order man.

The silence from some of you liberals on this is disgusting...

"


We have no way of knowing what type of LEO Oldtimer was.
He may have been as crooked as a snake too.
 

Texan

Well-known member
Mahoney-Pursley Ranch said:
We have no way of knowing what type of LEO Oldtimer was.
He may have been as crooked as a snake too.
I suppose any of us here could be crooked as a snake. I have no reason to believe that Oldtimer is/was and I don't recall anybody else showing anything resembling proof of that, either. Let's not confuse being old, senile and goofy with being crooked. :wink:
 

aplusmnt

Well-known member
Texan said:
Let's not confuse being old, senile and goofy with being crooked. :wink:

To quote OT's idol CB, the man is more confused than a baby in a strip club. :wink:

First he was against Clinton, then he was for Bush, then he was for Bush a second time then he was against Bush but for McCain then he was against McCain and for Obama. And now he is for all the old Clinton people being back with Obama.

It think OT is just chasing his political tail and has no idea of direction!

He does not know rather to wipe his watch or wind his butt! :wink: :lol:
 

floyd

Well-known member
Remember when Bush wanted Social Security funds to be managed by Wall street?

Is this something you wanted to happen? If you did do you still want this?

Most people have the ability to change their views when given more information.

Others do the ostrich thing. Which would you prefer?
 

Sandhusker

Well-known member
floyd said:
Remember when Bush wanted Social Security funds to be managed by Wall street?

Is this something you wanted to happen? If you did do you still want this?

Most people have the ability to change their views when given more information.

Others do the ostrich thing. Which would you prefer?

Saying that Bush wanted Wall Street to manage Social Security funds isn't accurate at all. He just wanted people to be able to take a portion of their own SS contributions and invest them where they saw fit, the stock market being one of those options. It was a good idea and, in my opinion, didn't go far enough.
 

TexasBred

Well-known member
floyd said:
Remember when Bush wanted Social Security funds to be managed by Wall street?

Is this something you wanted to happen? If you did do you still want this?

Most people have the ability to change their views when given more information.

Others do the ostrich thing. Which would you prefer?

Hindsight is 20/20.....Wallstreet managing SS would have been wonderful 2001 to 2008. Everyone's 401-K was in wallstreet during those years and can't speak for yours but my investments more than doubled. Ran it last weekend and even with recent losses I still have the equivalent of a 6.82% return so we haven't lost the family farm.
 
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