According to the LA Times, John Brennan, the senior Obama counterterrorism official, declared there was “no smoking gun” in the Christmas Day Detroit bound bombing. Putting aside the frantic phone calls from the father — pardon me, Mr. Brennan, but that’s a big deal. There was no smoking gun found after Pearl Harbor or 9/11. There is almost never a smoking gun. There was no smoking gun in 26 of the 28 terrorist attacks foiled by the US since 9/11 (Abdulmutallab and Richard Reid were stopped by dumb luck). We …
The embarrassing revelation in a recent Washington Post story that Attorney General Eric Holder “did not read detailed memos that prosecutors drafted and placed in files to explain their decision to decline prosecution” of CIA interrogators is just another example of a seriously flawed decision-making process in the Obama Justice Department. I worked directly for three assistant attorneys general and two acting AAGs during my years in the Civil Rights Division. Whenever a memorandum on a proposed criminal prosecution or civil investigation was sent up to the front office for …
A bipartisan team of seven former directors of the Central Intelligence Agency wrote a letter to President Obama today urging him to exercise his constitutional authority over Attorney General Eric Holder reverse the re-opening of criminal investigations into the CIA’s treatment of detainees following the attacks of September 11. The seven former directors include: Michael Hayden and Porter Goss, who served under President George W. Bush; George Tenet, who served under Bush and President Bill Clinton; John Deutch and R. James Woolsey, who served under Clinton; William Webster, who served …
Senate Analysis – The Senate will continue their push to complete the four remaining appropriations bills, as the fiscal year nears an end. Senate leadership had hoped by this point health care would be completed and they would be on the verge of passing a cap-and-trade bill. Major policy work on health care, global warming taxation and financial reform will continue in the background for much of September. Major Senate Floor Action – Senators will continue work on the Transportation-HUD appropriations bill, which increases spending by 22.6% over last year’s …
Senate Analysis – Returning from their five-week summer vacation, Senators face an ambitious agenda that includes liberal health care reform, a cap-and-tax energy policy, financial regulatory overhaul, a new strategy in Afghanistan and, of course, appropriations. Some insiders have even mentioned comprehensive immigration and some variation of so-called “card check.” So it is telling that the very first bill the Senate takes up next week will be the twice-defeated Tourism Promotion Act, which would tax certain foreign visitors to the US. It appears that the vast, ambitious liberal agenda is …
The Corner‘s Marc Thiessen notes that on The Today Show this morning, while trying to defend Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to re-investigate allegations of detainee abuse by the CIA, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said: “I’m a former United States attorney. I’m a former [state] attorney general, a prosecutor. . . . I would never second-guess a prosecutor.” Watch: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmYvbItysPY[/youtube] The key fact that Napolitano is leaving out here is that second guessing a prosecutor is exactly what Holder is doing. Former-President Bill Clinton chief of staff …
The President’s National Security Advisor declared in an interview with ABC that Obama’s counterterrorism policy has already proven far more effective than that of his predecessor. I certainly hope that’s true. I pray its true. But….I have to admit the comment seems to defy logic. Experts know that the “stuff” that really gets terrorists is the hard slog…investigations, hunting them down, colating intelligence, penetrating organizations. So let me get be clear on this. Are we supposed to believe that the new administration walked in the door….and without even having most …
On Friday of last week, following the announcement that Attorney General Eric Holder would appoint a prosecutor to re-investigate the CIA’s treatment of detainees, former Vice President Dick Cheney taped an interview with Fox News. During the interview, which aired yesterday on Fox News Sunday, Cheney describes Holder’s decision as an “outrageous political act” that will have “devastating” consequences within the CIA. Cheney is dead on. But unfortunately Holder’s political CIA witch hunt is just the latest example of a troubling pattern of politicization of the Justice Department under Holder. Voter …
Earlier this may, Attorney General Eric Holder testified before the House Judiciary Committee. He was questioned by former California Attorney General and Congressman Dan Lungren (R-CA) and former Texas trial judge, and Congressman Louis Gohmert (R-TX) about waterboarding and torture. Lungren and Gohmert both trapped Holder into admitting that successfully prosecuting our CIA personnel would be next to impossible. Watch: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YjnHErJVrg[/youtube]
In June of 2008, while campaigning for the election of President Barack Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder promised the leftist American Constitutional Society: “We owe the American people a reckoning.” Yesterday, Holder escalated his “reckoning” campaign by appointing a prosecutor to re-investigate nearly a dozen CIA interrogators and contractors alleged to have abused detainees in 2002 and 2003. This is nothing more than an all out war on the CIA by the left at a time when the President desperately needs to shore up trust with his base in the …
