Eric Holder

Justice Dept. Gives Torture a Pass

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Published July 21, 2011, in Eric Holder, Torture

What will we say when other governments follow our example by providing immunity from prosecution to torturers?

The Romans had an expression for it: “Nulla poena sine lege,” no punishment without a law. But people sometimes forget that the opposite is also true: Without punishment for offenders, a law itself can die.

The Justice Department recently announced that, of the 101 cases involving alleged illegal treatment of post-9/11 detainees by the CIA and its contractors, 99 were being closed. The remaining two, which involved deaths in custody, would continue to be investigated.

The decision to drop virtually all these cases is based on a policy promulgated by Attorney General Eric Holder shortly after he took office. Reiterating this policy on June 30, Holder wrote that the Justice Department “would not prosecute anyone who acted in good faith and within the scope of the legal guidance given by the Office of Legal Counsel regarding the interrogation of detainees.”

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US Attorney vows to protect American Arabs

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Published June 6, 2010, in Eric Holder

By RAY HANANIA

US Attorney Eric Holder told the opening meeting of the 30th Annual American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in Washington D.C. Friday that “the prosecution of hate crimes is a top priority” of the Obama administration.

Yet for nearly one year, the Justice Department has not acted to intervene in one of the most heinous hate crimes against a Palestinian American tourist, Husien Shehada, shot and killed last year on South Beach by a Miami police officer with a history of problems.

Police had responded on June 14, 2009 to a 911 call from a caller who said he saw a suspect carrying an AK 47 under his shirt. But when Miami officer Adam Tavss confronted Shehada, no weapon was produced and he had his hands raised in the air. Tavss shot Shehada in the head, after, according to his attorney, Shehada had pleaded with the officer several times.

Tavss was suspended but was returned to duty days later after he was “cleared” by an internal probe. Hours after returning to duty, Tavss was involved in another shooting in which a suspected was reported to have hijacked a taxi cab at gunpoint. Tavss is suspected as the possible shooter but police have never identified which officer fired the bullet that killed the African-American cab driver.

 

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Holder: Unease Arab-Americans Feel About Government is ‘Intolerable’

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Published June 5, 2010, in Eric Holder, Islamophobia

By RAY HANANIA

US Attorney Eric Holder told the opening meeting of the 30th Annual American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in Washington D.C. Friday that “the prosecution of hate crimes is a top priority” of the Obama administration.

Yet for nearly one year, the Justice Department has not acted to intervene in one of the most heinous hate crimes against a Palestinian American tourist, Husien Shehada, shot and killed last year on South Beach by a Miami police officer with a history of problems.

Police had responded on June 14, 2009 to a 911 call from a caller who said he saw a suspect carrying an AK 47 under his shirt. But when Miami officer Adam Tavss confronted Shehada, no weapon was produced and he had his hands raised in the air. Tavss shot Shehada in the head, after, according to his attorney, Shehada had pleaded with the officer several times.

 

Tavss was suspended but was returned to duty days later after he was “cleared” by an internal probe. Hours after returning to duty, Tavss was involved in another shooting in which a suspected was reported to have hijacked a taxi cab at gunpoint. Tavss is suspected as the possible shooter but police have never identified which officer fired the bullet that killed the African-American cab driver.

 

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The ‘al-Qaeda seven’ and selective McCarthyism

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Published March 8, 2010, in Eric Holder

By Marc A. Thiessen

Would most Americans want to know if the Justice Department hired a bunch of mob lawyers and put them in charge of mob cases? Or a group of drug cartel lawyers and put them in charge of drug cases? Would they want their elected representatives to find out who these lawyers were, which mob bosses and drug lords they had worked for, and what roles they were now playing at the Justice Department? Of course they would — and rightly so.

Yet U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder hired former al-Qaeda lawyers to serve in the Justice Department and resisted providing Congress this basic information. In November, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee sent Holder a letter requesting that he identify officials who represented terrorists or worked for organizations advocating on their behalf, the cases and projects they worked on before coming to the Justice Department, the cases and projects they’ve worked on since joining the administration, and a list of officials who have recused themselves because of prior work on behalf of terrorist detainees.

 

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CNSNews.com Justice Cites Bush Administration as Source for Claim of 300 Terrorists in U.S. Prisons; Senate Still Seeking List of Names

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Published March 6, 2010, in 9/11 Trials, Eric Holder

By Fred Lucas

(CNSNews.com) – The U.S. Department of Justice is preparing a list for members of Congress of the 319 terrorists convicted under the Bush administration serving in U.S. prisons, a department spokesman told CNSNews.com, Wednesday.
 
GOP lawmakers have questioned the assertion from Attorney General Eric Holder that the previous administration sent more than 300 terrorists to U.S. prisons instead of military facilities.
 
Holder has been defending his controversial decision to try the alleged Christmas Day bomber in a civilian court, made after his November 2009 decision to try 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) in criminal court instead of a military court.

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Attorney General reaches out to Muslim Americans

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Published July 24, 2009, in Eric Holder, Islamophobia

Muslim Americans, Attorney General Eric Holder Jr., Islam, FBI, Department of Justice, Los Angeles On a recent trip west, Attn. Gen. Eric Holder Jr. visited more than 200 young Muslim Americans at a Los Angeles mosque to discuss everything from their concerns about the Patriot Act to their distrust of the FBI.

The closed meeting was part of the attorney general’s jam-packed trip to Los Angeles, where he also met with local leaders in South Los Angeles to talk about gang prevention and intervention. At his mosque “summit,” Holder addressed immigration, racial profiling and demands to hold the Bush administration accountable for alleged abuses in its so-called war on terror, as well as employment opportunities with the Department of Justice.

The crowd of 18-30 year-olds, ethnically mixed and made up of Sunni and Shia Muslims, generally responded positively to the fact that he made the effort to seek them out, although several remained skeptical about his answers or the prospects for real change in law enforcement’s attitudes towards Muslims.

“I think overall the event was a positive step on behalf of the Department of Justice,” said Zainah Alfi, 23, who attended the meeting. “But some of those in attendance were upset at the lack of media presence there, and wondered if it was because he felt he could not answer questions if the media was there. He was funny, personable and warm, but when the real issues came up, his answers were politically correct.”  For example, Alfi said he denied knowing anything about the claim that a FBI informant was stationed in an Orange County mosque. 

 

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Probe of Alleged Torture Weighed

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Published July 12, 2009, in C.I.A., Eric Holder, Khaled el-Masri, Torture

White House Has Resisted Inquiry

By Carrie Johnson

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. is leaning toward appointing a criminal prosecutor to investigate whether CIA personnel tortured terrorism suspects after Sept. 11, 2001, setting the stage for a conflict with administration officials who would prefer the issues remain in the past, according to three sources familiar with his thinking.

Naming a prosecutor to probe alleged abuses during the darkest period in the Bush era would run counter to President Obama’s oft-repeated desire to be “looking forward and not backwards.” Top political aides have expressed concern that such an investigation might spawn partisan debates that could overtake Obama’s ambitious legislative agenda.

The White House successfully resisted efforts by congressional Democrats to establish a “truth and reconciliation” panel. But fresh disclosures have continued to emerge about detainee mistreatment, including a secret CIA watchdog report, recently reviewed by Holder, highlighting several episodes that could be likened to torture.

 

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Independent’s Day

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Published July 12, 2009, in Eric Holder

Obama doesn’t want to look back, but Attorney General Eric Holder may probe Bush-era torture anyway.

Daniel Klaidman

It’s the morning after Independence Day, and Eric Holder Jr. is feeling the weight of history. The night before, he’d stood on the roof of the White House alongside the president of the United States, leaning over a railing to watch fireworks burst over the Mall, the monuments to Lincoln and Washington aglow at either end. “I was so struck by the fact that for the first time in history an African-American was presiding over this celebration of what our nation is all about,” he says. Now, sitting at his kitchen table in jeans and a gray polo shirt, as his 11-year-old son, Buddy, dashes in and out of the room, Holder is reflecting on his own role. He doesn’t dwell on the fact that he’s the country’s first black attorney general. He is focused instead on the tension that the best of his predecessors have confronted: how does one faithfully serve both the law and the president?

 

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[ACTION] for Shaker Aamer

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Published May 11, 2009, in Ahmad Belbacha, Eric Holder, Farhi Saiid, Shaker Aamer

The situation with Shaker Aamer has become very worrying. Of the three British Residents still in Guantanamo, he has not been cleared for release, although he has never been charged with a crime. Ahmed Belbacha and Farhi Saiid were cleared for release in February of  2007. The UK Government replies to letters about Shaker state that the US Government has serious concerns about him and therefore has refused requests by the UK for his release. Eric Holder, the US Attorney General has a list of about 30 detainees who he hopes will go to third countries ( ie European ), not their country of origin. I think it is possible that Ahmed and Farhi may be on that list, although it has not been published.

 

The reviews of the detainees is going very slowly and Robert Gates, US Secretary of Defense and Eric Holder are considering bringing back the Military Commissions trials. They were only been suspended until May 20th. There is also talk of putting detainees on trial in the federal courts using the Ali-al-Marri trial as a model. But, the US are worried that more info about the use of torture will come out in open trials. Also a new facility for detention is being considered at Charleston.

PLEASE send the below letter to Attorney General Eric Holder.  Feel free to edit it to your liking.

 

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Holder, GOP Spar Over Fate of Guantanamo Detainees

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Published May 8, 2009, in Eric Holder, Guantanamo

Attorney General Eric Holder sparred with congressional Republicans Thursday over the future of inmates currently being held at Guantanamo Bay. Special correspondent Simon Marks reports on the arguments and focuses on the fate of a group of Muslims from China, known as Uighurs.

audioDownload   videoStreaming Video

JUDY WOODRUFF: Next, the political battle over the detainees still being held at the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Attorney General Eric Holder sparred with Republicans in Congress today over the future of the inmates being held at Guantanamo, as special correspondent Simon Marks reports.

SIMON MARKS: The attorney general was on Capitol Hill this morning testifying at a U.S. Senate hearing on the Justice Department’s budget.

But the talk soon turned to the president’s executive order, signed two days after his inauguration, that mandates the closure of the detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

 

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