Attorney General-designate Eric Holder testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington Thursday, before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on his nomination. (Evan Vucci/AP)
Holder denounces waterboarding, other forms of ‘torture’
Says an assessment of past political interference with the Justice Department 'has to be done'
By Gail Russell Chaddock | January 15, 2009 edition
Attorney General-designate Eric Holder pledged to fight terrorism and reinvigorate the Justice Department’s “traditional missions” – to protect public safety and safeguard civil rights – at his Senate confirmation hearing Thursday.
Responding to senators’ questions on issues ranging from terrorism to Clinton-era pardons, Mr. Holder said nothing is more important than protecting the American people from terrorism.
“I will use every available tactic to defeat our adversaries, and I will do so within the letter and spirit of the Constitution,” he told the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“Waterboarding is torture,” he said, in response to the No. 1 question at his hearing, first posed by chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont, but amplified by other senators. Asked whether “painful stress positions, threatening with dogs, forced nudity, and mock executions” also constituted torture, he first said he was “not as familiar with those techniques,” then added: “I believe they do.”
At the same time, Holder laid out sharp distinctions in approach with the Bush administration’s Justice Department, which has been battered by allegations of political interference and partisanship.
“An assessment has to be done and that assessment has already begun,” said Holder.
He credited outgoing US Attorney General Michael Mulcasey and Deputy Attorney General Mark Filip with doing much to “stabilize the department and restore morale.” Mr. Mulcasey took over the department from Alberto Gonzales, who resigned in August 2007 amid allegations of perjury to Congress. “All they lacked was time” to complete the task, Holder told the Justice panel.
At issue is restoring a basic principle, he said: that the Department of Justice represents “not any one president, not any political party, but the people.”
Concerns about politicization of the department cross party lines. In the 1990s, Republicans complained that Attorney General Janet Reno was too protective of the Clinton White House. Sen. Arlen Specter (R) of Pennsylvania, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary panel, pressed Holder on his own independence from White House influence, citing his role in the controversial pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich in 2001. My decisions were not always perfect. I made mistakes. With the benefit of hindsight I can see my errors clearly and I can tell you how I have learned from them,” he said.
Pressed on how an Obama administration would try detainees at the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Holder often declined to be specific. “I don’t think the military commissions that we now have in place have all of the due process requirements that I would like to see,” he said. He added that the president-elect was committed to closing the prison at Guantanamo.
One proposal has been to shift detainees to the US maximum security prison at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas. “Ft. Leavenworth does not want these detainees,” said Sen. Sam Brownback (R) of Kansas. “It gets in the way of their primary mission, which is education.”
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina urged Holder to sit down with US military leaders to think through how the US can protect itself and yet maintain the “moral high ground” in the treatment of detainees. Many of the detainees released from Guantanamo have gone back to fight against the United States, he said.
“I’ve struggled with that,” Holder said, adding that he recognized that good ideas do not rest on one side of the aisle. “We’re going to have to come up with an American solution,” he said.
A full Senate vote on the Holder nomination is expected next week.
Comments
2. Joe | 01.15.09
I’ll be so happy in five days time when we can begin to put all these bad things behind us. I hope that we never again engage in something as un-American as torture. Were it up to me, I would revoke the citizenship of everyone who has engaged in or supported the practice and deport them.
3. Dick | 01.15.09
Holder is the biggest threat to American liberty in history. If confirmed, this man will go after law abiding citizen gun ownership through various schemes already preplanned before he takes office…..He had rather have Clinton pardon terrorists than protect American rights. As attorney general, I am sure he will cause the biggest protest this government has ever seen when they start id’ing ammo and grabbing guns. I am one of many old men who will die to protect my second amendment right to bear arms.
4. Fred | 01.15.09
The clock cannot tick fast enough for me. Holder’s comments sound like a foreigner landing in America to rescue us from the sytem that has grown to stifle our Constitutional rights. People need to shut up and give Mr. Obama a chance.
5. wallace | 01.15.09
The problem with over opinionated America is we can leave whatever stupid comments we want on a computer, we don’t have to bring forth a solution. so lets let this future administration try there way and be good Americans for a change.
6. David | 01.15.09
I think the vacation need to be over for the detainees at Guantanamo and they need to be sent to Iraq where the Iraqi’s can deal with them. We’ll see what Constitutional Rights get stifled alright.
7. Tom | 01.15.09
#3. Where in this article do you see anything about gun control?
Or is this just more paranoid spin from the right?
8. Jack | 01.15.09
Joe: Let give you a little scenario to chew on.
Say your family was on their way to Disneyland. The airplane was hijacked by some terrorists. The terrorists plan is to crash the plane. However, our government captured one of the terrorists before he got on the plane. He has vital information that could save the plane from crashing and thus, saving your family’s life.
The officials say that by simply trying to intimidate or “reasoning” with the terrorist, there is little or no chance of getting the information. The only way to get him to crack is to “waterboard” the him.
You’re the President of the US, and they need your approval. What say you?
Would you not do all means necessary in getting information from this terrorist? If you would like to try and lie to yourself and say “no” - then go ahead. But everyone who reads this knows you’d be lying.
Stop being so self-righteous and move to Cuba if you’re so ashamed of how “corrupt” we have become.
9. Dave Larson | 01.15.09
I’m with Joe. The torture policies of the Bush Administration yieleded no valuable intelligence and almost no prosecutions and simutaneously places our enlisted in greater danger if captured. There is more to this story than is being told in the media and I there is considerable reason to welcome this incoming administration and support their efforts in fact finding and possibly prosecution regarding what went on in this corrupt Bush Administration. Fact finding will be difficult as Bush has refused to comply with statutory disclosure mandates to the legislative, has refused to provide DOJ OLC opinions to our most trusted Sentae members, and now Bush has turned over records to the Presidential Archive that are in a proprietary unreadable format that nobody including the FBI can decrypt or view. There are secrets within this administration that are ghastly and atrocious. Like Joe, I look forward to putting this stain on American history behind us. - Dave L.
10. Mark | 01.15.09
If you don’t take the Guantanamo detainees in Leavenworth, would you please consider providing accommodations to Cheney, Rumsfeld and Gonzales?
11. Harris | 01.15.09
Refreshing to hear statements from an attorney general that sounds like he isn’t spending his time finding creative ways around the Constitution.
****: As a forensic scientist I can tell you that we can do a pretty good job *right now* of tracing spent ammunition to its source, though it would be easier to solve crimes, of course, if spent ammo was in some way directly traceable to the person who fired the shot. How, exactly, do you feel that would infringe on your rights, if you were still able to purchase it as you are now, and use it as you are now? What scenario do you envision in which you would be hounded in some way by that without having committed a crime using a firearm? I’m curious.
12. I’m Fred too | 01.15.09
These smarmy touchy feelies 53% of you’ve hired may kill more of you than cigarettes…I wouldn’t hire any of them as dog catchers
13. Larson | 01.15.09
The torture policies of the Bush administration did not yield usable intelligence, resulted in only a handful of prosecutions, and simutaneously placed our enlisted in greater danger if captured by the enemy. These misguided policies were not an accident and were motivated by a program that has been concealed from Congress and the public. Let’s welcome the new administration and give them a chance to sort out what has happened.
14. DisFisCon | 01.15.09
Obama needs to close Guantanamo Bay right away. The prisoners currently there need to be moved to the closest Federal prison and they need to be tried for whatever crimes the Justice Department thinks it can make stick right away (say within 6 months). If we can’t convict them and their country of origin won’t take them back, give them political asylum, resettle them here in the U.S., apologize to them, and make sure that they have good enough employment so that there’s a chance that in 30 years they’ll asimilate.
These individuals are more dangerous to us in unlawful detention than they would be on the loose. They are a fabulous inspiration to those who want to promote radical anti-American policies (such as suicide bombing).
Convict ‘em in a court of law or let ‘em go. If one or two of them come back and bomb us, it’s just the cost of applying the rule of law across the board. How many felons have committed crimes after release? Most of them. Yet we still don’t lock them up and throw away the key without proving them guilty.
Those of you who would argue that even one American life is too many to sacrifice on the altar of justice, let me remind you that we sacrice thousands and thousands of American lives every year to secondhand smoke in order to preserve the profits of our tobacco industry.
Nobody will like the above solution, but I defy you to find one that better serves the interests of America, the detainees, or the rest of the world.
15. Ray | 01.15.09
Waterboarding the monster that planned and executed 9/11 also prevented an attack on five airliners crossing the pacific in 2005. An estimated three to five thousand lives were saved because someone had the courage to dribble water up this murderous ******* nose. There are several other attacks that were directly foiled by waterboarding the three individuals at GTMO. If the method saved even one American life, it would justify waterboarding every jerk that spent time at the GTMO resort. One of you clowns whining and crying about the evil Bush and Cheney treatment of aspiring mass murderers might not be here today if it were not for them.
16. Houston | 01.15.09
SHAMEFUL, is what they did to Eric Holder today. It made me un-Proud to be a United States citizen. It was Disgraceful treatment of a fellow US citizen.
17. Jerryf | 01.15.09
The country has had 8 years of the “right” way and IMHO it was the wrong way. I for one am willing to see the “new” way.
Can’t be any worse.
18. JoeToo | 01.16.09
“Say your family was on their way to Disneyland…. You’re the President of the US, and they need your approval. What say you?” Right, Jack, I’ll play along with this. So my goons are in a rush to torture the answer out of Mr. Terrorist Mastermind. I say: “Fools, you did this last year under Bush and it didn’t work, did it? Now they’re attacking my family and nothing you do in the next hour is going to help. You’re all fired!”
19. Jeff | 01.18.09
If we’re torturing people in order to get information so we can fly safely to Disneyland then we aren’t any better than the individuals intent on crashing those planes. Terrorism is terrorism no matter who is committing it. We need to address the root of the problem rather than cutting off the leaves.
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1. Casey | 01.15.09
As a resident of the state of Kansas as well as living within driving distance of Ft. Leavenworth, I will confirm what Sen. Sam Brownback said in the above article. We do NOT want them in Kansas. That is the very first time I have ever agreed with a statement made by Brownback!