Holder Justice Department
May 14, 2013 — John Hinderaker
Scandals are besetting the Obama administration so rapidly that it is hard to keep track of them. So far, I don’t believe we have said anything about the revelation that the Department of Justice secretly accessed several months worth of Associated Press telephone records. The AP is on the warpath: Reporters across The Associated Press are outraged over the Justice Department’s sweeping seizure of staff phone records — and they
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April 29, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Mike Rogers, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, is as perplexed as I am about the circumstances associated with the Mirandization of the surviving Tsarnaev terrorist. Accordingly, he has written a letter to Eric Holder posing questions for the Attorney General. Concerned that the interrogation of Tsarnaev may have been “conducted in a manner that prematurely cut off a lawful, ongoing FBI interview to collect public safety information,” Rogers tells
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April 28, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
That’s the question posed on Fox Sunday News by Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House homeland security committee. McCaul stated: “I think the experts all agree that there is someone who did train these two individuals.” It’s easy to understand this consensus. The Tsarnaev brothers had a fairly sophisticated operation — seemingly beyond what they could have picked up solely from the do-it-yourself websites they apparently frequented. But if
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April 27, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
I have never practiced criminal law (except briefly at the international level) and have not studied it since 1974. Thus, like most Americans, much of what I think I know about criminal procedure comes from watching television and movies. My viewing experience does not include any instances in which a judge read a criminal defendant his or her Miranda warning in the middle of police interrogation. Thus, I was shocked
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April 26, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Earlier this week, Eric Holder had this to say to the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund: Creating a pathway to earned citizenship for the 11 million unauthorized immigrants in this country is essential. The way we treat our friends and neighbors who are undocumented–by creating a mechanism for them to earn citizenship and move out of the shadows — transcends the issue of immigration status. This is a
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April 18, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Tom Perez is President Obama’s nominee for Secretary of Labor. There are many reasons why he should not be confirmed. I discussed some of them here and here. My complaints about Perez pre-date his most recent nomination. In a 2009 Washington Times op-ed, I objected to his nomination to head Justice Department’s Office of Civil Rights. It is not easy to block a cabinet nominee on policy grounds, nor should
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April 5, 2013 — Scott Johnson
The Wall Street Journal published a book review by former Attorney General Michael Mukasey yesterday. Judge Mukasey (as I will refer to him here) is one great American. He was the trial judge in the case of the Blind Sheikh and a man who answered the call of duty by resigning from the bench to take the position of Attorney General for the last two years of the Bush administration.
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March 18, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
The Committee on Oversight and Reform is investigating the latest scandal involving Tom Perez, who is reported to be President Obama’s choice for Secretary of Labor. Committee Chairaman Darrel Issa has confronted the Department of Justice (where Perez now serves as Assistant Attorney General) with charges that Perez arranged a quid pro quo for the City of St. Paul, Minnesota to drop the Supreme Court case of Magner v. Gallagher.
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March 13, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Yesterday, the Justice Department’s Inspector General released a damning report about the Voting Section of DOJ’s Civil Rights Division. The Civil Rights Divison is run by Tom Perez, President Obama’s nominee for Secretary of Labor. You can read the Report, which exceeds 250 pages, here. I’ll provide a few of the lowlights: [W]e found that starting in April 2009, there were serious discussions among senior leadership in the Division and
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March 10, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
The word is that President Obama has settled on Thomas Perez as his nominee to be Secretary of Labor. That nomination would continue the trend of atrocious, in-your-face, leftist nominees that has characterized Obama’s second term. We first wrote about Perez when Obama nominated him to head the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. As I explained on Power Line and in a Wasington Times op-ed, Perez had
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March 7, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
The prospect of drone attacks on American citizens here in the U.S. is at or below the bottom of the list of things we should be worried about. But Eric Holder bears a share of the blame for this silly sideshow because of his failure to provide cogent answers to questions about the subject. For some sorely needed clarity on this matter, let’s turn to John Yoo at Ricochet: [In
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March 1, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Yesterday, the Obama Administration filed a brief urging the Supreme Court to declare unconstitutional Proposition 8, California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage. The brief does not explicitly endorse a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. Rather, it argues that “Proposition 8’s denial of marriage to same-sex couples, particularly where California at the same time grants same-sex partners all the substantive rights of marriage, violates equal protection.” “Prejudice,” the Justice Department sniffs,
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February 27, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
From William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection, we learn about the case of Uwe and Hannelore Romeike and their children: The Romeikes are devout Christians from Germany who wanted to homeschool their children because of what they perceived as the secularist agenda in German public schools. In the United States, the right to homeschool ones’ own children is accepted, although frequently mocked by the left. The homeschoool movement is thriving in
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February 11, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
I don’t believe we’ve written about the Obama Justice Department’s suit against Standard & Poors, which alleges that S&P manipulated bond ratings for its own purposes. Actaully, there’s good reason not to write about it, since we don’t have access to the evidentiary record on which the DOJ is relying. This hasn’t stopped some from opining. For example, Robert Samuelson, a columnist I respect, has denounced the suit, asserting that
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January 10, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Roll Call reports that “despite being the first attorney general ever to be held in contempt of Congress, Eric Holder intends to stay in his post for the foreseeable future.” According to Roll Call, “Holder had been expected to step down relatively early into President Barack Obama’s second term.” But no such luck. There’s a certain logic to Holder’s retention. Obama has made a series of in-your-face nominations — Chuck
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December 16, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
A while ago, The Daily Caller reported that, as a student at Columbia University, Eric Holder participated in an armed takeover of the University’s former ROTC office. John wrote about this at the time, but I want to expand. According to the Daily Caller, Holder was among the leaders of the Student Afro-American Society (SAAS), which demanded that the former ROTC office be renamed the “Malcolm X Lounge.” The change,
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December 4, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
I wrote here about the sustained persecution of CIA agents who protected America by obtaining information from terrorists in the aftermath of 9/11. The persecution culminated in a decision by Attorney General Holder to reopen cases against some agents that the Justice Department had already deemed unworthy of prosecution. I now know the “back story” to Holder’s decision. It renders that decision even more disgraceful than I had thought. The
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