Guess who said these words about Eric Holder, President-elect Barack Obama’s nominee to be Attorney-General of the United States: “There can be no justification in pardoning a fugitive from justice. Pardoning a fugitive stands our justice system on its head and makes a mockery of it.”
Orrin Hatch? Jeff Sessions? Arlen Specter? Guess again. It was Sen. Charles Schumer, D-NY, speaking eight years ago about Holder’s role as deputy attorney general at the end of the Clinton administration in securing a presidential pardon for Marc Rich, the fugitive tax evader and husband of a major Clinton donor.
For many people, the Rich pardon symbolized the corruption and rot at the heart of the Clinton years – the idea that anything in government can be bought with the right connections and enough money.
Holder was the key insider at the Justice Department who advised Rich lawyer Jack Quin on how to move the pardon request around the official channels and get it in front of Clinton without the required screening of senior DOJ officials. Quin was a former Clinton lawyer. Check out this photo in The New York Times of Holder testifying about his role in the Rich pardon. See the guy in the background?
And what do the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee have to say now about Holder’s fitness to hold the nation’s most important law enforcement office?None have said definitively that they will vote against confirming Holder.
But Politico is quoting an unnamed GOP committee aide saying: “I don’t think there is anything that would disqualify him. Certainly there are opportunities to make some of the Democrat senators a little red faced.”
That quote epitomizes what is wrong with most of the Senate GOP – No fundamental principles – like no man is above the law – are intrinsically worth upholding by opposing an administration nominee who made a mockery of them, so the main consideration is whether any fleeting political benefit can be gained by “embarrassing” Democrats.
That is the sure route to the permanent irrelevance they so richly deserve.
