Eric Holder pushed for controversial clemency

[kpete]

Source: Los Angeles Times

Eric Holder pushed for controversial clemency

As deputy attorney general in 1999, Holder -- now attorney general nominee -- pressed subordinates to drop objections to clemency for 16 members of violent Puerto Rican nationalist organizations.

By Josh Meyer and Tom Hamburger
January 9, 2009

Reporting from Washington -- Attorney general nominee Eric H. Holder Jr. repeatedly pushed some of his subordinates at the Clinton Justice Department to drop their opposition to a controversial 1999 grant of clemency to 16 members of two violent Puerto Rican nationalist organizations, according to interviews and documents.

Details of the role played by Holder, who was deputy attorney general at the time, had not been publicly known until now. The new details are of particular interest because Republican senators have vowed to revisit Holder's role during his
Holder had no comment for this article, but a spokesman for President-elect Barack Obama's transition team said Holder's actions were appropriate.

President Clinton's decision to commute prison terms caused an uproar at the time. Holder was called before Congress to explain his role but declined to answer numerous questions from angry lawmakers demanding to know why the Justice Department had not sided with the FBI, federal prosecutors and other law enforcement officials, who were vehemently opposed to the grants.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-na-holder9-2009jan09,0,6643509.story

[blm]

1. Does anyone really think Clinton didn't KNOW Rich was a named figure in IranContra and BCCI?

Holder was just another Clinton LOYALIST at the time who was told to make something happen for Poppy Bush and Bill Clinton and he did it. I imagine he's grown up quite a bit since then.

[acmavm]

3. Of course he knew.

[spotbird]

5. Scooter Libby was Rich's lawyer

Holder will be confirmed.

[blm]

6. Exactly....Libby was a legal fixer for BushInc going back to IranContra-BCCI operations and

the GOP will only go so far on the Rich case, because Bushies will still control the storyline, just as they did during the pardon hearings.

Which is also why the FALN issue will likely get far more play from GOPs when push comes to shove.

No way will I act as if FALN is the graver or more controversial pardon.

[certainot]

11. what is important is what limbaugh and then hannity will

drum up in the next week to prevent the holder nomination. the facts nor proportionality don't matter. as long as the GOP has a talk radio monopoly to turn molehills into mountains and visa versa and as long as progressives/dems/liberals ignore this fact the GOP will continue to be able to knock down appointments that threaten them.

in the next few minutes limbaugh will start his show. i will bet that this will be a big part of the first hour. hannity will continue it and like rich, blogo, etc., the talk radio repetition to 60 MIL from 1000 stations will be used to establish/prechew the disproportionality and distortion that the rest of the lazy talking heads can regurgitate on the evening news without fear of being accused of parroting limbaugh/GOP because the Obama representative has no time for talk radio and has no clue where the certitude is coming from. he/she will try to defend holder without time for real responses and tens of millions who's only version came from talk radio while they were working or driving (with no progressive alternative anywhere around) will be enraged that obama has chosen such a corrupt AG. and many will be ready to scream at their GOP and blue dog reps when asked to do so, when the filibuster is called for and limbaugh and sons call possible non lockstepping repbublicans traitors.

[bluestateguy]

2. I fully support his confirmation

but at the same time, when you appoint Clinton people, you have to expect to re-live some of the dramas of the 90's.

(Cue Beverly Hills 90210 theme music)

[blm]

4. Bingo! Holder undoubtedly regrets some positions he was put in at the time and learned from it.

.

[gratuitous]

7. A little more about the Puerto Rican nationalist organizations

Since the popular misreading seems to be that this is about the Marc Rich case (yet again), but it's not:

The 16 members of the FALN (the Spanish acronym for Armed Forces of National Liberation) and Los Macheteros had been convicted in Chicago and Hartford variously of bank robbery, possession of explosives and participating in a seditious conspiracy. Overall, the two groups had been linked by the FBI to more than 130 bombings, several armed robberies, six slayings and hundreds of injuries.

None of the 16 whose sentences were commuted had been convicted of murder, and most had already served lengthy prison terms.

A spokesman for the Obama transition, Nick Shapiro, confirmed that Holder asked for the "options memo" that preceded the clemency:

"Eric Holder carefully reviewed the FALN clemency request, weighed the positions of both sides, including law enforcement, and concluded that the sentences of up to 90 years imposed on these prisoners was disproportionate to other federal and state sentences."

I guess it was enough for the Times to put the word "controversial" into its headline; there wasn't enough room for the word "disproportionate."

[blm]

8. Not misreading, just won't pretend FALN is the controversial pardon when we know Rich's role

in Poppy Bush's IranContra and BCCI operations were far more consequential, and TRAGICALLY SO, for this nation.

[gratuitous]

9. The article is about the FALN commutation

It wasn't a pardon, the sentences of 16 men convicted of property crimes were reduced from 90 years to about 20. That seems a great deal more proportionate. It looks like the Times is trying to stovepipe this "controversial" commutation of a "disproportionate" sentence onto whatever involvement Holder might have had with the Rich pardon.

As to Marc Rich, I've been doing some checking and can't find one reference to Eric Holder at the time the "controversial" pardons were made. I find references to notable Washington fixers like Leonard Garment, Jack Quinn and I. Lewis Libby, all of whom worked very hard on Mr. Rich's behalf to get a pardon. But not a contemporaneous word about Holder. Now, my research is nowhere near exhaustive, but I'd be highly surprised if anyone uttered a peep about Eric Holder in connection with the Rich pardon in 2001. The fact that it's being so breathlessly reported in 2009 should be a clanging klaxon for anyone paying any attention to media "controversies" of the last eight years.

[blm]

10. I don't disagree with you - just won't fall for media pushing FALN for GOPs when

Rich pardon was a huge matter, but GOPs risk opening the door to Libby and his work fixing matters for Bushes long before Plame outing. That's why I see the FALN issue as another trumped up smokescreen. Though the wingnutty type GOPs would like to make Rich an issue based on the LIMITED view of the pardon, there is no way the power elites of BushInc will allow that door to open too much now.