Obama’s Justice Department: Filling in the Blanks
The transition to a new administration is underway and people are naturally curious about what to expect at the Department of Justice. Asked to check into this, I called on friends inside and outside the Justice Department, on the Hill, and in think tanks. No one seems to have a very clear or full picture yet, although there are some hints in specific areas which I’ll deal with below.
Obama will need to act quickly to fill not only the attorney general slot, but the slots of all the assistants, deputies, and all the Schedule C (political) positions in the Justice Department if he hopes to put his stamp on its operations. The Bush administration never did, and the animus of the generally liberal civil servants along with the failure to take charge resulted in no end of trouble, particularly since it became ever more difficult to lure competent lawyers into such a hostile, thankless environment due to time and natural turnover.
Obama will be luckier than Bush because, unlike his predecessor whose transition was shamefully impeded by Clinton, Bush has been gracious and helpful. Moreover, he will have a sympathetic Congress of the same party to help move his many appointments through more smoothly and quickly. Still, in the long void which preceded the election, Senator Schumer exercised unusual control over the Justice Department — its appointments and operations — and it remains to be seen if he thinks he should cede any of this control to Obama or how Obama would handle this encroachment.
Since personnel is policy, we will not have a particularly clear picture until we see some nominations (especially since many of his positions on the issues were muffled, distorted, or falsified in the campaign period).
For the top spot, it appears from press reports as if Obama has settled on Eric Holder for the job of attorney general. National Review summed up the view of many in an editorial published on November 19, when they warned that Holder represented a return to a “9/10 mentality” where “a national-security outlook marked prominently by its lack of seriousness about the terrorist threat” would be the consequence. NRO also criticized Holder’s involvement in several of the high profile pardons made by President Clinton at the end of his term:
Much has been made, and appropriately so, of Holder’s untoward performance in the final corrupt act of the Clinton administration: the pardons issued in the departing president’s final hours. Of these, most notorious is the case of Marc Rich, an unrepentant fugitive wanted on extensive fraud, racketeering, and trading-with-the-enemy charges — but granted a pardon nonetheless thanks to the intercession of his ex-wife, a generous donor to Clinton’s library and legal-defense fund.
Holder’s role was aptly described as “unconscionable” by a congressional committee. He steered Rich’s allies to retain the influential former White House counsel Jack Quinn (Holder later conceded he hoped Quinn would help him become attorney general in a Gore administration); he helped Quinn directly lobby Clinton, doing an end-run around the standard pardon process (including DOJ’s pardon attorney); and he kept the deliberations hidden from the district U.S. attorney and investigative agencies prosecuting Rich so they couldn’t learn about the pardon application and register their objections.
There’s a typo which needs to be corrected and for which I apologize. Governor Napolitano is, of course, from Arizona, not New Mexico.
OBAMA WILL ABANDON LEFTISTS
What is Moveon and Kos to do given political reality in America and the practical nature of their savior:
http://greensrealworld.blogspot.com/2008/11/democrats-and-radical-left.html
I simply take for granted that Barack Obama’s selections to the U.S. Justice Department will move us closer to a politically correct fascist dictatorship. Republicans, especially if they are white males, will be prosecuted on charges similar to a traffic cop giving you a ticket for going 55 1/16 miles over the 55 miles per hour speed limit. Prosecutions based on mere technicalities will become the norm. We can also expect an explosion of Democratic Party voting fraud. Obama’s presidential campaign committed massive credit card fraud. Where are the calls for an investigation? And have we already forgotten the illegal shenanigans of ACORN? Can you imagine the screaming and yelling if this organization was a white group organized to help elect Republicans?
Ahhh… the blending of the ruthless Chicago Machine with the devious Clinton leftovers. This does not bode well for justice in America. The high-profile characters will steer the army of briefcase carrying minions to cases that advance “The Cause” while dragging their feet in matters not congruent with The One’s agenda.
David Thompson – Are you any relation to Chicken Little?
NRO offers up more on Holder–utterly untrustworthy and certainly not likely to investigate any campaign finance improprieties:
http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ODk2YWNkYjNkMDMyMDAwNGE2ZGFjZTlmZGVhZjhlMzI=
Hurley: Are you related to Bozo the clown?
Bush is sure going out with a bang – Market tanking and even his own judges turning loose “terrorists” An you guys are living in a fantasy world that the American voters rejected. Get over it and move on to your next fantasy
I hope Obama’s future picks aren’t in the illuminati good ole boy clulb like the past ones have been
Well, we are now facing a position where the democratic liberal socialist communists,and their elite, whether they be called center or left, or democratic conservatives for that matter, are going to systimaticly destroy any pretense of justice, by eliminating any conservative power/influence within the justice dept.
The fairness doctorine is but a part of their overall stragety with all that as well, suppressing any disenting voice that would try and threaten the consolidation of their power and the way of life they want all others to lead whether they want to or not. All the while saying the people can only hear what they themselves approve.
Their subversions with their interpitations of the constitution which allow all manner of illegal process’s under the cloak of legalism will be getting worse, not better. Like divesting the wealthy/succusfull, to pay for the welfare nation no longer America.
We may as well get rid of it entirely, if we want to save ourselves as a nation from them, as it no longer resembles what it’s actually supposed to be. Despite all their retoric about the rule of law, to them, law is what they want it to mean, not what it is.
They have used their interpitations of it to systematicly destroy any decent, as well as moral standings of the united states, by attacking the only party that was being/upholding that, the republicans, their enemy’s, and America’s only hope of being America, not the one’s, and the communists, personal fife. Not one of the democrats{communists} charges against our president have any legal basis or factual basis. Just innuendo/hype/outright lie’s, to push their own agenda with all the fools they have shimshamed into socialist communism by placing our enemy’s over us.
The world they think to build through Obama won’t last very long, as it is all based on the fantasy’s/illusion’s of their idealogical belief’s, which throughout history, have time and again destroyed society’s, not helped them, because despite it being called socialism{communism} it really is dictoral, as the party which did the most to get him to be president elect, are finding out themselves right now, because they have served their purpose, and are now being discarded. I find it hilarious.
America is dead, the flag burning in the fire on that magazine cover as the Obama{the one} and his fellow radical consort/wife embrace, represents that. Because of the democratic policy’s, our enemy’s swarm all over our own nation, it’s not our’s anymore, unless we change that.
He is still only the president elect, not the president.
Expect corruption out of this bunch.
There is simply no evidence to suggest otherwise.