Are you sure I don’t need an ID?

From John Fund National Review

Attorney General Eric Holder is a staunch opponent of laws requiring voters to show photo ID at the polls to improve ballot security. He calls them “unnecessary” and has blocked their implementation in Texas and South Carolina, citing the fear they would discriminate against minorities.


I wonder what Holder will think when he learns just how easy it was for someone to be offered his ballot just by mentioning his name in a Washington, D.C., polling place in Tuesday’s primaries.

Holder’s opposition to ID laws comes in spite of the Supreme Court’s 6–3 decision in 2008, authored by liberal Justice John Paul Stevens, that upheld the constitutionality of Indiana’s tough ID requirement. When groups sue to block photo-ID laws in court, they can’t seem to produce real-world examples of people who have actually been denied the right to vote. According to opinion polls, over 75 percent of Americans — including majorities of Hispanics and African-Americans — routinely support such laws.
One reason is that people know you can’t function in the modern world without showing ID — you can’t cash a check, travel by plane or even train, or rent a video without being asked for one. In fact, PJ Media recently proved that you can’t even enter the Justice Department in Washington without showing a photo ID. Average voters understand that it’s only common sense to require ID because of how easy it is for people to pretend they are someone else

Filmmaker James O’Keefe demonstrated just how easy it is on Tuesday when he dispatched an assistant to the Nebraska Avenue polling place in Washington where Attorney General Holder has been registered for the last 29 years. O’Keefe specializes in the same use of hidden cameras that was pioneered by the recently deceased Mike Wallace, who used the technique to devastating effect in exposing fraud in Medicare claims and consumer products on 60 Minutes. O’Keefe’s efforts helped expose the fraud-prone voter-registration group ACORN with his video stings, and has had great success demonstrating this year in New Hampshire, Vermont, and Minnesota just how easy it is to obtain a ballot by giving the name of a dead person who is still on the rolls. Indeed, a new study by the Pew Research Center found at least 1.8 million dead people are still registered to vote. They aren’t likely to complain if someone votes in their place.

In Washington, it was child’s play for O’Keefe to beat the system. O’Keefe’s assistant used a hidden camera to document his encounter with the election worker at Holder’s polling place:

Man: “Do you have an Eric Holder, 50th Street?

Poll worker: “Let me see here.”

Man: Xxxx 50th Street.

Poll Worker: Let’s see, Holder, Hol-t-e-r, or Hold-d-e-r?

Man: H-o-l-d-e-r.

Poll Worker: D-e-r. Okay.

Man: That’s the name.

Poll Worker: I do. Xxxx 50th Street NW. Okay. [Puts check next to name, indicating someone has shown up to vote.] Will you sign there . . .

Man: I actually forgot my ID.

Poll Worker: You don’t need it; it’s all right.

Man: I left it in the car.

Poll Worker: As long as you’re in here, and you’re on our list and that’s who you say you are, we’re okay.

Man: I would feel more comfortable if I go get my ID, is it all right if I go get it?

Poll Worker: Sure, go ahead.

Man: I’ll be back faster than you can say furious!

Poll Worker: We’re not going anywhere.

Note that O’Keefe’s assistant never identified himself as Eric Holder, so he was not illegally impersonating him.

Nor did he attempt to vote using the ballot that was offered him, or even to accept it. O’Keefe has been accused by liberals of committing voter fraud in his effort to expose just how slipshod the election systems of various no-ID-required states are, but lawyers say his methods avoid that issue. Moreover, he has only taped his encounters with election officials in jurisdictions that allow videotaping someone in public with only one party’s knowledge.

Barack Hussein Obama and Eric Holder Halt Prosecution of USS Cole Bomber and Murderer of 17 Real American Sailors

Preshilla Caprice Kumar, 18 months-old, is presented with the flag that covered her mother's coffin October 20, 2000 as she sits in the lap of her father, Avinesh Kumar, during burial services for USS Cole sailor Lakiba Nicole Palmer in San Diego, CA. Palmer was one of two women to become the first ever killed in an attack on a U.S. warship since women began serving aboard combat vessels in 1995. She and Lakeina Monique Francis were among 17 sailors killed by an explosion aboard a small boat that tore a 20-by-40 foot hole in the hull of the USS Cole in Aden, Yemen.

No Justice for Injured US Sailor serving his country on USS Cole

Hat Tip: Teresita


Administration halts prosecution of alleged USS Cole bomber
By Peter Finn
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 26, 2010; 8:47 PM

The Obama administration has shelved the planned prosecution of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the alleged coordinator of the Oct. 2000 suicide attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, according to a court filing.

The decision at least temporarily scuttles what was supposed to be the signature trial of a major al-Qaeda figure under a reformed system of military commissions. And it comes practically on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the attack, which killed 17 sailors and wounded dozens when a boat packed with explosives ripped a hole in the side of the warship in the port of Aden.

In a filing this week in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, the Justice Department said that "no charges are either pending or contemplated with respect to al-Nashiri in the near future."

The statement, tucked into a motion to dismiss a petition by Nashiri's attorneys, suggests that the prospect of further military trials for detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has all but ground to a halt, much as the administration's plan to try the accused plotters of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in federal court has stalled.

Only two cases are moving forward at Guantanamo Bay, and both were sworn and referred for trial by the time Obama took office. In January 2009, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates directed the Convening Authority for Military Commissions to stop referring cases for trial, an order that 20 months later has not been rescinded.

Military officials said a team of prosecutors in the Nashiri case has been ready go to trial for some time. And several months ago, military officials seemed confident that Nashiri would be arraigned this summer.

"It's politics at this point," said one military official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss policy. He said he thinks the administration does not want to proceed against a high-value detainee without some prospect of civilian trials for other major figures at Guantanamo Bay.

A White House official disputed that.

"We are confident that the reformed military commissions are a lawful, fair and effective prosecutorial forum and that the Department of Defense will handle the referrals in an appropriate manner consistent with the interests of justice," said the official, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity.


The Defense Department issued a statement Thursday saying the case is not stalled. "Prosecutors in the Office of Military Commissions are actively investigating the case against Mr. al-Nashiri and are developing charges against him," the statement said.

With the 10th anniversary of the Cole bombing approaching on Oct. 12, relatives of those killed in the attack expressed deep frustration with the delay.

"After 10 years, it seems like nobody really cares," said Gloria Clodfelter, whose 21-year-old son, Kenneth, was killed on the Cole.

Military prosecutors allege that Nashiri, a Saudi national, was a senior al-Qaeda operative and close associate of Osama bin Laden, who orchestrated the suicide attack on the Cole. Nashiri was scheduled to be arraigned in February 2009 but the new administration instructed military prosecutors to suspend legal proceedings at Guantanamo Bay. The charges against Nashiri were withdrawn.

In November 2009, however, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. appeared to revive the case when he announced that the military would prosecute Nashiri, one of at least 36 detainees who could be tired in federal court or a military commission.

"With regard to the Cole bombing, that was an attack on a United States warship, and that, I think, is appropriately placed into the military commission setting," Holder said.

But critics of military commissions say the Nashiri case exemplifies the system's flaws, particularly the ability to introduce certain evidence such as hearsay statements that probably would not be admitted in federal court. The prosecution is expected to rely heavily on statements made to the FBI by two Yemenis who allegedly implicated Nashiri. Neither witness is expected at trial, but the FBI agents who interviewed them will testify, said Nashiri's military attorney, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Stephen C. Reyes. "Unlike in federal court, you don't have the right to confront the witnesses against you," he said.

Such indirect testimony could be critical to a conviction because any incriminating statements Nashiri might have made are probably inadmissible under the 2009 Military Commissions Act, which bars the use of evidence obtained through torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

Nashiri, 45, was captured in the United Arab Emirates in November 2002, and immediately placed in CIA custody. He was among three detainees held by the agency who was water-boarded, and a report by the CIA's inspector general found that Nashiri was threatened with a gun and a power drill.

"I am very confident, based upon what I have heard, that there is more than sufficient evidence linking him to the attack on Cole directly, and that they do not need any of the information that may have come from black site interviews and interrogations," said Kirk S. Lippold, who was commander of the Cole when it was attacked.

Reyes said Nashiri's treatment at the hands of the CIA will be part of any proceeding and will be relevant to any sentence he receives if he is found guilty. The government is expected to seek the death penalty.

"I'm not admitting to guilty, but his treatment is absolutely relevant in a death case and can be used in mitigation to lessen the sentence," Reyes said.

Nashiri, who has been held at Camp 7 at Guantanamo Bay since September 2006, has never appeared in court. But according to the transcript of a 2007 Combatant Status Review Tribunal, he said that he had nothing to do with the Cole bombing and that his connections to those involved in the explosion, including the purchase of the suicide boat, were unwitting. "We were planning to be involved in a fishing project," he said.

Eric Holder, Obama's man, reminding us we are a nation of cowards.

Eric Holder is in Afghanistan? Connecting the dots redux.

Taliban did not get the memo.

Dot connecting was quite the thing in DC for awhile but you don't hear much about it lately. It was almost as popular as was talking about what would happen at the end of the day, but that ended as well because at the end of the day, the day ends, but let's return to the dots and Eric Holder.

Why would Obama send Eric Holder to Afghanistan? At first I didn't get it. The dots were unconnected. I was perplexed, but then it hit me. It's obvious. When BP blew the well, Holder's minions were dispatched to the rigs. Obama has been threatening to sue Arizona longer than he has been paying attention to the gulf oil leak. Now Holder is in Afghanistan. Every time something of importance happens the Obama response is to unleash Eric Holder.

We are obviously going to sue the Taliban as nothing else has worked.

With all the suing going on it may make sense to consolidate. A class action suit against Arizona, the Taliban and the Limey assholes running BP, could reduce legal costs and help reduce the deficit.

It is obvious that as Obama is harnessing the power of the best legal minds in the country with Elena Kagan at the tip of the spear, his strategy is becoming more clear. Obama is going to be flexing America's legal muscles. We have showed the World what we can do with our aircraft carriers, investment bankers and Fannie Mae, but the World has seen nothing compared to the shock and awe of American legions of slip and fall lawyers.

Pity the Taliban, the American Citizens of Arizona and the LARBP. At the end of the day, Obama is going to get them, one dot at a time.

________________________



Attorney General Holder meets in Kabul with Karzai, other top Afghan officials

By Ernesto Londoño
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Washington Post

KABUL -- Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and other senior Afghan officials in Kabul on Wednesday amid rising concerns in Washington over the toll corruption is taking on the U.S.-led war effort.

Holder's visit comes at a sensitive time. U.S. lawmakers this week vowed to block U.S. funds for nonmilitary and humanitarian aid in Afghanistan in response to reports suggesting that Afghan officials are doing little to curb widespread corruption and in some instances have hindered U.S. efforts to bring prominent Afghan officials to justice.

On Tuesday, Afghanistan's attorney general disputed that his office's anti-corruption efforts are systematically stymied by political meddling from Karzai's office. Mohammed Ishaq Aloko said the only official who has tried to exert undue pressure on his office is U.S. Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry. He said Eikenberry suggested he could lose his job if he didn't pursue a fraud case.

In brief remarks after meetings with Karzai, Aloko and Justice Minister Habibullah Ghaleb, Holder made no mention of the controversies. Instead, he lauded the Afghan government's recent efforts to fight corruption.

"We have watched with interest from Washington the positive steps President Karzai and his cabinet have taken to help improve governance and enforce the rule of law," Holder said. "We applaud President Karzai for his actions and encourage him to continue his efforts, as much work remains to be done."

The Washington Post reported Monday that U.S. law enforcement officials who are partnering with the Afghan attorney general's anti-corruption task force have grown frustrated by repeated instances in which political pressure has derailed investigations targeting senior government officials and other prominent Afghans.

Those allegations and a report about billions of dollars, including aid money, being siphoned out of the country by Afghan officials prompted Rep. Nita M. Lowey (D-N.Y.) to announce that she will block nonessential funding for Afghanistan.

"I do not intend to appropriate one more dime for assistance to Afghanistan until I have confidence that U.S. taxpayer money is not being abused to line the pockets of corrupt Afghan government officials, drug lords and terrorists," Lowey, who chairs an Appropriations subcommittee that oversees State Department and foreign operations, said in a statement Monday. "Rampant corruption fosters the conditions that threaten the security of our troops and the stability of the Afghan government and economy."

Holder, in contrast, spoke optimistically about partnership initiatives between Afghan and American law enforcement officials in counternarcotics and anti-corruption investigations.

"The support and commitment of the United States to improve the lives of the Afghan people and establishing the rule of law will really outlast any military presence in this country," he said. He did not take reporters' questions.

Earlier Wednesday, insurgents detonated a car bomb outside the gate of an air base that serves as a NATO military hub in eastern Afghanistan and engaged in a gun battle with guards in the latest unsuccessful attempt by militants to penetrate a military compound.



At least eight suspected militants were slain in the attack on Jalalabad air base, Afghan officials said. The Taliban asserted responsibility for the operation, the Associated Press reported.

After the initial blast, NATO officials said, insurgents attacked the base's guards with rocket-propelled grenades and small arms, wounding two.

NATO officials said the air base's perimeter was not breached. "Afghan and coalition forces are always prepared to deal with attacks on this facility," Maj. Mary Constantino, a NATO spokeswoman, said in a statement. "The response this morning was immediate."

The attack was the third such attempted breach of a NATO military installation in recent weeks. A similar assault at Bagram air base May 19 resulted in the death of a U.S. contractor. Three days later, insurgents using rockets and mortars launched a coordinated attack on Kandahar air base, the largest military installation in southern Afghanistan.

Also on Wednesday, a NATO soldier was fatally shot in eastern Afghanistan. More than 100 NATO troops have been killed in Afghanistan this month, which has been the deadliest for the U.S.-led international force in the nearly nine-year-old war.

Obama tells Holder to get out of Gotham

Drudge is reporting that: The White House ordered the Justice Department Thursday night to consider other places to try the 9/11 terror suspects after a wave of opposition to holding the trial in lower Manhattan.

The dramatic turnabout came hours after Mayor Bloomberg said he would "prefer that they did it elsewhere" and then spoke to Attorney General Eric Holder.

"It would be an inconvenience at the least, and probably that's too mild a word for people that live in the neighborhood and businesses in the neighborhood," Bloomberg told reporters.

________________

The handling of the Christmas Day bombing suspect: the scandal grows

By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, January 29, 2010

Washinton Post

The real scandal surrounding the failed Christmas Day airline bombing was not the fact that a terrorist got on a plane -- that can happen to any administration, as it surely did to the Bush administration -- but what happened afterward when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was captured and came under the full control of the U.S. government.

After 50 minutes of questioning him, the Obama administration chose, reflexively and mindlessly, to give the chatty terrorist the right to remain silent. Which he immediately did, undoubtedly denying us crucial information about al-Qaeda in Yemen, which had trained, armed and dispatched him.

We have since learned that the decision to Mirandize Abdulmutallab had been made without the knowledge of or consultation with (1) the secretary of defense, (2) the secretary of homeland security, (3) the director of the FBI, (4) the director of the National Counterterrorism Center or (5) the director of national intelligence (DNI).

The Justice Department acted not just unilaterally but unaccountably. Obama's own DNI said that Abdulmutallab should have been interrogated by the HIG, the administration's new High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group.

Perhaps you hadn't heard the term. Well, in the very first week of his presidency, Obama abolished by executive order the Bush-Cheney interrogation procedures and pledged to study a substitute mechanism. In August, the administration announced the establishment of the HIG, housed in the FBI but overseen by the National Security Council.

Where was it during the Abdulmutallab case? Not available, admitted National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair, because it had been conceived for use only abroad. Had not one person in this vast administration of highly nuanced sophisticates considered the possibility of a terror attack on American soil?

It gets worse. Blair later had to explain that the HIG was not deployed because it does not yet exist. After a year! I suppose this administration was so busy deploying scores of the country's best lawyerly minds on finding the most rapid way to release Gitmo miscreants that it could not be bothered to establish a single operational HIG team to interrogate at-large miscreants with actionable intelligence that might save American lives.

Travesties of this magnitude are not lost on the American people. One of the reasons Scott Brown won in Massachusetts was his focus on the Mirandizing of Abdulmutallab.

Of course, this case is just a reflection of a larger problem: an administration that insists on treating Islamist terrorism as a law-enforcement issue. Which is why the Justice Department's other egregious terror decision, granting Khalid Sheik Mohammed a civilian trial in New York, is now the subject of a letter from six senators -- three Republicans, two Democrats and Joe Lieberman -- asking Attorney General Eric Holder to reverse the decision.

Lieberman and Sen. Susan Collins had written an earlier letter asking for Abdulmutallab to be turned over to the military for renewed interrogation. The problem is, it's hard to see how that decision gets reversed. Once you've read a man Miranda rights, what do you say? We are idiots? On second thought . . .

Hence the agitation over the KSM trial. This one can be reversed, and it's a good surrogate for this administration's insistence upon criminalizing -- and therefore trivializing -- a war on terror that has now struck three times in one year within the United States, twice with effect (the Arkansas killer and the Fort Hood shooter) and once with a shockingly near miss (Abdulmutallab).

On the KSM civilian trial, sentiment is widespread that it is quite insane to spend $200 million a year to give the killer of 3,000 innocents the largest propaganda platform on earth, while at the same time granting civilian rights of cross-examination and discovery that risk betraying U.S. intelligence sources and methods.

Accordingly, Sen. Lindsey Graham and Rep. Frank Wolf have gone beyond appeals to the administration and are planning to introduce a bill to block funding for the trial. It's an important measure. It makes flesh an otherwise abstract issue -- should terrorists be treated as enemy combatants or criminal defendants? The vote will force members of Congress to declare themselves. There will be no hiding from the question.

Congress may not be able to roll back the Abdulmutallab travesty. But there will be future Abdulmutallabs. By cutting off funding for the KSM trial, Congress can send Obama a clear message: The Constitution is neither a safety net for illegal enemy combatants nor a suicide pact for us.

letters@charleskrauthammer.com

Is Osama bin Laden a Criminal or Master Terrorist and Enemy of the US?

All right, bin Laden is claiming the Christmas bombing attempt of a US carrier over US territory is his doing. He goes on to threaten other attempts by al-Qaeda, yet the bomber designated shit bird, " the heroic warrior Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab" sits in a US prison marandized by our own General Eric Holder.

There is no doubt that Abdulmutallab is an illegal enemy combatant. He is claimed as such by bin Laden.

Obama should have Holder withdraw the criminal charges against Shit Bird I and send him to Guantanamo, where he belonged in the first place. American lives are at stake and valuable time has already been lost. However, as this video shows, Eric Holder has other priorities. He is distilled in his victimization and his priorities are not exactly as an American firster.




In audio message, bin Laden says he endorsed Dec. 25 airline bomb plot

Washington Post
By Jason Keyser
Monday, January 25, 2010

Osama bin Laden endorsed the failed attempt to blow up a U.S. airliner Christmas Day and threatened new attacks against the United States in an audio message released Sunday that appeared aimed at asserting that he maintains some direct command over al-Qaeda-inspired offshoots.

U.S. officials and several researchers who track terrorist groups, however, said there is no indication that bin Laden or any of his top lieutenants had anything to do with or even knew in advance of the plot by a Yemen-based group that is one of several largely independent al-Qaeda franchises.

A State Department spokesman said al-Qaeda's core leadership offers such groups strategic guidance but depends on them to carry out missions.

"He's trying to continue to appear relevant" by talking up the attempted attack by an affiliate, P. J. Crowley said.

The one-minute message was explicit in its threat of new attacks. Bin Laden said such attacks, like the airline plot, would come in response to U.S. support for Israel.

"God willing, our raids on you will continue as long as your support for the Israelis continues," bin Laden said in the recording, which was released to the al-Jazeera news channel.

"The message delivered to you through the plane of the heroic warrior Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was a confirmation of the previous messages sent by the heroes of the September 11," attacks, he said of the Nigerian suspect in the Dec. 25 botched bombing.

"If our messages had been able to reach you through words, we wouldn't have been delivering them through planes."

Directing his statements at President Obama -- "from Osama to Obama," he said -- bin Laden added: "America will never dream of security unless we will have it in reality in Palestine."

The message, which White House officials said could not immediately be authenticated, raised again the question of how much of a link exists between al-Qaeda's top leadership along the Afghan-Pakistani border and the handful of loosely affiliated groups operating in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa and Iraq.



The al-Qaeda leader, who was last heard from in September, seemed intent on showing that he remains more than an ideological figurehead, as most analysts have suggested he has become during the terrorist network's evolution into decentralized offshoots. But some questioned whether al-Qaeda's core leadership was involved.

"They weren't putting the final touches on this operation," said Evan F. Kohlmann, a senior investigator for the New York-based NEFA Foundation, which researches Islamic militants.

Still, the Saudi and Yemeni leaders of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which formed in Yemen a year ago, have a long history of direct personal contact with bin Laden. It is plausible that, if they were able to, they would have informed bin Laden of the airliner plot and sought his approval, Kohlmann said.

The Yemen-based group's leader, Nasir al-Wahishi, was once bin Laden's personal secretary. The group's top military commander, Qassim al-Raimi, trained in bin Laden's main camp in Afghanistan, Kohlmann said.

Two of the group's top members were detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and were released in November 2007.

The Yemen offshoot is largely self-sustaining, with its own theological figures, bomb-makers and a network for funneling in recruits.

"The training and the definition of the attack was by the local leaders of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula," said Rohan Gunaratna, author of "Inside Al-Qaeda: Global Network of Terror."

"So, in many ways you can say bin Laden is exploiting for his benefit this particular attack. Bin Laden still wants to claim leadership for the global jihad movement."

U.S. investigators say the Nigerian suspect in the Dec. 25 attempted bombing told them he had been trained in Yemen and given the explosives there by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

Bin Laden's message came four weeks after the Yemen-based group made its own claim of responsibility for the bomb plot with a different justification: linking it to Yemeni military attacks on al-Qaeda targets with the help of U.S. intelligence.

-- Associated Press

Only a Hard Leftist Ideologue Would Read a Terrorist His Miranda Rights. Fire Eric Holder.

Go back a couple of months and see the real Eric Holder, and by the way, he is not a fine man.






On bombing suspect, tough questions for Eric Holder
By: BYRON YORK
Chief Political Correspondent
Washington Examiner
January 22, 2010

After all, Abdulmutallab was trained by al Qaeda, equipped with an al Qaeda-made bomb, and dispatched by al Qaeda to bring down the airliner and its 278 passengers. Even though the Obama administration has mostly abandoned the term "war on terror," the president himself has said clearly that the United States is at war with al Qaeda. So who decided to treat Abdulmutallab as a civilian, read him the Miranda warning, and provide him with a government-paid lawyer -- giving him the right to remain silent and denying the United States potentially valuable intelligence that might have been gained by a military-style interrogation?

This week that simple question -- Who? -- became more complicated after several of the administration's top anti-terrorism officials testified on Capitol Hill. The director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Michael Leiter, said he wasn't consulted before the decision was made. The director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, said he wasn't consulted, either. The secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, said she wasn't consulted. And the head of the FBI, Robert Mueller, said he wasn't consulted.

"The decision was made by the agents on the ground," Mueller told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, referring to the officials who apprehended Abdulmutallab when the plane landed in Detroit. American agents questioned the accused terrorist briefly before he was taken to a hospital to be treated for burns suffered in the attempt to set off explosives hidden in his underwear. After that, Mueller testified, "in consultation with the Department of Justice and others in the administration," the agents read him his rights.

And that was that. "Isn't it a fact, that after Miranda was given ... the individual stopped talking?" Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions asked Mueller.

"He did," Mueller answered. But Mueller declined to say who made the decision to grant Abdulmutallab the right to remain silent.

The issue is enormously important because Abdulmutallab, newly trained by al Qaeda in the terrorist group's latest hot spot, Yemen, likely knows things that would be very useful to American anti-terrorism investigators. He's not some grizzled old terrorist who's been sitting in Guantanamo Bay since 2003 and doesn't have any new intelligence. He's fresh material. Yet he is protected by U.S. criminal law from having to answer questions.
Why? Republicans on the Judiciary Committee increasingly believe there is only one person who can answer: Attorney General Eric Holder.

It was Holder who made the decision to try 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a criminal trial in New York. It is Holder who has expressed his desire to grant full American constitutional rights to foreign terrorists. It is Holder who is leading the administration's sputtering effort to move some Guantanamo inmates to the United States. And it is Holder who is apparently cutting other parts of the government out of crucial terrorism decisions like the treatment of Abdulmutallab.

"These days, all roads lead to the attorney general," says one well-placed Republican source in the Senate. "They seem to have aggregated quite a bit of power inside Main Justice." The problem is, the Holder Justice Department appears to be handling terrorism issues from a defense-attorney perspective, and doing so without the input of the government's other terrorism-fighting agencies.

That was the message of Wednesday's testimony from Blair, Leiter, Napolitano, and Mueller, all of whom were out of the loop on the Adbulmutallab decision. Their accounts left a number of Republican senators shaken; as the GOP lawmakers see it, the decision to read Abdulmutallab Miranda rights was a dreadful mistake, one that could have serious consequences down the line. There should be some accountability.

So on Thursday all seven Republicans on the Judiciary Committee sent a letter to Holder asking for a full explanation: Who made the decision and why, and whether the administration now has "a protocol or policy in place for handling al Qaeda terrorists captured in the United States."

Republicans were troubled by the decision even before Wednesday's testimony showed that major administration figures knew nothing about it. Now, the lawmakers want to know what happened, and they believe the only person who can tell them is Holder.

Byron York, The Examiner's chief political correspondent, can be contacted at byork@washingtonexaminer.com. His column appears on Tuesday and Friday, and his stories and blog posts appears on www.ExaminerPolitics.com ExaminerPolitics.com


Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/On-bombing-suspect_-tough-questions-for-Eric-Holder-82305397.html#ixzz0dJFqUQl5

Can Obama be so disengaged that he let Eric Holder do his own thing?

If you are in the CIA, Quit!

CYA. Clean your desk. Update your CV and leave behind an ungrateful government led by a community organizer from Chicago. Get out of Dodge and let the Democrats and Left start doing some creative writing to explain their felonious assault on American security the next time America gets hit by her enemies. Do your duty and quit en masse to wake up action in Americans who can help.

You did your job, a dangerous job in dreadful times for people that do not have enough courage to object to this coming charade. False sympathy for terrorists and sanctimonious pronouncements from the loathing left are your present and future. The crusade has begun, and the Holderites will be supported by the non-intellectual slugs that lard the American electorate. The sanctum sanctorum of American Intelligence will be trashed and defaced.

Thank you for your service. Have a nice day.

One of the previously knifed by the Democrats and the left