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Should the pardon of Marc Rich hold up Eric Holder's Senate confirmation?

Ahead of his confirmation hearings, Eric Holder's role in the 2001 pardoning of Marc Rich has brought allegations of abuses of power at the Justice Dept back under media scrutiny.

Posted by brownlu • Read more • Permalink

26 Quotes



Yes

Michael Goldfarb
Blogger, The Weekly Standard

“Holder facilitated a pardon for a Democratic fundraiser/fugitive from justice. [His] decision to support that pardon marked a serious failure of judgment.”


Eric Liu

“Absolutely, since the last eight years of malfeasance, subversion of the Constitution, political strongarming and incompetence at the Department of Justice, as well as the question of Eric Holder's plans for detoxifying the role of Attorney General, are just not that important by comparison.”


Drew Westen
Political Psychologist / Neuroscientist

“The Senate should ask him much tougher questions about what he will do to rid the Justice Department of a generation of unqualified political appointees with mail-order degrees than about one decision eight years ago. We need to return to competent, honest government, not political theatre.”


Lamar Smith
Representative, TX

“Marc Rich was a fugitive for nearly two decades, wanted by the federal government for fraud and tax evasion. If a Republican official had engaged in this kind of activity, he would never receive Senate confirmation.”


Jeff Emanuel
US Veteran / Freelance Journalist

“Eric Holder's apparently deeper-than-previously-revealed involvement in the Clinton pardon of Marc Rich is an extremely relevant factor in the question of whether or not he can be trusted with the office of Attorney General. ”


Richard Cohen

“Holder was involved, passively or not, in just the sort of inside-the-Beltway influence peddling that Barack Obama was elected to end. He is not one of Obama's loathed lobbyists; he was merely their instrument...Maybe he deserves an administration job, just not the one he's getting. ”


George Lardner Jr.

“Mr. Holder never came close to meeting that standard. He had the last word at Justice on clemency petitions and he saw to it that he had the only word. He brokered one of the most unjustifiable pardons that an American president has ever granted.”


David Nalle

“At the end of the Clinton administration, he even promoted Clinton's pardons for 16 FALN terrorists and politically connected megacriminal Mark Rich. Hard though it is to believe, these are just footnotes; there are much worse things on his record.”


Bradley A. Blakeman
Republican Strategist

“Holder should be properly questioned as to his role in the Rich pardon as the Department of Justice’s point person for it.”


Ron Bonjean

“The Marc Rich pardon should be a top issue at Eric Holder’s confirmation hearings. It calls for questions about whether Holder was beholden to the power of money and influence within the Democratic Party. The answers that Holder gives should clarify what kind of values he would espouse”


Julian E. Zelizer
Professor of Public Affairs, Princeton

“Democrats need to bring up the issue. For many years now, Democrats have been criticizing the Bush administration for being aggressive, if not abusive, in the use of executive power. ”


Pejman Yousefzadeh
Blogger

“I have said before that Eric Holder is a bad choice for Attorney General and today's story in the New York Times only confirms my worries.”


Rick Beyer

“It absolutely must be aired out thoroughly. And that means not hearing “I don’t recall,” or “I have no memory of that.” Anything else will smell of the previous AG’s apparent disdain for the law, due process, ethics, etc.”


No

Sylvia L. Lovely

“The detail of Eric Holder’s involvement with the pardoning of Marc Rich is of little import to Main Street America. It can best be described as “inside baseball” left to media pundits and those who would prefer to “polish the deck furniture on the Titanic.””


Larry Thompson

“There’s no way you can have a high-profile job in Washington like the deputy attorney general without attracting some kind of controversy. That matter has been fully investigated, and it should be put behind him.”


Steven G. Calabresi
Academic

“...Unless some new and dramatic information emerges, I think Holder deserves to be easily confirmed. The country would be well served by having an experienced, bright, former prosecutor as our first African American Attorney General.”


Margaret Kimberly

“Holder did nothing to stop the Rich pardon, a pardon that was both without merit and illegal because Rich had renounced his American citizenship. Holder should not be blamed too much, because the forces that sought the pardon were far bigger than he was. Holder could not have taken them on.”


David Biespiel
Poet

“Of course not. And if the Holder hearings are held the same time as the Clinton hearings, then no one will pay much attention anyway. She'll suck all the media air out of the room.”


Rev. Al Sharpton

“I think that in the Marc Rich case, Mr. Holder has publicly stated where there was there. I think what they are going to find challenging is that Mr. Holder was not the attorney general, Janet Reno was.”


Christine Pelosi
Activist

“The 'big issues" in Eric Holder's confirmation hearing will be his ability to keep the American people safe and his ability to manage our law enforcement agencies with the confidence of everyone from the bureaucrats to the beat cops.”


Lanny Davis
Lawyer

“Anyone trying to make the Marc Rich pardon incident as a reason not to confirm Mr. Holder is wrong, unfair, and in my opinion, will regret doing so. I am confident he will be confirmed by a large margin and will prove to be a great U.S. Attorney General.”


Celinda Lake
Strategist

“Not at all. He already came right out and said it was a mistake and he didn't pay attention. I wish more people were that straightforward. His record speaks to his integrity.”


Maybe

Arlen Specter
Senator (D-PA)

“It is an issue that has to be inquired into. Rich was a fugitive. They did not follow regular order. And we’ll want to know in some detail as to what to Mr. Holder had to do with that.”


Grover Norquist
Lobbyist

“We won't know if Eric Holder's role in the Clinton pardons is "big" or "little" until we have complete transparency of all communications with Marc Rich and his lawyers and surrogate contributors and all White House and Justice folks. Then we will know if this is "big" or "little"”


Ross Baker
Academic

“Holder's strongest argument is that he committed a sin of omission. That's not enough to scupper the nomination but he needs the confirmation process to give him a clean bill of health and remove the cloud.”


General Comments

Sean Hannity
TV pundit

“Well, we also know that, in fact, Holder reviewed in the case of Marc Rich, a guy that renounced his citizenship, a guy that was dealing arms to Iran during the Iranian hostage crisis, that he reviewed the last minute pardon of Marc Rich. ”


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