Posted on 01/09/2011 4:12:40 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
An embattled former Obama administration appointee -- who was part of a group of attorneys accused of being terrorist sympathizers for defending "enemy combatants" -- has been hired for a post at the US Attorney's Office in Brooklyn, officials confirmed today.
Tali Farhadian was one of several private attorneys who created a rift between Republicans last spring when the Obama Administration assigned them to posts within the Justice Department.
Although Farhadian was handling unrelated matters in Attorney General Eric Holder's office, a political watchdog group accused Obama of overloading the agency with officials sympathetic to enemy combatants.
Their appointments even prompted Liz Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, to dub them the "al Qaeda Seven."
Those siding with Cheney included prominent neo-conservative William Kristol. Other Republicans, including Sen. Lindsay Graham (SC) and former U.S. Solicitor General Kenneth W. Starr, engaged in a vigorous debate to defend the attorneys, saying the Constitution mandates that all defendants receive legal counsel.
Farhadian, 35, served as counsel to Holder until her departure in June. Before joining Holder's office, Farhadian worked on a team at a law firm that wrote legal briefs for two organizations, Human Rights Watch and Human Rights First, which were representing Ali Saleh Kahlah Al-Marri. The Qatari student, who had been designated an enemy combatant, was to stand trial later on fraud charges in Illinois....
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
I’ve come to expect nothing less from the WH. I am becoming desensitized from the constant stream of appointees that elicit the wtf? response from me. If they didn’t appoint anti-American scum, that would be news!
To save my blood pressure, my monitor and tv screen, I have to say that these types were duly elected by a free? people, so all I can hope for is that we can just roll out the list of anti-American posts, czars, policies, Pelosi/Reid congressional actions, nationalization of whole industries, etc., etc., and that these travesties and the injustice and usurpation of power will speak for themselves (sort of like the Beck strategy) where they are permitted to hang themselves and we just hand them the rope.
You’re too kind.
Tali Farhadian was one of several private attorneys who created a rift between Republicans last spring when the Obama Administration assigned them to posts within the Justice Department. Although Farhadian was handling unrelated matters in Attorney General Eric Holder's office, a political watchdog group accused Obama of overloading the agency with officials sympathetic to enemy combatants.Thanks 2ndDivisionVet.
Holder guessed the Times Square SUV bomber, Shazad, was upset by foreclosure proceedings on his house. Mortgage-related issues-----nothing to do with months of training at a Taliban camp in Waziristan.
Interesting that Holder can't see the hand of "radical Islam" in attacks on American soil but quickly concluded, without ever reading the bill, that Arizona's immigration law was dangerous, and, "might lead to racial profiling."
Holder repeatedly fanned the flames of racial and ethnic tension----the exact opposite of what Americans should expect from the nation's chief law enforcement officer.
Most despicable of all; immediately after Obama appointed Holder to the top job, Holder held a news conference and called America "a nation of cowards," WRT racial issues.
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March 15, 2010
Eric Holder: The Most Imbecilic, Politicized Attorney General in Decades
Flopping Aces.net
FR Posted by Starman417
EXCERPT He actually makes Nixon Attorney General John Mitchell look good by comparison! The Attorney General of the United States is the nation's top law enforcement officer. His job description does not include, and in many ways specifically forbids any overtly political action. But Obama's A.G. Holder mixes politics with a new low of imbecility not seen in the office. Here's the latest: [VIDEO AT SITE]
WHO IS MARC RICH? Rich, 66, was charged in 1982 with the largest tax-evasion scheme in US history, having evaded more than $48 million in income taxes. In 1983 Rich was indicted on 51 additional counts of racketeering and wire fraud. Rich's accomplice, Pincus Green won a presidential pardon, too. Rich also violated the US Trading with the Enemy Act by conducting business with Iran, even as US embassy staff were being held hostage.
In 1983, Rich fled to Switzerland, never serving a day in jail. After fleeing the United States, Rich renounced his American citizenship, became an Israeli citizen and a major benefactor of Jewish charitable organizations, giving nearly $80 million to Israeli hospitals, museums, orchestras, and universities. Rich later moved to Switzerland....and lives there today, insofar as we know.
This is the man to whom the exiting Clinton gave a midnight pardon, with the energetic assistance of Eric Holder.
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IN DEPTH REPORT----filed November 23, 2008
Eric Holder Advocated the Marc Rich Special Treatment for Over a Year
EXCERPTED FROM James Bamford, Author of "The Shadow Factory" (the CIA)
Then-Asst Us Atty Eric Holder arranged for Marc Rich to bypass the Pardon Attorney and never told the US Attorney for Southern District of NY that there was a pardon application in the air.
Under the rules governing pardon petitions — rules that were approved by Mr. Holder’s office — the views of United States attorneys “are given considerable weight” because of the “valuable insights” they have. And yet Mr. Holder did not consult Mary Jo White, the United States attorney in New York and her colleagues about the Rich pardon petition; the latter group did not know of it until it had been granted.
NO ONE TOLD L/E ABOUT THE MARC RICH PARDON APPLICATION b/c if the pardon application had gone to the Office of Pardon Attorney as per normal pardon procedure, the Pardon Attorney would have, as per written procedure, solicited the opinion of the US Attorney's Office which originated the case.
The people in the United States attorney’s office in New York weren’t the only ones surprised by Mr. Holder’s decision. Deborah Smolover, his top deputy for pardon cases, did not find out about the pardon for Mr. Rich until the White House called to inform her of it after midnight on Jan. 20. (Mark Rich's accomplice, Mr. Pincus Green, also won a Clinton pardon).
(POSTER'S NOTE Mr Holder was extremely thorough---leading one to conclude that the payback to Mr Holder must have been considerable.)
After the pardon was signed, Mr. Quinn has testified, Mr. Holder called him to commend him on “a very good job.” Mr. Holder also asked Mr. Quinn to consider hiring two former aides, one of whom had already contacted Mr. Quinn on Jan. 2 “at Holder’s suggestion.” Go read the NYTimes piece. It's quite the smackdown of Ms. Townsend's fairy tale version.
How Eric Holder came to OK the Marc Rich pardon. Holder "got a last-minute phone call" from the Clinton White House to vet Rich. Via the Foley Square grapevine, the buzz was that Holder had deliberately hidden the pardon application from US Attorney's Office---So District of NY--- so they would not have an opportunity to protest. That's how far Holder's advocacy on behalf of Marc Rich actually went, when he was supposed to be working on behalf of the American people, .
A NY Times OpEd piece reported an extraordinarily well researched history of the Holder involvement in trying to get extra special treatment for Marc Rich. In 1999, Mr. Rich hired Jack Quinn, who had been Mr. Clinton’s White House counsel from 1995 to 1996, to help him advance his cause. The Rich team was still hoping to strike a deal with federal prosecutors in New York, who were in charge of the case. An e-mail message to Mr. Rich from one of his New York lawyers said that Mr. Quinn felt “he could convince Eric that it made sense to listen to the professors and that he could convince Eric to encourage Mary Jo to do the same.”
The “professors” were two tax experts paid more than $96,000 for a study based solely on statements provided them by the Rich legal team; “Mary Jo” was Mary Jo White, the United States attorney in New York.
Holder reportedly told Rich's attoney JackQuinn that SDNY's position was ridiculous--an interesting comment coming from within the Justice Department, to say the least. Mr. Holder told Mr. Quinn to write a letter to Ms. White with a copy to him, and promised to call her when it arrived. Mr. Holder then called Ms. White personally and, after that conversation, told Mr. Quinn she “didn’t sound like her guard was up.” But New York stood firm. New York's position was consistent with the written guidelines on pardons which do not allow pardons for people while they remain fugitives.
On Nov. 18, 2000, Mr. Quinn told Mr. Holder that Mr. Rich was going to go for a pardon, a step his team had been contemplating for months. After the conversation, Mr. Quinn told colleagues that Mr. Holder had advised him to “go straight to” the White House and that the “timing is good.”
Go directly to the White House? Bypass the DOJ Office of Pardon Attorney? “The greatest danger lies with the lawyers,” Rich's attorney Mr. Quinn wrote in an e-mail message to an aide to Mr. Rich, referring to the prosecutors in New York. “I have worked them hard and I am hopeful that E. Holder will be helpful to us.”
Well it turns out that the prosecutors in NY never got a chance to be a danger.
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