Posted by
Defend America on Friday, March 12, 2010 8:36:24 PM
More Holder briefs acknowledged
By
KASIE HUNT |
3/12/10 4:02 PM EST
Attorney General Eric Holder didn’t tell the Senate Judiciary
Committee about seven Supreme Court amicus briefs he prepared or
supported, his office acknowledged in a letter Friday, including two
urging the court to reject the Bush administration’s attempt to try
Jose Padilla as an enemy combatant.
“It has come to our attention that some but not all briefs submitted to
the Supreme Court by or on behalf of Attorney General Holder as
counselor amicus were supplied to the Committee in the course of his
confirmation process last year. We regret the omission,” Assistant
Attorney General Ronald Weich wrote to Senate Judiciary Committee
Chairman Patrick Leahy.
Weich supplied a list of seven briefs that White House lawyers missed
when they prepared Holder’s confirmation questionnaire, in the cases Padilla v. Hanft, Johnson v. Bush, Miller-El v. Dretke, Rumsfeld v. Padilla, Dretke v. Haley, Missouri v. Seibert and McDonald v. United States. Holder was party to the amicus brief in all of the cases except McDonald v. United States, in which he was the lawyer who prepared the brief.
Holder’s questionnaire listed three: D.C. v. Heller, Miller-El v. Cockrell and a different brief in Johnson v. Bush.
The Justice Department was forced to dig up the briefs after former
Bush administration officials Bill Burck and Dana Perino pointed out
the two Padilla briefs in an article in the National Review Online.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34346.html