Posts by Kate Klonick

If President Obama is drafting an executive order to close Guantanamo Bay, and he has already filed a motion to halt military commission trials, does that make fired U.S. Attorney David Iglesias’ new gig as a Gitmo prosecutor irrelevant?
If the Gitmo prosecutions get moved from military jurisdiction to federal courts, it would seem that Iglesias’ [...]

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s meeting to vote to send Attorney General-nominee Eric Holder’s confirmation to the full Senate is back on.
Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) has rescheduled the meeting for 2:30 p.m. The meeting was postponed due to a conflict with a prayer service at the National Cathedral.
We’ll be bringing you updates as it happens.

The meeting to vote on whether to confirm Eric Holder as attorney general, which was supposed to be held this morning, has been postponed. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) has not set a new date yet.
As we said last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee is likely to support Holder’s nomination, particularly with both Sen. Orrin [...]

Now that Attorney General-nominee Eric Holder’s confirmation hearings have more or less wrapped up (he still has to answer some questions in writing to a few members of the minority), Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) has scheduled a vote Wednesday to send the nomination to the full Senate, the day after President-elect Barack Obama’s [...]

Since former (man, it feels good to type that) Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) was convicted on seven felony corruption charges, there have been some serious twists in the case against the 85-year-old man known as “Uncle Ted” to Alaskans.
Just a few weeks ago, a whistleblower came forward reporting that the Justice Department had “intentionally schemed” [...]

The second day of Attorney General-nominee Eric Holder’s confirmation hearings began today, featuring a large panel of witnesses to speak to Holder’s qualifications for the post.
Witnesses supporting Holder’s confirmation include: Louis Freeh, the former FBI director; Chuck Canterbury, the president of the National Fraternal Order of Police; John Payton, president of the NAACP Legal Defense [...]

The confirmation hearings for Eric Holder to attorney general certainly weren’t as acrimonious as many predicted they’d be.
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Penn.), who made a kerfuffle over the Marc Rich and FALN pardons prior to the hearing, only touched briefly on Rich in his first round of questioning. And while FALN came up in a number [...]

Is Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kans.) really talking about protecting fetuses under the Americans with Disabilities Act right now?
Really?
Someone has already started running for governor in 2010.
___
A special thanks to Matt Berman for his awesome help researching and transcribing the hearings today.

Earlier today, Eric Holder called waterboarding out-and-out torture. But later, when asked about other kinds of interrogation techniques (dogs, painful stress positions, nudity, and mock executions), he said he wouldn’t call those actions torture.
Instead, he refreshingly reminds the committee that Common Article III of the Geneva Conventions requires that the detainees be treated in a [...]

Although Eric Holder has been careful not to say he made a mistake in recommending a pardon for the members of FALN, a Puerto Rican paramilitary group regarded by many as a terrorist organization, he’s used some pretty interesting terminology to walk around it.