Clinton, Eric Holder, Marc Rich

Evidence that AG-nominee Eric Holder lied to Senate Judiciary Committee

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Andrew McCarthy writes today in the National Review Online:

To summarize: In 1995, when he was an ambitious U.S. attorney in Washington, Eric Holder knew exactly who Marc Rich was. He was sufficiently outraged by Rich’s conduct that he had his office sue a Rich-controlled company that had duped the government into awarding it a lucrative contract while Rich remained a fugitive from justice. Holder then publicly filed a complaint which unmasked Rich’s duplicity in detail. Furthermore, Holder took credit in the press for inducing Rich’s company to pay Uncle Sam a $1.2 million settlement and to concede that it should have acknowledged “Rich’s substantial indirect ownership.”

Then in 1999, when he was deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration, Holder was approached to help Rich by Jack Quinn, Rich’s attorney and a confidant of Al Gore, who was at that time running for president. Holder was hopeful that Quinn would recommend him for attorney general in a Gore administration. Abandoning the approach he’d had his subordinates take with Rich in 1995, Holder in 1999 decided Rich wasn’t so bad after all. He tried to persuade the U.S. attorney in New York to meet with Quinn to discuss settling the fugitive’s case without jail time. When that didn’t work, he helped Quinn obtain a pardon for Rich—running interference so that prosecutors would not learn a pardon was under consideration—and conveyed to President Clinton that, as DOJ’s top spokesman, he favored clemency. (As he slyly phrased it, he was “neutral leaning in favor.”)

Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Iran, Pakistan, Syria, Taliban

President Obama extends a hand towards many clenched fists

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I note that many editorials in newspapers this morning quote from or allude to one paragraph of President Barack Obama’s inaugural speech:

“To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society’s ills on the West: Know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.” [emphasis added mine]

President Obama intentionally lumped together “the Muslim world” with “leaders … who seek to sow conflict” and “the silencing of dissent.” Editors and commentators believing that he can convince the 57 Muslim nations to become less autocratic seems the epitome of naiveté; within them, secular democracy is the wrong side of history, immodest, and threatening.

Pakistan, Lebanon, Indonesia, and Egypt all allow dissent and Islamic radicalism continues to rise in those nations. There are no signs that dissidents here in America mistakenly believe he was redressing petro-rich Arab nations for using vasts sums to support the spread of sharia law. If he was appealing to dissidents in Afghanistan’s Hindu Kush and Pakistan’s tribal areas, they have already replied:

The Taliban on Tuesday killed four Pakistanis and two Afghan nationals they accused of spying for the US in North Waziristan. The bodies of three Pakistanis – Muhammad Nisar, Shahideen Khattak, Shadar – and Khanu Afghani, an Afghan refugee, were found on Tehsil Road, 25 kilometres from Mir Ali. Meanwhile, the bodies of Gul Zali, an Afghan national, and Majeed Khattak, a local, were found in Miranshah. A not [sic] found next to the bodies read that the bodies were “a gift for US President Barack Obama, Afghan President Karzai and President Asif Ali Zardari”.

Most likely, President Obama was offering his hand — with preconditions — to Iran and Syria where gathering radicals together and exporting them in the form of Islamic terrorism is foreign policy. If he unilaterally removes the military option from the table, it will be interesting to see how those nations respond.