All Blog Posts from Political Hotsheet

Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions said Sunday that he believes it is not necessary to appoint a special criminal prosecutor to investigate the Bush administration's interrogation policies.

Though President Obama has spoken against such an investigation, Attorney General Eric Holder is reportedly seriously considering making the appointment.

"We've had probably in my committees, Judiciary and Armed Services, thirty or more hearings on this," Sessions told CBS News Chief Washington Correspondent Bob Schieffer on "Face the Nation". "The Intelligence Committee has had great numbers of hearings and written reports on it. The military has done a series of independent reports. And I believe that that's sufficient. I don't believe a special commission is necessary.

"We were facing some real challenges, and our people tried to do the best they could," explained Sessions. "And I don't think I see the evidence yet to justify any prosecutions."

Vermont's Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy told Schieffer that while he prefers a commission of inquiry, he is "not going to interfere with a special prosecutor."

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Seeking to calm fears that al Qaeda terrorists could be set free on U.S. soil, Attorney General Eric Holder pledged today that prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay prison facility would not be released in the United States.

"We would not bring them into this country and release them," Holder said.

The Obama administration promises to close the detainment center in just eight months. Holder did not rule out some of detainees being brought to the United States for trial.

The possibility of terrorists coming to America has been met with "Not in My Backyard" objections from members of both major political parties.

Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL) asked CBS News this question: "Do you know of any community in the United States of America that would welcome terrorists?"

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Arizona Sen. John McCain suggested today that the push to investigate and possibly prosecute Bush administration officials who crafted the legal basis for the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques," such as waterboarding, may have grown from a desire to "settle old political scores."

Appearing on CBS’ Face The Nation Sunday, the former Republican presidential nominee — who was himself tortured as a prisoner of the North Vietnamese — said, "Are you going to prosecute people for giving bad legal advice?" He suggested that Washington should ignore calls to investigate who was behind government lawyers writing memos which gave legal cover to the use of torture on detainees.

"We need to put this behind us," he told host Bob Schieffer. "We need to move forward. … We need a united nation, not a divided one."

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Believe it or not, this is precisely the way the Founding Fathers envisioned how the Constitution could work. Pressure from the judicial branch (a pending deadline to file a substantive brief) and the legislative branch (Congressional subpoenas to Bush officials) forced the White House into compromising over the scope of executive privilege in the U.S. Attorney matter. It’s a win-win-win, Steve Carell would say.

Or, you can look at it another way. The deal that finally delivers Karl Rove and Harriet Miers into Rep. John Conyers Congressional den of inquiry came about because neither the Obama Administration, nor the Congress, wanted to risk creating “bad” legal precedent about the scope of the privilege—federal law that might be political convenient now, but which could hinder future administrations (or even this one, a few years down the road).

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Former Bush aides Karl Rove and Harriet Miers have agreed to testify before Congress under oath concerning the firings of U.S. attorneys, allegedly for political reasons, during the Bush administration.

The two will testify before the House Judiciary Committee in transcribed depositions. They may or may not be called for public testimony.

The White House Counsel’s office played an active role in bringing the parties together towards an accommodation, an official told CBS News White House Correspondent Mark Knoller.

UPDATE: Rove said Thursday morning that some Democrats would like to see him "barbecued." (Read more.)

Knoller reports that the key to the agreement was that the Obama White House stopped short of acknowledging that "executive privilege" still applied to Rove and Miers -- though the House Judiciary statement says "it was agreed that invocations of official privileges would be significantly limited."

Before President Bush left office, his counsel Fred Fielding instructed Rove that he was bound by executive privilege and could not testify.

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The Obama White House is not challenging whether a valid claim of “executive privilege” can keep former presidential advisor Karl Rove from testifying in the matter of the U.S. Attorney firings during the Bush Administration.

In a statement provided to CBS News, White House Counsel Gregory Craig says Pres. Obama is “very sympathetic to those who want to find out what happened.”

But at the same time, Craig makes it clear that Mr. Obama is not disputing the claim of privilege.

“He is also mindful as president of the United States not to do anything that would undermine or weaken the institution of the presidency,” Craig says in the statement.

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The Senate Judiciary Committee has approved Attorney General nominee Eric Holder on a 17 to 2 vote.

Two Republicans voted against Holder in the committee today – Sen. John Cornyn of Texas and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma. Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the ranking Republican on the panel, announced yesterday he would vote in favor of Holder.

Holder, a former No. 2 official at the Justice Department during the Clinton administration, has come under fire from some for his role in Bill Clinton's end-of-term pardons and whether intelligence agents who participated in harsh interrogations might be prosecuted.

The nomination now goes forward to the full Senate floor for a vote. It now appears likely he will be confirmed, but the timing of that vote is not yet known.

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The Senate Judiciary Committee is holding up the confirmation of Eric Holder as attorney general for a week at the request of comittee Republicans.

The committee was originally scheduled to vote on Holder's nomination today, but Republicans asked that it be held while they learn more about Holder's views on interrogation techniques and possible prosecutions of U.S. personnel.

WASHINGTON -- The afternoon session at the nomination hearing for Attorney General-designee Eric Holder, Jr. ebbed more than it flowed. The passion and intensity and drama that marked the morning session were clearly gone from the historic room.

Several of the Republican senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee tried to pin the nominee down on a number of decidedly B-List topics. For example, Sen Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) made it clear that he wants the new Justice Department to support gun rights and the recent Supreme Court decision in Heller v. DC as vigorously as the old one did.

Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) made it clear that he doesn’t want any of the Guantanamo Bay detainees in his backyard at Leavenworth prison.

And Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) tried to finagle his way into getting an answer from Holder on a law-school-qua-Jack-Bauer hypothetical about water-boarding and a bomb. Holder didn’t take the bait—he’s no Jack Bauer.

None of these sideshow issues are going to materially impact Holder’s nomination. Even Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the longstanding Committee member with impeccable conservative credentials, expressed his support for Holder’s nomination.

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