Word: holderness
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...past year, Holder and Obama have been navigating one of the more difficult constitutional relationships in American government. On the one hand, the Attorney General is appointed by the President; on the other, he must remain politically independent of the White House. Holder, who as Deputy Attorney General a decade ago approved both the expansion of Ken Starr's investigation of Bill Clinton and Clinton's disastrous pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich, needs no lesson on the pitfalls of his position. But Holder enjoys a personal relationship with Obama that he never had with Clinton - and that makes...
...Reasonable Plan Gone AwryObama and Holder met after Obama was elected to the Senate in 2004; three years later, when Obama launched his bid for the presidency, he tapped Holder to be co-chair of his campaign. Holder co-headed Obama's vice-presidential search in the summer of 2008, and the two have remained close and socialize often. "It's an asset to be close to the President," says Jamie Gorelick, an old friend of Holder's and a former Justice Department official, "and to have a sense of how your actions will align with his judgments." Holder...
...easy to imagine that Holder and Obama, in those private moments, might be a little bewildered - and defensive - about the way their handling of the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed trial has turned out. Obama rejected military tribunals during his presidential campaign and suspended them soon after he took office. By July, Obama had asked Holder to decide whether it was feasible to prosecute KSM in a civilian court. Holder chewed on that question for weeks. Meanwhile, Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, who opposed civilian trials, asked Holder to meet with Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina...
...first it appeared that Holder would carry the day. "I have complete confidence in the American people and our legal traditions and the prosecutors, the tough prosecutors from New York, who specialize in terrorism," Obama said after the announcement. In private he was even more supportive of Holder. When Obama met with Graham in early December, the Senator laid out his case against civilian trials. But the President said he thought Holder had the better side of the argument. "I just agreed to disagree with the President on that issue," Graham told TIME...
Then the failed Christmas bombing attempt on a Detroit-bound airliner gave the GOP an opening. Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani launched a campaign against the trials, saying they could lead to new terrorist attacks against the city, while Republicans on Capitol Hill prepared to kill the Holder plan by simply defunding the civilian proceedings - just as they had defunded any domestic alternative to Guantánamo Bay a year before. On Jan. 27, the dam broke: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg reversed his previous position and said he opposed a trial in Manhattan because it could cost...