Salon.com > Attorney General

Justice Department to investigate IRS

Wed, 15 May 2013 11:57:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department is opening a criminal investigation of the Internal Revenue Service just as another probe concludes that lax management enabled agents to improperly target tea party groups for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax exempt status.

Attorney General Eric Holder said he ordered the FBI to investigate Friday — the day the IRS publicly acknowledged that it had singled out conservative groups.

"Those (actions) were, I think, as everyone can agree, if not criminal, they were certainly outrageous and unacceptable," Holder said. "But we are examining the facts to see if there were criminal violations."

Holder is scheduled to testify Wednesday before the House Judiciary Committee.

Three congressional committees already are investigating the IRS for singling out tea party and other conservative groups during the 2010 congressional elections and the 2012 presidential election. But Holder's announcement would take the matter to another level if investigators are able to prove that laws were broken.

Government secretly obtains months of AP phone records

Mon, 13 May 2013 20:37:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative's top executive called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather the news.

The records obtained by the Justice Department listed incoming and outgoing calls, and the duration of each call, for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and the main number for AP reporters in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP.

In all, the government seized those records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012. The exact number of journalists who used the phone lines during that period is unknown but more than 100 journalists work in the offices whose phone records were targeted on a wide array of stories about government and other matters.

In a letter of protest sent to Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday, AP President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt said the government sought and obtained information far beyond anything that could be justified by any specific investigation. He demanded the return of the phone records and destruction of all copies.

How to talk about a woman’s looks

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 11:45:00 +0000

There were, perhaps, stupider things said recently than “How did it become so difficult to call a woman good-looking in public?” but I didn't happen to hear them. So congratulations, Dylan Byers of Politico. Your commentary on the president calling California Attorney General Kamala Harris “by far, the best looking attorney general" made my brain hurt.

It is not "difficult to call a woman good-looking in public," not in a world where women's looks are considered public property, to be commented on, uninvited, whether it's on the street, in a job interview, or in the press. Many people find it quite easy to do, many of them men, and many people who should know better, like Barack Obama.

This is hardly the first time Obama has been smarmily sexist under the guise of paying a compliment. In the same New York magazine story on Christine Quinn in which Mayor Michael Bloomberg was notoriously quoted saying, "Look at the ass on her," Obama got a pass for a more politely phrased brand of creepiness. According to the piece, Obama said to a Republican legislator, 32-year-old Nicole Malliotakis, that she didn't look a day over 23. Quinn promptly joked that Malliotakis should become a Democrat, and the president chimed in, “Come on, honey! I said you’re pretty! I said you look 23!”

White House: Obama would not use drones on U.S. soil

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 21:15:00 +0000

Two messages came from the White House today intended to assuage concerns about the president's authority to kill Americans with drones on U.S. soil -- which, the attorney general wrote this week, is hypothetical but technically sanctioned.

Following Rand Paul's 13-hour filibuster of John Brennan's CIA directorship confirmation over this issue, Eric Holder followed up with another letter to Paul. Only two sentences long, the missive read, "It has come to my attention that you have asked an additional question: 'Does the president have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil?' The answer that question is no."

Paul has said he is "quite happy" with this message and ended his objection to moving ahead with the nomination of John Brennan -- who was confirmed by a Senate vote as CIA director Thursday.

Yes, the president can kill Americans on U.S. soil

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 21:30:00 +0000

Just so we're all clear -- and mainly just so Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., will stand down on his threat to block John Brennan's confirmation -- Attorney General Eric Holder has confirmed in writing that the president can kill U.S. citizens in a drone strike on U.S. soil, in "an extraordinary circumstance."

In a Google+ Hangout last month, President Obama refused to answer whether or not he had the authority to use lethal force on Americans inside the borders. And John Brennan has said that the CIA does not "have any authority" to carry out lethal strikes on U.S. soil. But Paul had threatened to block Brennan's nomination "until he answers the question of whether or not the President can kill American citizens through the drone strike program on U.S. soil."

Holder thus wrote to the senator with a more expansive answer Tuesday (h/t Mother Jones):

5 reasons the feds shouldn’t crack down on pot

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 15:10:00 +0000

On Election Day, Washington State and Colorado became the first two states in the country -- and indeed the first political jurisdictions anywhere in the world -- to approve legally regulating marijuana like alcohol.

It would be a mistake to call these ballot initiative victories "pro-pot." Most of those who voted in favor don't use marijuana; indeed many don't like it at all and have never used it. What moved them was the realization that it made more sense to regulate, tax and control marijuana than to keep wasting money and resources trying to enforce an unenforceable prohibition.

Whether or not the two state governments move forward with regulating marijuana like alcohol will depend on two things: how the Obama administration, federal prosecutors and police agencies respond; and the extent to which the states' senior elected officials commit to implementing the will of the people. The fact that federal laws explicitly criminalize marijuana transactions, and that the federal government can continue to enforce those laws, means that federal authorities could effectively block the initiatives from being fully implemented. But there are also good reasons why the Obama administration should, and may, allow state governments to proceed as voters have demanded.