WASHINGTON — The Senate Judiciary Committee announced Tuesday that it is delaying the confirmation hearing for President-elect Barack Obama’s nominee for attorney general, Eric Holder, by about a week, scheduling it for Jan. 15 and giving Republicans more time to parse Holder’s record.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the committee’s chairman, said in a statement that the delay is to “accommodate the Republicans” and added: “It is disappointing to me that they are insisting that we delay at a time when the nation needs its top law enforcement officer and national security team in place and working.”
Senate Republicans want to question Holder on his role in then-President Bill Clinton’s 2001 pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich. Rich’s wife had made large donations to the Democratic Party and the Clinton Library.
Rich fled the United States in 1983 to live in Switzerland while being prosecuted on charges of tax evasion and illegally making oil deals with Iran during the hostage crisis.
The Washington Post
