Holder gets Senate approval

WASHINGTON - The Senate yesterday confirmed Eric H. Holder Jr. as the nation's first African American attorney general.

Senators voted 75-21 to approve him, turning the page for a Justice Department that during the Bush adminisration was accused of allowing improper political influence over decisions and criticized for policies approving harsh interrogation practices.

All area senators voted in favor of Holder.

"This confirmation is going to do a great deal to restore the morale and the purpose throughout the department," Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D., Vt.), the Judiciary Committee chairman, said.

The vote came four days after Holder, 58, overcame concerns by a small but vocal group of GOP lawmakers over his positions on national security and gun rights, as well as his recommendations in clemency decisions by President Bill Clinton.

Holder's advocates marshaled support from federal and state law-enforcement groups as well as a bipartisan coalition of former Justice Department leaders, including onetime Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey, FBI Director Louis Freeh and Bush national security adviser Frances Fragos Townsend.

By all accounts, Holder is among the most credentialed lawyers ever to become attorney general.

He began his career as a public-corruption prosecutor in Pennsylvania before serving as U.S. Attorney in the District of Columbia and as a Superior Court judge. He later operated as second in command at the Justice Department during the later years of the Clinton Administration.

But his service in the Clinton years invited criticism from GOP lawmakers, who also questioned his approach to hot-button terrorism policies.

At a grueling, seven-hour hearing last month, Holder labeled the simulated-drowning technique called waterboarding "torture."

Holder said he would look askance at efforts to "criminalize policy differences" but did not conclusively rule out prosecution of Bush administration officials for their involvement in detainee questioning and warrantless surveillance operations.

That issue emerged as a pivot point for conservatives such as Sen. John Cornyn (R., Texas), who opposed Holder.

"I worry about Mr. Holder's shifting opinions, and about the effect it will have on intelligence officials," Cornyn said.

Another nay vote came from Sen. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.). Coburn said Holder's recommendation of "neutral leaning toward favorable" in the last-minute 2001 pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich showed lack of independence and "should disqualify him from higher office."

Cornyn and Coburn also said Holder was hostile to gun rights. Holder has said some curbs on guns could be legal despite a Supreme Court ruling affirming the right to keep guns at home for self-defense.

A significant number of Republicans backed Holder, along with all of the Democrats who voted.

From day one Holder will have a full plate of work.

President Obama already has put the attorney general in charge of a task force deliberating where to send nearly 250 terrorism suspects detained at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, once it is closed.

Holder also will play a critical role in developing new legal guidelines for interrogation practices.