'Broad Doctrinal Shift' Expected at DOJ as Eric Holder is OK'd as AG
In an expected confirmation, the U.S. Senate has confirmed Eric H. Holder Jr. as the nation’s first African-American attorney general.
“Though debate quickly turned partisan when his chief supporter denounced Republicans who sought a pledge not to prosecute intelligence agents who participated in harsh interrogations, the Senate still confirmed Holder as expected,” reports the Associated Press.
Holder’s confirmation, by a 75-21 vote, is expected to lead to significant changes in the U.S. Department of Justice. The new AG “has vowed to take the Justice Department in a vastly different direction than his Bush administration predecessors,” recounts ABC News.
During an earlier confirmation hearing Holder disavowed waterboarding as torture, said that the DOJ needs to be run independent of political considerations and supported the closing of the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, that has been used to hold terrorism suspects for lengthy periods without trial.
“Many of us cannot wait for the changes,” an unnamed career lawyer in the DOJ’s civil rights division tells the New York Times, in an article written prior to Holder’s confirmation that predicts a “broad doctrinal shift” under Holder and President Barack Obama.
The anonymous DOJ lawyer says the division expects a renewed emphasis on its historic role of enforcing laws against racial and ethnic discrimination. Under former President George. W. Bush, “the division significantly diminished its involvement in those areas and shifted resources to fighting instances of religious discrimination,” as the Times puts it.
