GOP blocks Top Obama Nominee at Justice Department

Obama’s nominee to be Attorney General Eric Holder’s top deputy at the Justice Department crashed into a Republican roadblock in the U.S. Senate on Monday, garnering just 50 votes, 10 short of the number needed to break a GOP-led filibuster. Dick Lugar of Indiana was the only Republican to give his support. At the last moment, Sen Harry Reid switched his vote to no, to have the matter come up for reconsideration later on.

Veteran Washington attorney, James Cole was nominated this May, had been serving in the position since late December courtesy of a presidential recess appointment, one that expires at the end of the current session of Congress. And despite the bipartisan support of eight former attorneys general, Republicans remained steadfast in their opposition, though nothing about Monday night’s vote changes Cole’s temporary job status.

But his nomination brings concern over Cole’s tenure as an independent consultant to insurance industry giant AIG prior to the company’s near-collapse in 2008 and its subsequent government bailout, but Republicans also voiced strong concern about what they believe to be his soft-on-terrorism stance. Fox News

Republican senators repeatedly referred to an op-ed the nominee penned in 2002 in the Legal Times in which Cole referred to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks as “criminal acts of terrorism against a civilian population,” and included the attacks in the same vein as “many other devastating crimes” like rape, drug trade, organized crime, and child abuse.

Fox News

At a Judiciary Committee hearing last year, Cole also said that each terrorist case should be made on a case-by-case basis, not ruling out military commissions for some. The Obama administration has since said it will try the alleged 9/11 terrorists imprisoned at the Guantanamo facility in military commissions. Sen. Charles Grassley, top Republican on the Judiciary Committee and primary opponent of the nomination, read out a laundry list Monday of his concerns about the nominee, including his AIG stint, which the senator called “troubling,” and Cole’s position on captured terrorists.

Another top Republican on the Intelligence Committee, Saxby Chambliss has also led the fight against Cole.

Still others voiced fear about what they see as a growing trend at DOJ.

“I’m not voting for another nominee, and I’m not going to vote for this one, who spent their time defending terrorists,” Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., proclaimed, citing “a tilt in the leadership of the department” that the senator said gives him “great concern” that the department is “getting off base.”

Fox News

Cole previously served in the Justice Department for more than a dozen years before heading into private practice in 1992. He also served on former President Bill Clinton’s transition team in 1992.