    [Senate Hearing 111-907]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                                                            S. Hrg. 111-907

                  OVERSIGHT OF THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   before the

                           COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
                              UNITED STATES SENATE

                         ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                               NOVEMBER 18, 2009

                                   __________

                              Serial No. J-111-63

                                   __________

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                           COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                      PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont, Chairman
    HERB KOHL, Wisconsin                 JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama
    DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California         ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah
    RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin       CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa
    ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania          JON KYL, Arizona
    CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York         LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina
    RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois          JOHN CORNYN, Texas
    BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland         TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
    SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island
    AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota
    EDWARD E. KAUFMAN, Delaware
    AL FRANKEN, Minnesota
                Bruce A. Cohen, Chief Counsel and Staff Director
                 Brian A. Benzcowski, Republican Staff Director
                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------

                        STATEMENTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS

                                                                       Page

    Leahy, Hon. Patrick J., a U.S. Senator from the State of Vermont.     1
        prepared statement...........................................   220
    Sessions, Hon. Jeff, a U.S. Senator from the State of Alabama....     3

                                   WITNESSES

    Holder, Eric H., Jr., Attorney General of the United States......     6

                             QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

    Responses of Eric H. Holder to questions submitted by Senators
      Leahy, Feinstein, Feingold, Schumer, Whitehouse, Sessions,
      Hatch, Grassley, Kyl and Coburn................................    71

                           SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

    Department of Defense, Washington, DC, October 7, 2009, letter...   191
    Foundry: http//blog.heritage.org, Ed Meese, article..............   194
    Holder, Eric H., Jr., Attorney General of the United States
        Oral statement...............................................   195
        statement....................................................   198
    mainjustice.com, John Ashcroft, November 23, 2009, article.......   222
    National review Online, Andrew C. McCarthy:
        November 10, 2009, article...................................   223
        November 13, 2009, article...................................   226
        November 16, 2009, article...................................   230
        November 17, 2009, article...................................   233
    9/11 Family Members and New York City Firefighters, November 19,
      2009, joint letter.............................................   236
    Sumner, Tim, Brother-in-law of FDNY Joseph G, Leavey, 45, Ladder
      15, WTC and Debra Burlingame, Sister of Captain Charles F.
      Burlingame III, pilot, American Flt 77, Pentagon, November 9,
      2009, joint letter.............................................   238
    Leahy, Hon. Patrick J., a U.S. Senator from the State of Vermont,
      Hon. Russell D. Feingold, a U.S. Senator from the State of
      Wisconsin, Hon. Al Franken, a U.S. Senator from the State of
      Minnesota, Hon. John F. Kerry, a U.S. Senator from the State of
      Massachusetts and Hon. Benjamin L. Cardin, a U.S. Senator from
      the State of Maryland, joint letter............................   240
    New York Times, John B. Bellinger II, July 18, 2009, article.....   242
    Wyden, Hon. Ron, a U.S. Senator from the State of Oregon, Hon.
      Russell D. Feingold, a U.S. Senator from the State of Wisconsin
      and Hon. Richard Durbin, a U.S. Senator from the State of
      Illinois, joint letter.........................................   245
    Wall Street Journal, WSJ.com:
        April 17, 2009, article......................................   246
        October 19, 2009, article....................................   249
    Washington Post:
        November 6, 2009, article....................................   252
        November 20, 2009, article...................................   255

                  OVERSIGHT OF THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

                                  ----------

                   WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2009
                                           U.S. Senate,
                                    Committee on the Judiciary,
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:37 a.m., in
    room G-50, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Patrick J.
    Leahy, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
        Present: Senators Leahy, Kohl, Feinstein, Feingold,
    Schumer, Durbin, Cardin, Whitehouse, Klobuchar, Kaufman,
    Specter, Franken, Sessions, Hatch, Grassley, Kyl, Graham,
    Cornyn, and Coburn.

    OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. PATRICK J. LEAHY, A U.S. SENATOR FROM
                          THE STATE OF VERMONT

        Chairman Leahy. Good morning, everyone. I would note for
    Senators, this is the first hearing to be held in this room now
    that it has been rebuilt and reconstituted. Those of you who
    have been here a long time know this thing was sort of like the
    dark hole. It was probably the worst place to have to ever have
    a hearing because it was so dark and awful, and now it--and I
    commend the Architect of the Capitol and the Sergeant at Arms
    and everybody else who put this together and have made it
    better.
        Attorney General Holder, welcome. Glad to have you here.
        I commend the Attorney General for moving forward last week
    with plans to proceed on several cases against those who seek
    to terrorize the United States. He is using the full range of
    authorities and capabilities available to us. Just as President
    Obama is using our military, diplomatic, legal, law
    enforcement, and moral force to make America safer and more
    secure, the Attorney General is exercising his responsibilities
    in consultation with the Secretary of Defense to determine
    where and how best to seek justice against those who have
    attacked Americans here at home and around the world. And after
    nearly 8 years of delay, we may finally be moving forward to
    bring to justice the perpetrators and murderers from the
    September 11 attacks. I have great confidence in our Attorney
    General, the capability of our prosecutors, our judges, our
    juries, and in the American people in this regard. I support
    the Attorney General's decision to pursue justice against
    Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others accused of plotting the
    September 11 attacks and to go after them in our Federal
    criminal court in New York.
        They committed murder here in the United States, and we
    will seek justice here in the United States. They committed
    crimes of murder in our country, and we will prosecute them in
    our country. We are the most powerful Nation on Earth. We have
    a justice system that is the envy of the world. We will not be
    afraid. We will still go forward, and we will prosecute them.
        War crimes, crimes of terror, and murder can successfully
    be prosecuted in our Federal courts, and we have done it over
    and over and over again. America's response to these acts is
    not to cower in fear, but to show the world that we are strong,
    resilient, and determined. We do not jury-rig secret trials or
    kangaroo courts, as some of our adversaries do. We can rely on
    the American justice system. I urge this Committee and the
    American people to support the Attorney General as this matter
    proceeds and urge the Congress to provide such assistance as
    will be needed, including providing the victims of those events
    the ability to participate. As many surviving family members of
    those killed that day have said, after years of frustration, it
    is time to have justice. And I will work with the Department of
    Justice and our court system as I did in the trial of Timothy
    McVeigh to make sure that there are ways that the victims can
    watch these trials.
        Federal courts have tried more than 100 terrorism cases
    since September 11--more than 100 since September 11. They have
    proved they can handle sensitive classified information,
    security, and other legal issues related to terrorism cases.
    And since the beginning of this year, more than 30 individuals
    charged with terrorism violations have been successfully
    prosecuted or sentenced in Federal courts. The Federal courts
    located in New York City tried and convicted the so-called
    Blind Sheikh for conspiring to bomb New York City landmarks and
    Ramzi Yousef for the first World Trade Center bombing.
        New York was one of the primary targets of the September 11
    attacks. Those who perpetrated the attacks should be tried
    there. They should answer for their brutality and for the
    murder of thousands of innocent Americans. Like Mayor
    Bloomberg, I have full confidence in the capacity of New York,
    and I have full confidence in Commissioner Ray Kelly and the
    finest police officers I have ever known and the New York City
    Police Department.
        The Attorney General personally reviewed these cases and,
    along with Defense Secretary Gates and based on the protocol
    that they announced this summer, determined to use our full
    array of powers by proceeding against the September 11 plotters
    in Federal court. And those charged with the attack on the
    U.S.S. Cole outside this country will be tried before a
    military tribunal, and he determined to go against Major Hasan
    in a court-martial for the deadly attack at Fort Hood just 2
    weeks ago.
        I think the three different venues used for these three
    sets of crimes are appropriate, and I commend you for that.
        The President spoke at Fort Hood last week in a tribute to
    the brave men and women of our armed forces there, and he
    expanded on that matter in his weekly address over the weekend.
    Every Member of Congress--every Member--joins the President and
    the military community in grieving for the victims and their
    families, and we pray for the recovery of those who were
    wounded. Nidal Hasan has been charged with 13 counts of
    premeditated murder. The Army is leading the investigation with
    the support of the FBI, and the President has ordered a review
    of what was known ahead of time, and I think that is
    appropriate.
        And I look forward, as this Committee conducts appropriate
    oversight, to finding out exactly what happened, where steps
    were taken, and especially where steps were not taken. But I
    would caution everybody to do it in a manner that does not
    interfere with the investigation and prosecution of this case.
    We want the prosecutors to be able to go forward with the case
    and not have anything we do interfere with it.
        I have already written to John Brennan, the Assistant to
    the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, on
    behalf of this Committee. I have asked him to provide us the
    results of the internal investigation by the FBI, Army, and
    intelligence agencies that is underway. In the interim, on
    classified matters, both Senator Sessions and I should be
    informed, and I have spoken both with the Attorney General and
    with FBI Director Mueller, and yesterday the Ranking Member and
    I, as well as the Chairman of the Intelligence Committee
    Senator Feinstein, were briefed on the status of the
    investigation. We should and we will conduct responsible
    oversight. We will try not to do it in a reckless fashion
    because we should not take steps that will interfere with the
    ongoing investigation or stand in the way of military
    prosecutors. I want them to be able to compile a thorough and
    complete case.
        Also yesterday, the Attorney General and Treasury Secretary
    Geithner announced the creation of a financial fraud task
    force. This is a significant step in our efforts to strengthen
    fraud prevention and enforcement. It uses the authority we
    provided in the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act. I worked
    hard with Senator Grassley and Senator Kaufman to draft this
    act and get it passed. I was pleased to be there when the
    President signed it into law. He gives law enforcement new
    tools and resources to investigate and prosecute the kinds of
    financial frauds that are undermining our country. We are now
    hard at work on measures that can help find, deter, and punish
    health care fraud as well. Just the week, we learned that the
    Government has paid more than $47 billion in questionable
    Medicare claims, because as we prepare to consider health
    reform legislation, we have to address these issues of health
    care fraud. I hope that our new act that we worked on a
    bipartisan way will help that. We have to complete our
    legislative work on a media shield bill and the USA PATRIOT Act
    Sunset Extension Act. And on these matters, I appreciate the
    support we have from the Attorney General.
        So, with that, let me yield to Senator Sessions and then
    Attorney General Holder.

    STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF SESSIONS, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE
                               OF ALABAMA

        Senator Sessions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I am glad we
    could have this hearing today. We agree on a number of things.
    On the matter of the prosecution of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and
    the 9/11 terrorists we do not agree.
        Mr. Attorney General, I appreciate you, enjoy working with
    you. You have got a tough job. When I complain to my wife about
    this or that, she looks me straight in the eye and says,
    ``Don't blame me. You asked for the job.'' So you have got a
    tough job, but you asked for it. With your experience, you knew
    what you were asking before you got it.
        Let me acknowledge several people in the audience today.
    David Beamer from Florida and Alice Hoagland from California
    are here. They came here for the hearing today. David lost his
    son, Todd, and Alice lost her son, Mark, on Flight 93. Lisa
    Dolan is here. She lost her husband, Navy captain Robert Dolan,
    at the Pentagon on September 11th. Debra Burlingame I believe
    is here. She lost her brother, a pilot. Also, we are honored
    that Tim Brown from the New York Fire Department is here. Tim
    worked night after night on the rescue and recovery efforts of
    the World Trade Center. So it is a privilege to have each of
    you with us today.
        On September 11, 2001, our Nation was attacked by a savage
    gang of terrorists, people who had previously stated, as bin
    Laden did, that they were at war with the United States. Their
    intent was to kill innocent Americans and bring ruin to the
    United States. The death and destruction they caused in New
    York, Washington, and Pennsylvania was an act of war.
        Now, at the time that was crystal clear to us. If there is
    now among some folks in Washington any confusion on that point,
    it is because time, I think, has dulled their memory or because
    other matters have clouded their judgment.
        But the American people remember that day well, and they
    know that the facts have not changed. President Bush responded
    to the 9/11 terrorist acts swiftly and forcefully, and we have
    been blessed that the dedicated work of millions of Americans
    has prevented similar attacks of that scale.
        Today we remain engaged in the two long struggles in
    Afghanistan and Iraq. We wish the work there was easy, but it
    is not, and this effort is not. As we sit in this chamber,
    188,000 American men and women in uniform fight tirelessly to
    root out terrorism from foreign battlefields. Our military and
    intelligence personnel are, in fact, at war this very day, 7
    days a week, under dangerous and adverse conditions, because
    this Congress has authorized and asked them to go there, and we
    sent them there.
        The best way to honor these men and women is to work just
    as hard and just as smartly to ensure that what we do supports
    them and the goals that we have set for them. Regrettably, when
    I look at the policies taking shape under the new
    administration, I fear that that is not the case. I just am
    worried about those decisions.
        Over the past 9 months, we have seen the administration
    continue to delay providing clear leadership to our troops in
    Afghanistan, call for an investigation and potential
    prosecution of CIA agents who risked their lives to capture
    dangerous terrorists and who previously had been cleared of an
    investigation. They have cut a deal on a media shield
    legislation to protect individuals when they leak classified
    information to the mass media in a way that I think is not
    good. They concede to a weakened form of the PATRIOT Act, a
    vital legislative tool for our intelligence community, and
    declined to provide basic information, to date at least, that
    we are going to have to have as we go forward with the Fort
    Hood investigation, and now announce that they will bring
    Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of 9/11,
    back to Manhattan to be treated as a common criminal in U.S.
    courts.
        Taken together, I think these policies signal to our
    people, to our country, and to our military, and to the
    international community that for the United States fighting
    global terrorism is not the priority it once was, that we can
    return to a pre-9/11 mentality.
        The problem is this: al Qaeda does not agree. They continue
    to seek to do us harm, as we all well know, and we must
    continue to be vigilant as we track down these terrorists and
    bring them to justice. And we must use all lawful tools to do
    so. Lives are at stake.
        Today's hearing will focus on, among other issues, the
    Attorney General's decision to prosecute Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
    and four other terrorists in U.S. courts rather than in
    military courts. I believe this decision is dangerous. I
    believe it is misguided. I believe it is unnecessary. It
    represents a departure from our longstanding policy that these
    kinds of cases should be treated under the well-established
    rules of war.
        Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is a terrorist, is alleged to be a
    terrorist. He is alleged not to be a common criminal, but who
    has a desire not for ill-gotten gains but for the destruction
    of our country. The correct way to try him is by military
    tribunal. This distinction is important because the military
    courts and civilian courts have different functions. The United
    States court system was not designed to try unlawful enemy
    combatants.
        And, Mr. Holder, I do not think these are normal
    defendants. These are people we are at war with, and we are
    dropping bombs on them this very day, attacking their lairs
    wherever they hide. The fabulous policewoman who went straight
    to Hasan at Fort Hood firing her weapon was, in effect,
    participating in a war effort. The enemy who could have been
    obliterated on the battlefield on 1 day but was captured
    instead does not then become a common American criminal. They
    are first a prisoner of war once they are captured. The laws of
    war say, as did Lincoln and Grant, that the prisoners will not
    be released until the war ends. How absurd is it to say that we
    will release people who plan to attack us again?
        Second, as part of their military activities, if they
    violate the laws of war, then and only then may they be tried
    for crimes. That is what happened to the Nazi saboteurs in the
    Ex Parte Quirin case in World War II when they were tried by
    military commissions. Military commission trials are fair. They
    are recognized not only by our country but by nations all over
    the world. Far from seeing our actions as some sort of
    demonstration of American fairness, I suspect our cold-blooded
    enemies and our clear-eyed friends both must wonder what is
    going on in our heads. Are we, they must ask themselves, still
    serious about this effort?
        As former Attorney General Michael Mukasey wrote in 2007,
    ``Terrorism prosecutions in this country have unintentionally
    provided terrorists with rich sources of intelligence.''
        Mr. Attorney General, we are concerned about what is
    happening today. We respect and like you, but this is a serious
    question, and we will raise a number of issues as we go through
    the hearing.
        Thank you.
        Chairman Leahy. Well, obviously, Senator Sessions and I
    have a differing view on this, but there will be differing
    views here, and that is why we thank you for coming here--
    although I must admit, Senator Sessions, that I am delighted to
    hear somebody from Alabama quote approvingly Ulysses S. Grant
    and Abraham Lincoln. The world has come full circle.
        Senator Sessions. And they were winners, too.
        Chairman Leahy. Well, I appreciate that acknowledgment,
    too, but we probably best leave this one alone.
        I would put in the record the letter I sent to John
    Brennan, the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security
    and Counterterrorism, asking when they finish their
    investigation that this Committee be able to see what we have
    found, both what went right and what went wrong.
        [The letter appears as a submission for the record.]
        Chairman Leahy. Attorney General Holder, thank you for
    being here. Please go ahead, sir.

    STATEMENT OF HONORABLE ERIC H. HOLDER, JR., ATTORNEY GENERAL OF
                           THE UNITED STATES

        Attorney General Holder. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator
    Sessions, and other members of the Committee.
        When I appeared before this Committee in January for my
    confirmation hearing, I laid out several goals for my time as
    Attorney General: to protect the security of the American
    people, to restore the integrity of the Department of Justice,
    to reinvigorate the Department's traditional mission, and, most
    of all, to make decisions based on the facts and on the law,
    with no regard for politics.
        In my first oversight hearing in June, I described my early
    approach to these issues. Five months later, we are deeply
    immersed in the challenges of the day, moving forward to make
    good on my promises to the Committee and the President's
    promises to the American people.
        First and foremost, we are working day and night to protect
    the American people. Due to the vigilance of our law
    enforcement and intelligence agencies, we have uncovered and
    averted a number of serious threats to domestic and
    international security. Recent arrests in New York, Chicago,
    Springfield, and Dallas are evidence of our success in
    identifying nascent plots and stopping would-be attackers
    before they strike.
        Violence can still occur, however, as evidenced by the
    recent tragic shootings at Fort Hood. We mourn the deaths of
    the 13 brave Americans, including Dr. Libardo Caraveo, a
    psychologist with the Justice Department's Bureau of Prisons,
    who had been recalled to active duty. The Federal Bureau of
    Investigation is working diligently to help gather evidence
    that will be used by military prosecutors in the upcoming trial
    of the individual who is alleged to have committed this heinous
    act.
        We are also seeking to learn from this incident to prevent
    its reoccurrence. Future dangerousness is notoriously difficult
    to predict. The President has ordered a full review to
    determine if there was more that could have been done to
    prevent the tragedy that unfolded in Texas 2 weeks ago. We have
    briefed the Chairman and Ranking Member of this Committee and
    other Congressional leaders on our efforts and will continue to
    keep Congress abreast of this review.
        Now, my written statement addresses a number of other
    issues before the Department, but I would like to use the rest
    of my time allotted to me today to address the topic that I
    know is on many of your minds: my decision last week to refer
    Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others for prosecution in
    Federal courts for their participation in the 9/11 plot.
        As I said on Friday, I knew this decision would be a
    controversial one. This was a tough call, and reasonable people
    can disagree with my conclusion that these individuals should
    be tried in Federal court rather than a military commission.
    The 9/11 attacks were both an act of war and a violation of our
    Federal criminal law, and they could have been prosecuted in
    either Federal courts or military commissions. Courts and
    commissions are both essential tools in our fight against
    terrorism.
        Therefore, at the outset of my review of these cases, I had
    no preconceived notions as to the merits of either venue. And,
    in fact, on the same day that I sent these five defendants to
    Federal court, I referred five others to be tried in military
    commissions.
        I am a prosecutor, and as a prosecutor, my top priority was
    simply to select the venue where the Government will have the
    greatest opportunity to present the strongest case and the best
    law. I studied this issue extensively. I consulted the
    Secretary of Defense. I heard from prosecutors in my Department
    and from the Defense Department's Office of Military
    Commissions. I spoke to victims who were on both sides of this
    question. I asked a lot of questions, and I weighed every
    alternative. And at the end of the day, it was clear to me that
    the venue in which we are most likely to obtain justice for the
    American people is in Federal court.
        Now, I know there are members of this Committee and members
    of the public who have strong feelings on both sides. There are
    some who disagree with the decision to try the alleged Cole
    bomber and several others in a military commission, just as
    there are some who disagree with prosecuting the 9/11 plotters
    in Federal court.
        Despite these disagreements, I hope we can have an open,
    honest, and informed discussion about that decision today, and
    as part of that discussion, I would like to clear up some
    misinformation that I have seen since Friday.
        First, we know that we can prosecute terrorists in our
    Federal courts safely and securely because we have been doing
    so for years. There are more than 300 convicted international
    and domestic terrorists currently in Bureau of Prisons'
    custody, including those responsible for the 1993 World Trade
    Center bombing and the attacks on our embassies in Africa. Our
    courts have a long history of handling these cases, and no
    district has a longer history than the Southern District of New
    York in Manhattan. I have talked to Mayor Bloomberg of New
    York, and both he and Commissioner Kelly believe that we can
    safely hold these trials in New York.
        Second, we can protect classified material during trial.
    The Classified Information Procedures Act, or CIPA, establishes
    strict rules and procedures for the use of classified
    information at trial, and we have used it to protect classified
    information in a range of terrorism cases. In fact, the
    standards recently adopted by the Congress to govern the use of
    classified information in military commissions are based on and
    derived from the very CIPA rules that we would use in Federal
    court.
        Third, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will have no more of a
    platform to spew his hateful ideology in Federal court than he
    would have had in a military commission. Before the commissions
    last year, he declared the proceedings an ``inquisition.'' He
    condemned his own attorneys and our Constitution and professed
    his desire to become a martyr. Those proceedings were heavily
    covered in the media, yet few complained at that time that his
    rants threatened the fabric of our democracy.
        Judges in Federal courts have firm control over the conduct
    of defendants and other participants in their courtrooms, and
    when the 9/11 conspirators are brought to trial, I have every
    confidence that the presiding judge will ensure appropriate
    decorum. And if Khalid Sheikh Mohammed makes the same
    statements he made in his military commission proceedings, I
    have every confidence that the Nation and the world will see
    him for the coward that he is. I am not scared of what Khalid
    Sheikh Mohammed has to say at trial, and no one else needs to
    be afraid either.
        Fourth, there is nothing common--there is nothing common--
    about the treatment the alleged 9/11 conspirators will receive.
    In fact, I expect to direct prosecutors to seek the ultimate
    and most uncommon penalty for these heinous crimes. And I
    expect that they will be held in custody under special
    administrative measures reserved for the most dangerous
    criminals.
        Finally, there are some who have said the decision means
    that we have reverted to a pre-9/11 mentality or that we do not
    realize that this Nation is at war. Three weeks ago, I had the
    honor of joining the President at Dover Air Force Base for the
    dignified transfer of the remains of 18 Americans, including
    three DEA agents, who lost their lives to the war in
    Afghanistan. These brave soldiers and agents carried home on
    that plane gave their lives to defend the country and its
    values, and we owe it to them to do everything we can to carry
    on the work for which they sacrifice.
        I know that we are at war. I know that we are at war with a
    vicious enemy who targets our soldiers on the battlefield in
    Afghanistan and our civilians on the streets here at home. I
    have personally witnessed that somber fact in the faces of the
    families who have lost loved ones abroad, and I have seen it in
    the daily intelligence stream that I review each day. Those who
    suggest otherwise are simply wrong.
        Prosecuting the 9/11 defendants in Federal court does not
    represent some larger judgment about whether or not we are at
    war. We are at war, and we will use every instrument of
    national power--civilian, military, law enforcement,
    intelligence, diplomatic, and others--to win.
        We need not cower in the face of this enemy. Our
    institutions are strong, our infrastructure is sturdy, our
    resolve is firm, and our people are ready.
        We will also use every instrument of our National power to
    bring to justice those responsible for terrorist attacks
    against our people. For 8 years, justice has been delayed for
    the victims of the 9/11 attacks. It has been delayed even
    further for the victims of the attack on the U.S.S. Cole. No
    longer. No more delay. It is time. It is past time to finally
    act.
        By bringing prosecutions in both our courts and military
    commissions, by seeking the death penalty, by holding these
    terrorists responsible for their actions, we are finally taking
    ultimate steps toward justice. That is why I made the decision.
        Now, in making this and every other decision I have made as
    Attorney General, my paramount concern is the safety of the
    American people and the preservation of American values. I am
    confident that this decision meets those goals and that it will
    also withstand the judgment of history.
        Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Attorney General Holder appears
    as a submission for the record.]
        Chairman Leahy. Thank you, Attorney General, and as you
    know, I have discussed with you several times that my belief is
    that when people commit murder, commit murder here in the
    United States, commit murder on this scale, they should be
    prosecuted, and I would hope they would be convicted. I am glad
    to see finally, after all these years, that they are being
    prosecuted in the same way Timothy McVeigh, who committed mass
    murder in this country, was prosecuted.
        Let me go to another horrific tragedy. We have the murder
    of 13 individuals, including 12 soldiers, the wounding of more
    than 30 others on the Fort Hood Army Base in Texas. Our
    thoughts and prayers are with these people. In my church on
    Sunday, they prayed for the families--for those who died but
    for the families left behind. And that is why I sent this
    letter to John Brennan to find out what happened. I want the
    results of the investigation ordered by the President. Several
    of us were briefed yesterday morning--Senator Feinstein,
    Senator Sessions, myself, and others--on what is happening. I
    think--in fact, I know that you want to find out everything
    that happened, not only what happened there but what may have
    gone right and what may have gone wrong prior to that. We are
    both former prosecutors, so we do not want to compromise a
    prosecution.
        What resources is your Department using to learn whether
    steps were missed that could have been taken to avert this
    tragedy?
        Attorney General Holder. Well, the FBI is certainly
    intimately involved in the investigation and working with the
    military investigators and military prosecutors who will
    ultimately try the case. All of the resources of the Justice
    Department that have been requested have been made available
    and will be made available in order to determine exactly what
    happened at Fort Hood, and also to try to determine how we can
    prevent future incidents like this from occurring.
        Chairman Leahy. Certainly when the court-martial goes on,
    the evidence will come out, and the American people will learn,
    we will all learn more facts about what happened. I am mostly
    interested in knowing if there were things that were overlooked
    that could have been avoided it. Will you commit to share with
    this Committee, if in your investigation--yours, the Justice
    Department--you find that there were things that were missed
    that should have been picked up prior to this tragedy?
        Attorney General Holder. The President has directed that we
    conduct exactly such an inquiry, and it would be our intention
    to share the results of that inquiry. My only cautionary note
    would be that we sequence this in such a way so that we do not
    interfere with the ongoing investigation and the potential
    prosecution. But, clearly, that information needs to be shared
    with Congress generally and with this Committee specifically.
        Chairman Leahy. I can assure you as Chairman of this
    Committee that I want a successful prosecution. I also want to
    know what happened. And I think we can sequence it in such a
    way that we do not interfere with the prosecution.
        The members of the Senate--incidentally, your letter
    supporting the PATRIOT Act reauthorization bill that we passed
    from this Committee is very helpful, and I appreciate that. We
    have requested that the administration work with us to provide
    more information on classified issues related to PATRIOT Act
    authority. We sent a letter to the Department in June and again
    this week. I am saying this rather broadly because you know the
    particular classified areas we are looking for. Will the
    Department schedule a briefing in the coming days so Senators
    can be briefed fully on this prior to the debate on the floor?
        Attorney General Holder. Yes, Mr. Chairman, we are working
    on ways in which we can make available to Senators and
    Congressmen who will be asked to vote on the reauthorization of
    the PATRIOT Act, and that information will be made available in
    a way that is consistent with the protection of those very
    important tools that must remain classified. But that
    information will be made available.
        Chairman Leahy. On the PATRIOT Act, Senator Sessions and I
    and others have been working on a managers' amendment to
    address a few remaining issues in the reported version of the
    bill. These do not concern operational matters, and I hope that
    we can circulate that to the members of this Committee. Are you
    satisfied that nothing in the bill reported by the Committee
    endangers your ability to use those tools effectively to keep
    us safe and secure?
        Attorney General Holder. Yes, I am confident, based on my
    own examination and my interaction with members of the
    intelligence community, talking also to FBI Director Mueller,
    that the reauthorization of those provisions in the way in
    which it has been proposed will not have any negative impact on
    our ability to use them in an effective way.
        Chairman Leahy. And I think I know the answer to this next
    one, but would you agree that it is important that we get the
    bill reauthorized?
        Attorney General Holder. It is absolutely important. These
    are vital tools that we have to have in this fight against
    those who would do us harm.
        Chairman Leahy. Now, when the President first took office
    in January, I encouraged the Obama administration and the many
    supporters of a Federal shield law to work together to reach
    consensus, and I congratulated the Department of Justice, in
    fact, all the shareholders, for working together in good faith
    to reach this consensus. We have a compromise bill that
    restores important protections that I helped craft to protect
    bloggers and freelance journalists.
        Attorney General Holder, in the letter you and Director of
    National Intelligence Blair, Admiral Blair, sent to me earlier
    this week, you said that the compromise Federal shield bill
    provides ``appropriate protection for national security.'' Do
    you support the compromise bill?
        Attorney General Holder. I do. I think that it is a better
    version than that which had previously been considered. There
    were a number of concessions made with regard to the concerns
    that I raised, that were raised by the intelligence community,
    and I think that the bill we have strikes a good balance. It is
    a compromise between the concerns that we had in law
    enforcement, in the intelligence side, and the legitimate
    interests, I think, of the media.
        Chairman Leahy. Because we have so many, I want to try and
    make sure we stay within the time. My last question is this--I
    have a lot more questions, but my last one is this: In 2004,
    Democrats and Republicans worked together to pass the Justice
    For All Act to try to make our criminal justice system more
    efficient, effective, and fair. Now, a key component of that
    was the Debbie Smith Rape Kit Backlog Reduction Act,
    significant funding for the testing of--or to reduce the
    backlog of untested rape kits so victims do not have to live in
    fear of while these kits languish in storage. I have worked to
    make sure it is consistently and fully funded.
        Now, I have been disturbed to learn recently in our
    hearings that, despite the legislation and the hundreds of
    millions of dollars in funding, substantial backlogs remain in
    communities around the country, and victims still face
    inexcusable delays in seeking justice. We have found 12,500
    untested rape kits in the Los Angeles area, with other cities
    reporting almost as severe. You found in the Justice Department
    that in 18 percent of open, unsolved rape kit cases, evidence
    had not even been submitted to a crime lab.
        Can we work together in your Department and find out what
    went wrong, find out how we get these rape kits tested, how we
    do it in a way that protects the victims and gives us a chance
    to prosecute the people who committed the rapes?
        Attorney General Holder. Mr. Chairman, I not only pledge
    that we should, we have to work on this. For every crime that
    remains unsolved, there is a rapist who is potentially still
    out there and ready to strike again.
        The Justice Department looks forward to working with this
    Committee to come up with a way in which we do away with that
    backlog and fully comply with the intent of what I think was a
    very good piece of legislation 5 years ago.
        Chairman Leahy. Thank you very much.
        Senator Sessions, and then Senator Kohl.
        Senator Sessions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        These are very, very important issues, this decision on how
    to try the people who attacked us on 9/11. It has
    ramifications. It is not cowering in fear of terrorists to
    decide the best way for this case to be tried is to be tried by
    military commission.
        You have indicated that military commissions can be used,
    that, therefore, I assume you believe, Mr. Holder, that a
    military commission can fairly and objectively try certain of
    these cases.
        Attorney General Holder. Yes, I think that is right, and
    that is why I sent five of those trials to military
    commissions. I expect that as I make further determinations, I
    will be sending other cases to the military commissions as
    well.
        Senator Sessions. So military commissions are a legitimate
    way, historically, that other nations have used, as well as the
    United States, to try people who have violated the rules of
    war. Is that right?
        Attorney General Holder. That is correct and, when
    appropriate, I will make use of those commission?
        Senator Sessions. Well, I just want to tell you, I think
    this is causing quite a bit of concern. I see today that
    Governor Thomas Kean of New Jersey, who chaired the 9/11
    Commission, says he thinks this is a mistake, that it will
    provide Khalid Sheikh Mohammed the position to be a martyr and
    a hero among al Qaeda sympathizers around the world.
        I would note that Mary Jo White, New York United States
    Attorney under President Clinton, said it may take 3 years to
    try these cases, and the decision has been strongly criticized,
    as you know, by Rudy Giuliani, who was mayor of New York when
    the attack occurred, who also served as Associate Attorney
    General, was a Federal prosecutor himself, and United States
    Attorney in Manhattan. I take his views seriously. I served
    under him when he was Associate Attorney General, and he has
    complained about--Attorney General Mukasey, former Attorney
    General Mukasey has also criticized this decision.
        I do not think the American people are overreacting. I do
    not think they are acting fearfully. I think they think that
    this is war and that the decision you have made to try these
    cases in Federal court represents a policy or a political
    decision. Wouldn't you agree?
        Attorney General Holder. No.
        Senator Sessions. Well, it is a policy decision at least,
    is it not?
        Attorney General Holder. It was a policy decision. It was a
    decision that was case driven. It is a decision based on the
    evidence I know that, frankly, some of the people who have
    criticized the decision do not have access to. The decision I
    made was based on my judgment looking at all of the evidence,
    talking to the people who have gathered that evidence, and the
    determination made by me as to where we can best prosecute
    these cases and come up with the best chances for success.
    There was not a political component to my decision.
        Senator Sessions. I would offer for the record, also, Mr.
    Chairman, a statement from the 9/11 family members and New York
    firefighters strongly opposing this decision.
        Chairman Leahy. Without objection.
        [The letter appears as a submission for the record.]
        Senator Sessions. You indicated in one of your factors--
    well, first of all, President Obama and you have established a
    review committee. As I understand it, that committee--the
    Detainee Policy Task Force I guess is the correct name of it--
    concluded that there is a ``presumption that, where feasible,
    referred cases will be prosecuted in an Article III court''--
    that is, a Federal criminal court. Is that still the policy of
    the Department of Justice that there is a presumption that the
    cases will be tried in Federal court?
        Attorney General Holder. That is the presumption, but it is
    also clearly a presumption that can be overcome, as evidenced
    by the fact that five of the people about which I made the
    determination and announced last Friday will be going to
    military commissions. We make these decisions on a case-by-case
    basis using the protocol that you mentioned, and a part of that
    is this presumption. But it is not an irrebuttable presumption.
    It is a presumption, and only that.
        Senator Sessions. Well, that has baffled me from the
    beginning. I know that was part of the last campaign, and the
    President criticized President Bush continuously--and many of
    his allies did--for his conduct of the war on terrorism. But I
    think the idea that a captured combatant who, if eligible to be
    tried because they have committed violations of the laws of
    war, would be tried in military commissions is only common
    sense and part of our history.
        Isn't it true that to avoid the presumption, your task
    force said it would take compelling factors to change that?
        Attorney General Holder. I am not sure I would say
    compelling factors. There are a variety of circumstances that
    have to be examined, but I also think we have to look at the
    history of these military commissions that are held out as
    these shining examples of what ought to be done.
        There were, as I count, three trials, three proceedings
    brought before these military commissions over the great many
    years that they existed. They had to be reformed as a result of
    the way in which they were initially set up. We have the
    Article III courts that have tried these matters before. We
    have judges who I have great confidence in, prosecutors who I
    have great confidence in. I also have confidence in the people
    of New York to sit down and fairly judge these cases and to
    mete out the appropriate punishment.
        Senator Sessions. I do not think the people are happy with
    the decision. I think there are clear advantages to trying
    cases by military commission as opposed to what can become a
    spectacle of a trial with high-paid defense lawyers and others
    focused on using that as a forum. There are a lot of reasons
    that I think are compelling that these commission cases can be
    tried fairly and effectively without many of the problems of
    the public normal trial.
        With regard to the specific decision that you made, I
    noticed you referred to the Cole and to another case in which a
    military person was killed. But isn't it true that on 9/11 the
    United States Pentagon, the center of our defense
    establishment, was directly attacked by the people who had
    declared war upon us?
        Attorney General Holder. Yes, there is no question that is
    true. That is one of the factors I considered in making this
    determination. The people who were killed on 9/11 were largely
    civilians. There was obviously a very grievous and heinous act
    that occurred at the Pentagon. But because of the fact that
    this was an act that occurred on our shores with a victim
    population that was largely civilian, among other things,
    including the admissibility, my desire to ensure that certain
    evidence would be admitted, it was my determination that
    bringing that case in an Article III court made the most sense.
        Senator Sessions. Well, certainly military personnel were
    killed on 9/11. They attacked our Pentagon, and I do not think
    we should give a preference to military commission trials
    simply because the enemy attacked civilian people rather than
    military people.
        Thank you very much.
        Chairman Leahy. Thank you.
        I will also put in the record a number of items in support
    of what you are doing, a whole lot of names--I will not read
    them all--ranging from a former Ambassador to the United
    Nations to Barry Goldwater, Jr., to John Whitehead, the
    President of Rutherford Institute, and so forth. That will be
    placed in the record in support of what you are doing.
        I would also place in the record a letter from a number of
    people, including a former Commandant of the Marine Corps and
    other military people, in support of what you are doing.
        I will put into the record a group including Bob Barr,
    David Keene, Chairman of the American Conservative Union,
    Grover Norquist, and others in support of what you are doing.
    And a letter from a number of the families of those who were
    killed on 9/11 in support of what you are doing, and I will
    place that in the record also.
        [The information referred to appears as a submission for
    the record.]
        Chairman Leahy. Senator Kohl.
        Senator Kohl. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Attorney General, last January, I was pleased by your
    commitment to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay. For
    too long, it has tarnished our image around the world and
    complicated our efforts to combat terrorism. Although you have
    faced greater than expected hurdles, you have made significant
    progress in closing the facility. Nevertheless, I am
    disappointed that this morning President Obama said that we
    would not meet his goal of closing Guantanamo Bay by January
    22, 2010.
        I would like to get an update on where you are in this
    process. Currently 215 detainees remain at Guantanamo.
    Administration officials have said that 40 to 50 will be
    transferred to the United States to face prosecution in Federal
    courts or military tribunals and about 100 will be transferred
    to other countries. What is your timeline for accomplishing
    these goals? What will you do with the remaining detainees? And
    when do you think that we will meet our goal of closing
    Guantanamo?
        Attorney General Holder. Yes, the President did announce
    today that we will not be able to meet that deadline. We had
    unexpected difficulties in trying to reach that goal.
        We have made tremendous progress in closing Guantanamo. We
    have more than 100 detainees who have been approved for
    transfer; 25 have been transferred overseas to date. More than
    40 detainees have been referred for prosecution, and we will be
    making additional forum decisions on the remaining detainees in
    the near future.
        The decisions for the remaining detainees are still pending
    approval, but we expect to have decisions for all detainees
    well before even the January 22nd deadline. It will be a
    question of trying to, among other things, determine where
    those people who have been approved for transfer can be placed.
    I think that is going to be our biggest problem in ultimately
    closing Guantanamo.
        Senator Kohl. Do you have some idea of when that may
    finally arrive at its conclusion?
        Attorney General Holder. Well, I saw a report on what the
    President indicated during his remarks, and I think he says
    sometime this year we ought to be able to do that.
        Senator Kohl. Wisconsin lost two brave service members
    during the shooting rampage at Fort Hood. It is a tragedy that
    while preparing to defend us from threats around the world,
    these brave soldiers face danger here at home.
        As you know, Major Hasan came to the attention of the FBI
    last December because of e-mails that he had written to a known
    terrorist suspect. But the FBI did not pursue an investigation
    of him because they concluded that the e-mails were consistent
    with his research at Walter Reed and no contact was made with
    the Department of Defense.
        I understand that a thorough investigation will take time
    to complete, but we need to protect our troops now, as I am
    sure you would agree. Going forward now, what changes have you
    made or will you make to prevent something like this from
    happening again?
        Attorney General Holder. Well, I think what we have to do
    is understand exactly what happened that led to that tragedy.
    Were there flags that were missed? Were there miscommunications
    or was there a lack of communication? And once we have a handle
    on that, I think that we can propose and work with this
    Committee on ways in which we can prevent such a tragedy from
    occurring again.
        We are at close to the beginning stages of this inquiry,
    and I think we have to determine on the basis of a sound
    investigation exactly what happened. I will say that on the
    basis of what I know so far, it is disturbing to know that
    there was this interaction between Hasan and other people. That
    I find disturbing.
        Senator Kohl. But you do recognize, I am sure, that there
    is an urgency about that mission to arrive at some decisions
    with respect to better protecting our troops?
        Attorney General Holder. Yes, there is certainly an
    urgency, and the President has given us, I guess, another 2
    weeks or so--until the end of November--to come up with some
    findings, some determinations, and so I think that is an
    indication of how serious we take this and how quickly we want
    to try to get to the bottom of it.
        Senator Kohl. Thank you.
        Mr. Holder, last week, you announced that the Department
    will bring the Guantanamo detainees accused of planning the 9/
    11 attacks to trial in Federal court in New York, as we have
    talked about this morning. On Friday, you said that you would
    not have authorized prosecution if you were not confident that
    the outcome would be successful.
        However, many critics have offered their own predictions
    about how such a trial might well play out. One concern we have
    heard from critics of your decision is that the defendants
    could get off on legal technicalities, in which case these
    terrorists would walk free.
        Does this scenario have any merit? If not, why? And in the
    worst-case scenario that the trial does not result in a
    conviction, what would be your next steps?
        Attorney General Holder. Many of those who have criticized
    the decision--and not all, but many of those who have
    criticized the decision have done so, I think, from a position
    of ignorance. They have not had access to the materials that I
    have had access to. They have not had a chance to look at the
    facts, look at the applicable laws, and make the determination
    as to what our chances of success are.
        I would not have put these cases in Article III courts if I
    did not think our chances of success were good--in fact, if I
    did not think our chances of success were enhanced by bringing
    the cases there.
        My expectation is that these capable prosecutors from the
    Justice Department will be successful in the prosecution of
    these cases.
        Senator Kohl. But taking into account that you never know
    what happens when you walk into a court of law, in the event
    that, for whatever reason, they do not get convicted, what
    would be your next step? I am sure you must have talked about
    it.
        Attorney General Holder. What I told the prosecutors--and
    what I will tell you--is that failure is not an option. Failure
    is not an option. These are cases that have to be won. I do not
    expect that we will have a contrary result.
        Senator Kohl. Well, that is an interesting point of view. I
    will just leave it at that. Thank you.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Leahy. Thank you, Senator Kohl.
        Senator Hatch.
        Senator Hatch. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        It is good to see you again, General, and I appreciate the
    work you are trying to do down there, although I have a lot of
    problems with what you have just done in this area.
        Several events have transpired since your last appearance
    before this Committee, and I hope to cover hopefully all of
    them in my short time. In my opinion, a significant event was
    the FBI's disruption of three separate terror plots in Texas,
    Illinois, Colorado, and New York. To me, these plots and the
    men who were eager to carry them out remind me that we are
    still engaged in this war against terror.
        You will recall that at your confirmation hearing you
    expressed your belief that the United States is currently
    engaged in a war. But last week, during your press conference
    to announce the transfer of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, KSM, you
    referred to the actions of KSM and his co-conspirators as
    ``extraordinary crimes.''
        Now, you made reference to the attacks of 9/11 as an act of
    war and a ``violation of Federal law.'' Last week, during your
    announcement, you referred to the actions of KSM as an
    ``extraordinary crime.''
        Do you still believe that the United States is engaged in a
    war on terror?
        Attorney General Holder. As I indicated in my opening
    remarks, the United States is at war. There is no question
    about that. And the acts that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
    perpetrated are not only crimes, they are acts of war. I do not
    think--there is no question about it.
        Senator Hatch. OK. I just wanted to establish that. As I
    just referenced, last week you announced the Justice
    Department's intent to bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, KSM, to
    the United States to stand trial in New York City. Now, I do
    not agree with that decision, I want you to know right off the
    bat, not because I do not think the Federal Government can
    detain dangerous terrorists, not because bringing them to a
    metropolitan area will create an even bigger bull's eye on that
    city; it is because I believe, as the longest-serving person on
    the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, that military
    commissions are the preferable venue to protect national
    security information and prevent disclosure of sources and
    methods.
        Now, that is not to say that Article III courts cannot
    handle terrorist prosecutions for providing material support of
    terrorism. That same conclusion was reached by the 9/11
    Commission. In its findings, the Commission concluded that an
    ``unfortunate consequence'' of excellent investigative and
    prosecutorial efforts in the initial 1993 al Qaeda attack on
    New York created an impression that the law enforcement and
    criminal justice systems were well equipped to cope with
    terrorism. But let us just examine the overall record of
    ``successful prosecutions.''
        There are some numbers floating out there that some 195
    terrorists have been ``successfully'' prosecuted since 9/11.
    However, I believe that the actual number is a fraction of
    that. Since 9/11, approximately 26 terrorist attacks have been
    disrupted.
        So what is the actual number of successful Justice
    Department prosecutions of persons convicted of providing
    material support to al Qaeda since 9/11? And how many of those
    defendants were investigated and captured on U.S. soil?
        Attorney General Holder. Well, I know that we have over 300
    people who are in our prisons at this point who have been
    convicted of either domestic or international----
        Senator Hatch. I am talking about those convicted of
    providing material support to al Qaeda, not other categories.
        Attorney General Holder. I was going to say who have been
    convicted of domestic or international terrorism, and that
    would include people who were convicted of material support
    charges. I do not have at my fingertips the numbers of people
    who have been convicted of material support, but that
    information I can get to you, Senator.
        Senator Hatch. I believe that number is probably closer to
    50 than it is the 195 that has been bandied about. And I would
    like to have that answer, Okay?
        [The information referred to appears as a submission for
    the record.]
        Senator Hatch. I would like to shift to what is considered
    a ``successful prosecution.'' In June, you announced the
    transfer of Ahmed Ghailani from Guantanamo to stand trial for
    his role in the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and
    Tanzania. As you are aware, Ghailani was previously indicted
    for this international terrorist act by a Federal grand jury in
    New York, and during your announcement you mentioned that four
    co-defendants in this case were already ``successfully
    prosecuted.''
        However, I would not exactly characterize these
    prosecutions as ``successes.'' I base this on the fact that
    these terrorists were not given the death penalty. The
    Government did, in fact, seek the death penalty, but a juror,
    despite knowing that he was deciding a capital case, later
    disclosed that he could not, in fact, support a verdict that
    would result in imposing the death penalty on the four
    terrorists, and because of this, the Government was not able to
    obtain a sentence of death after conviction. And for reasons
    that escape me, the Government has not chosen to seek the death
    penalty against Mr. Ghailani.
        So will the Government seek the death penalty in the trials
    of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-conspirators? And I would
    also add: Why did the Government not elect to seek the death
    penalty in the case of Ghailani?
        Attorney General Holder. As I have indicated, it is my
    intention, after the processes are gone through at the
    Department, to seek the death penalty with regard to the 9/11
    plotters. We made the decision not to seek the death penalty
    with regard to Mr. Ghailani. There were four defendants in that
    case. The prior administration decided not to seek the death
    penalty with regard to two, did seek the death penalty with
    regard to the other two, and a jury made the determination not
    to impose the death penalty.
        As we looked at Mr. Ghailani's role, it seemed to us that
    his role was more consistent with that of the two defendants in
    which the prior administration decided not to seek the death
    penalty, and on that basis we decided not to seek the death
    penalty for Mr. Ghailani.
        Senator Hatch. Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey was
    the trial judge in the prosecution of the blind sheikh, Omar
    Abdel Rahman and also heard motions in the Jose Padilla case.
        Now, Judge Mukasey, an experienced Federal judge, has
    always asserted that the trials of the conspirators in the 1993
    World Trade Center bombing damaged national security. For
    example, the prosecution is compelled by the rules of discovery
    to provide a list of unindicted co-conspirators to the
    defendants. In 1995, this list made it all the way to Sudan and
    into the hands of Osama bin Laden.
        During the trial of Ramzi Yousef, the nephew of KSM and
    mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, testimony
    about a cell phone tipped off terrorists that their
    communications had been compromised. The end result was the
    disclosure of a source and method and the loss of useful
    intelligence. Now, I could go on and on and cite numerous other
    examples from these trials, and I know you are familiar with
    them, having been at the Department of Justice back then.
        What I would like to know--and my time is just about up,
    but let me just ask this last question. What I would like to
    know is: How do you intend to ensure that sensitive national
    security information does not end up in the hands of terrorists
    or their associates, especially if KSM or other detainees
    decide to represent themselves? Is the Classified Information
    Procedures Act, CIPA, really sufficient to safeguard classified
    information if these detainees do or do not have counsel?
        Attorney General Holder. Well, it has been argued that
    bringing these cases in Article III courts will somehow reveal
    information that otherwise might not be revealed or could be
    better protected in the military commissions. The reality is
    that the Information Protection Act that exists in military
    commissions is based on CIPA that we use in Article III courts.
        If I might, there have been misinformation with regard to
    this whole question of this co-conspirator list and about the
    phone records allegation. The co-conspirator list was not a
    classified document. Had there been a reason to try to protect
    it, prosecutors could have sought a protective order, but that
    was not a classified document.
        With regard to the phone record allegations, during the
    embassy bombings trial, the admission of phone records--the
    allegation is that the admission of these phone records alerted
    bin Laden to the fact that his cell phone was monitored and
    then he stopped using it. This allegation is simply wrong. Bin
    Laden stopped using the phone long before that information was
    disclosed in court proceedings. The phone records were used in
    the embassy bombing trials, not the Ramzi Yousef trial, as has
    been reported. Bin Laden's phone was not used after October the
    9th of 1998. Production of discovery in the embassy bombings
    case did not begin until December 17th of 1998, and the phone
    records were not disclosed in court until March 20th of 2001.
        So with regard to those allegations and those contentions,
    there is a factual problem. There are factual inaccuracies that
    deal with--that underlie those contentions. And it is my firm
    belief that through the use of CIPA we can protect information
    in Article III courts in the same way that they can be
    protected in military commissions.
        Chairman Leahy. Thank you.
        Senator Hatch. If I could just add, there is no question
    that in the Federal courts there will be much more information
    that will be revealed that would not be revealed in a----
        Chairman Leahy. Well, if you want to add that, I would just
    note that Patrick Fitzgerald, whom we all acknowledge was a
    good prosecutor in the embassy bombing case, he said, ``When
    you see how much classified information was involved in that
    case and when you see that there weren't any leaks, you get
    pretty darn confident the Federal courts are capable of
    handling these prosecutions.'' That is what U.S. Attorney
    Fitzgerald said.
        Senator Feinstein.
        Senator Feinstein. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
        Welcome, General. I have thought quite a bit about your
    decision to try these five people in Federal court, and I just
    want you to know that I fully support it. I have been on this
    Committee for 17 years now. I happen to believe that our
    Federal courts are our finest. I happen to believe that our
    Federal judges are our best. And I happen to believe that New
    York City is able to handle this in a very professional and
    definitively legal manner.
        In my service on Intelligence, I have watched the failure
    of the military commissions for the past 7 years. As you have
    pointed out, only three cases have essentially been tried, and
    there has been a great deal of controversy surrounding those
    decisions.
        The attack in New York, as you point out, was both a major
    attack of war and a major and horrific criminal event. It is
    something none of us in America ever thought could happen, but
    it did. And I think the fact that these men are going to be
    tried in the finest of the American judicial system by strong
    prosecutors and by a fair judge is really very, very important.
        I assume that the reason that you made the decision is
    because you believe that there is sufficient untainted evidence
    to obtain a conviction. Is that correct?
        Attorney General Holder. That is correct, and that was one
    of the main drivers in my decision, to deal with what evidence
    could I present or could we present in whatever forum and to
    try to minimize the chances that we would have to deal with
    this issue of tainted evidence.
        Senator Feinstein. Thank you very much. Let me move to
    another subject.
        In August, President Obama announced the creation of the
    High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group, known in this city of
    acronyms as HIG. It would be made up of experts from several
    intelligence and law enforcement agencies. The interrogation
    unit will be housed at the FBI, but will be overseen by the
    National Security Council.
        Can you describe with some specificity the role that the
    FBI will be playing in this effort and the type of oversight
    that will be placed on interrogation?
        Attorney General Holder. Well, what we have come to call
    the HIG is an effort to gather people in anticipation of the
    capture of high-value detainees, to have a group of people who
    are steeped in who these people are, and have determined how we
    can successfully interrogate them using methods that are
    consistent with our values as an American Nation. The FBI,
    along with the members of the intelligence community, will play
    a part in acquiring this information and also devising
    interrogation techniques that will be effective with regard to
    the specific person that is in front of them. There will be a
    team of people for each of those potential high-value
    detainees.
        Senator Feinstein. When could we expect the announcement of
    the director? And when will it be operative?
        Attorney General Holder. I am not sure what our timeframe
    is. I know that we are in the process of gathering the people.
    The underlying work is underway, and I would hope that we would
    have an ability to identify perhaps not the members of it but
    certainly the people who would be running it relatively soon.
        Senator Feinstein. And I would assume the auspices that
    they would follow would be the Army Field Manual plus any
    additions that the task force has made?
        Attorney General Holder. Right. Those are the conditions
    under which they will be operating as set out by President
    Obama.
        Senator Feinstein. Thank you. Let me go to another subject.
        In 2008, the Federal Bureau of Prisons staff confiscated
    1,519 cell phones from Federal prisons and 255 cell phones from
    secure Federal institutions. I was in San Diego talking with an
    FBI agent, and he pointed out that most of the narcotics
    trafficking is actually done out of the prison system in the
    United States, particularly the California prison system, and
    he mentioned one prison, Pelican Bay, in specific. And then I
    came back and I found that there are all these cell phones in
    prisons which enables a group--namely, the Mexican mafia--to
    essentially use cell phones to give directives right out of
    prisons, on hits, on territories, on dealers. And I think this
    is a very serious thing.
        I have introduced legislation that would make cell phones
    contraband in Federal prisons with possession punishable by up
    to an additional year in prison. What do you think of this?
    What are you doing? It is a real problem, Mr. Attorney General.
        Attorney General Holder. It is a real problem, Senator. I
    had experience with that when I was the United States Attorney
    here in Washington, D.C. Rayful Edmond, who was a very
    notorious and large drug dealer in Washington, D.C., was
    convicted, sent to jail, and then continued to run his drug
    enterprise from prison, and was convicted again for that.
        The maintenance of cell phones in prison I think is
    unacceptable, and I think we have to find ways in which we
    confiscate them. I think you are right, they ought to be
    considered contraband, and I think we ought to also look at
    what technological means we have that might possibly block the
    use of cell phones in prison for those that, for whatever
    reason, we are unable to get from prisoners.
        Senator Feinstein. Would you take a look at my legislation?
    And your support would be appreciated.
        Attorney General Holder. I certainly will do that.
        Senator Feinstein. Thank you.
        Attorney General Holder. I think the idea that you have,
    though, and the concern that you have is a very legitimate one
    and one that we have to deal with.
        Senator Feinstein. Thank you.
        In June of 2009, the GAO released a report indicating that
    individuals on terrorist watchlists succeeded in purchasing
    guns an astonishing 865 times between 2004 and 2009. This
    dangerous loophole in Federal law is known as ``the terror
    gap,'' and it has continued to allow the individuals on the
    FBI's terrorist watchlist to purchase guns, despite the fact
    they are not allowed to fly on an airplane.
        The Bush administration's Justice Department drafted and
    supported Federal legislation to close this gap in the 110th
    Congress, and identical legislation has been introduced in the
    111th Congress.
        Does the Justice Department support closing this gap? And
    will you support that legislation?
        Attorney General Holder. Yes, we will support that
    legislation. It seems incongruous to me that we would bar
    certain people from flying on airplanes because they are on the
    terrorist watchlist and yet would still allow them to possess
    weapons. I think that the legislation that was initially
    proposed by the Bush administration was well conceived, and we
    will continue to support that.
        Senator Feinstein. Excellent. Thank you very much, General.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Leahy. Thank you, Senator Feinstein.
        Senator Grassley.
        Senator Grassley. I have an observation and a couple
    questions.
        My observation, which I do not want you to respond to, is I
    do not know how you can make a statement that failure to
    convict is not an option when you have got juries in this
    country. I think a lot of Americans thought O.J. Simpson ought
    to be convicted of murder rather than being in jail for what he
    is in jail for now. It seemed to me ludicrous. You know, I am a
    farmer, not a lawyer, but I just want to make that observation.
        A question: You previously pledged----
        Chairman Leahy. I think it is only fair he ought to be able
    to respond to that.
        Senator Grassley. OK, but as long as it does not come out
    of my time.
        Attorney General Holder. Well, that is fine, and maybe I
    should have been more--maybe I should have been more expansive
    in my response to the question that Senator Kohl put to me. I
    mean, certainly we have thought, I have thought about that
    possibility. And one of the things that this administration has
    consistently said, in fact, Congress has passed legislation
    that would not allow for the release into this country of
    anybody who was deemed dangerous. And so that if there were the
    possibility that a trial was not successful, that would not
    mean that that person would be released into our country. That
    is not a possibility.
        But, again, I want to emphasize that I am confident that we
    will be successful in the trial of these matters.
        Senator Grassley. Yes, and it is my understanding that if
    he is not convicted and somehow the judge lets him off on a
    technicality or something, then he becomes an enemy combatant,
    and you are right back where you started. So what do you gain?
    But, anyway, you understand the law. I do not. I am just trying
    to bring a little common sense to this.
        You previously pledged to respond ``fully and in a timely
    fashion'' to Judiciary Committee inquiries. Senator Leahy and I
    wrote you in October with a list of outstanding unanswered
    requests. I do appreciate your courtesy reply and your
    willingness to have your staff meet with mine to work out this
    backlog of requests. But I am disappointed that your reply to
    Chairman Leahy and me indicates that you are considering not
    answering pre-2009 Committee questions to the Department. This
    position is completely unacceptable to me. These unanswered
    questions deal with serious matters such as national security,
    whistleblower law enforcement. You are not upholding your
    pledge to respond to all outstanding requests as you told me
    you would when you came to my office prior to confirmation? I
    even tried to help you by giving you a big, thick file of
    things that were unanswered from the previous administration. I
    wanted to save you an embarrassment, I wanted to save President
    Obama any embarrassment for what the previous administration
    did not do right in responding to proper requests.
        So why are you and the Department not willing to answer
    these questions?
        Attorney General Holder. Well, what we have tried to do is
    certainly answer all of those questions that have been
    propounded to us that pertain to this administration, and I
    think we are up to date in that regard.
        I do remember that booklet that you gave me, and I think
    that we have done a pretty good job in responding to those. I
    know our staffs are meeting, I believe on Monday or Tuesday of
    next week, to try to discuss this. It is our hope that we can
    find a way to stay current with the questions that are given to
    us and also deal with the backlog that you are discussing.
        It is not a question of us not trying to do that. We really
    were trying just to prioritize the way in which we responded to
    these questions. And I hope our staffs will be able to work
    together and find a way through this.
        Senator Grassley. Well, Senator Leahy has committed to me
    that he will work with me to get that job done, and thank you
    very much, and I hope we will be successful.
        On Guantanamo, the decisions to bring detainees to the
    United States and afford them civilian trials is highly
    questionable. I want to know more about who is advising you on
    these decisions. There are attorneys at the Justice Department
    working on this issue who either represent Guantanamo detainees
    or work for groups who advocated for them. This prior
    representation I think creates a conflict of interest problem
    for these individuals.
        For instance, Principal Deputy Solicitor General Neil
    Katyal represented Osama bin Laden's driver and bodyguard in
    his case challenging the earlier versions of the Military
    Commissions Act that Congress passed on a bipartisan basis. I
    am quoting National Journal: ``Mr. Katyal has not recused
    himself and is still working on detainee matters at the Justice
    Department.'' The article indicates that other attorneys with
    previous involvement in detainee issues are also on detainee
    issues at the Department.
        Another example, the New York Post reported that your
    Department hired Jennifer Daskal to serve in the National
    Security Division. She also serves on a task force deciding the
    future of terrorist detainees. According to the article, Ms.
    Daskal has no national security experience and no prosecutorial
    experience. She has, however, a background of advocating for
    detainees. One example of her advocacy is from a 54-page report
    that criticized Guantanamo Bay's treatment of the terrorist
    detainees where she stated one detainee described as a self-
    styled poet ``found it was nearly impossible to write poetry
    anymore because the prison guards would only allow him to keep
    a pen or pencil in his cell for short periods of time.''
        As a consequence of these three examples, I want to know
    more about these potential conflicts. Would you provide me and
    members of the Committee with the following information: the
    names of political appointees in your Department who represent
    detainees or who work for organizations advocating on their
    behalf; the cases or projects that these appointees worked with
    respect to detainees prior to joining the Justice Department;
    and the cases or projects relating to detainees that have
    worked on since joining the Justice Department? Would you
    please provide that information to me and the Committee?
        Attorney General Holder. I will certainly consider that
    request, but I want to make sure that you understand that the
    people in the Department understand their ethical obligations,
    and to the extent that recusals are appropriate on the basis of
    prior representations or prior connections, people in the
    Department have recused themselves from specific cases.
        I have been recused from a couple of the habeas cases that
    are pending here in the district court of the District of
    Columbia because my firm--not because I did, but because my
    firm represented or had some connection to the person who was
    subject of that habeas proceeding.
        So we are very sensitive to that concern and are mindful of
    it, and people who should not be participating in certain
    decisions do not do so.
        Senator Grassley. But I asked you for information. Will you
    provide it?
        Attorney General Holder. I will consider that request.
        Senator Grassley. Well, let me tell you then, I think your
    Department probably is doing what is usual, but let me quote a
    law professor, dean of college of law, Don Burnett: ``What is
    unusual is the size of the cluster of the individuals who are
    affected.'' And so, you know, you have got a big job ahead of
    you that you have taken on, moving this stuff from military
    commissions. It seems to me we need to know who is involved in
    it and what their predilections are.
        I yield back.
        Attorney General Holder. Well, let me say this about the
    people who work in the Justice Department and who work on these
    cases. They are fine public servants who have sacrificed a
    great deal to work in the Department. They apply the law as
    best they can. They are patriots. They are concerned about the
    security of the American people. And whatever their previous
    roles, I am confident that they can put those aside or recuse
    themselves, and I am confident that the people who I am
    speaking with and relying on have the best interest of the
    American people, including the national security, uppermost in
    their minds.
        Senator Grassley. The very least you can give me is a list
    of the recusals.
        Attorney General Holder. I will consider that.
        Chairman Leahy. Senator Feingold.
        Senator Feingold. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        General, I want to commend you for your decision to try
    Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other 9/11 plotters in Federal
    court. It is about time that we bring these criminals to
    justice, and your decision shows the world that this country
    stands firmly behind its legal system and the Constitution.
        As you know, I do not agree with every decision you have
    made in this area. I remain skeptical about the decision to try
    five other Guantanamo detainees in military commissions. But
    too much of the criticism directed at using our Federal courts
    has not been based in fact. Some conservative commentators have
    gone so far as to call it scare-mongering, and they have called
    for it to stop.
        More than 200 terrorism defendants have been prosecuted in
    our Federal court system since 9/11, and Federal prisoners
    securely hold more than 300 inmates whose cases were terrorism
    related. Zacarias Moussaoui was successfully prosecuted and
    convicted in Federal court of conspiring with al Qaeda on the
    9/11 attacks and is serving a life sentence. And yet I do not
    remember hearing the kind of uproar about the decision to try
    Moussaoui in Federal court that we are hearing now. So it is a
    little disheartening that critics of your decision seem to have
    so little faith in our system of justice.
        So, Mr. Attorney General, how does your decision to seek
    justice in Federal court support our fight against terrorism?
        Attorney General Holder. Well, I have great faith in our
    system, and it is not a speculative faith. It is based on
    experience. The cases that you mentioned, the familiarity I
    have from the Federal courts, having been a prosecutor in those
    courts, gives me the belief that we are going to have an
    ability to maintain courtrooms in a way that is consistent with
    what I think we want. There will be a level of decorum. I think
    that we will have an ability to introduce the evidence that we
    seek to introduce, and that our courts are capable of handling
    this whole concern that people have expressed about the
    dispersal of classified information. We have done it in the
    past, and I am confident that we can do it with regard to these
    five individuals.
        Senator Feingold. I have been raising concerns for a while
    now about the possibility of establishing a so-called
    indefinite detention regime. Recently, a statement rejecting
    indefinite detention without charge was issued by more than 130
    former Members of Congress, diplomats, Federal judges,
    prosecutors, high-level military officers, and national
    security experts representing the full political spectrum. The
    declaration said this: ``Instituting a system of indefinite
    determination without charge in the United States for terrorism
    suspects would threaten the constitutional protections
    enshrined in our justice system and is simply bad policy.''
        General, can you tell us yet whether there will be any
    Guantanamo detainees who will be neither prosecuted nor
    transferred to another country? And is the administration
    currently contemplating holding some detainees without trial
    for an indefinite period of time?
        Attorney General Holder. The possibility exists that at the
    conclusion of our review with regard to the detainees, the
    people who are held at Guantanamo, that there will be a number
    of people whom we will seek to detain under the laws of war. We
    will do so in a way that is consistent with due process to make
    sure that those determinations are made in a way, as I said,
    that ensures that the decision is based in due process and that
    reviews are done on a periodic basis to ensure that anybody
    held under that regime remains a danger to the country and
    should continue to be held. But that possibility does exist.
        Senator Feingold. In a status other than as prisoner of
    war?
        Attorney General Holder. No. Under the laws of war, these
    would be people who would be held under the laws of war.
        Senator Feingold. We will need to pursue this at greater
    length later, but I want to flag my concern again.
        As several Senators have already discussed, we were all
    devastated by the tragedy at Fort Hood. It has been especially
    hard for Wisconsin, and Senator Kohl mentioned two brave
    Wisconsin soldiers who were murdered and several more were
    injured. And I know that the President has ordered a thorough
    governmentwide review of what the U.S. Government knew and what
    went wrong, and I am sure my colleagues on the Committee will
    be very interested in the outcome of that. I appreciate that
    there is not a lot you can say in public now, and it is
    important not to jump to conclusions, and especially not to
    jeopardize the murder prosecution. But I hope the review will
    be expedited.
        You discussed with Senator Leahy sharing the results of
    your review with members of this Committee which I appreciate,
    but I want the record to be clear. Will you commit to making
    public to the greatest degree possible the conclusions the
    executive branch reaches so that the American people--most of
    all, the families who lost loved ones--have an opportunity to
    understand what, if anything, could have been done to prevent
    this tragedy?
        Attorney General Holder. Yes, in a way that is consistent
    with ensuring that we do not do harm to the potential trial, I
    think it is our obligation to make clear to this Committee and
    to the American public what the results of our investigation
    are so that we have a way in which, working with this
    Committee, we prevent further tragedies like that which
    occurred at Fort Hood.
        Senator Feingold. General, during town hall meetings and
    other exchanges I have had with a lot of Wisconsin law
    enforcement people over the last several years, I have heard
    that progress has actually been made in combating
    methamphetamine production and use, which is good news.
    Unfortunately, there has also been a significant increase in
    heroin coming into the State quite possibly as a replacement
    for meth, and this heroin is often very pure and, therefore,
    very dangerous.
        Wisconsin law enforcement reports not only that there is
    increasing violent crime associated with heroin trafficking,
    but there has also been a disturbing increase in heroin-related
    deaths. Rock County, my home county in south central Wisconsin,
    has already had 12 heroin-related deaths this year, and I am
    concerned this may be part of a larger nationwide trend.
    Senator Kohl and I have addressed this increase in Rock County
    by requesting that it receive funding through the High-
    Intensity Drug-Trafficking Assurance Program. We would like to
    know whether this trend is emerging in other States. And what
    steps is the Department taking to reduce heroin trafficking in
    Wisconsin and elsewhere?
        Attorney General Holder. Well, we certainly have seen an
    increase, chiefly from Mexico, in the movement of heroin into
    the United States. The problem that you have identified in
    Wisconsin is one that we see in other parts of the country. I
    know that Baltimore has a particular heroin problem, but we see
    it in other States as well.
        The Department of Justice, in conjunction--well, the DEA is
    part of the Justice Department--is using all of the tactics we
    have, all of the skills we have, to try to get at that emerging
    heroin problem.
        I think a lot of people thought that heroin was a problem
    of the past, but the concern that you are raising is a very,
    very legitimate one and one that we are focusing on. We have to
    combat heroin yet again, and we are doing so.
        Senator Feingold. Thank you, General.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Leahy. Thank you very much.
        Senator Kyl.
        Senator Kyl. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, first of all, Senator
    Grassley asked me just one thing here.
        Attorney General Holder, is my understanding correct that
    you will not commit to providing Senator Grassley a list of
    your recusals?
        Attorney General Holder. A list of my recusals?
        Senator Kyl. Yes. The list of recusals that he was
    requesting when he examined you just a moment ago.
        Attorney General Holder. What I said was that I would
    consider that request.
        Senator Kyl. Yes. So my understanding is correct that you
    are not committing to provide that for him. Is that correct?
        Attorney General Holder. I said I would consider it.
        Senator Kyl. You have repeatedly said that your decision to
    try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Article III courts is because
    that is where you have the best chance to prosecute, that the
    chances of success are enhanced in Article III courts, and that
    you have access to all the evidence so you are in a better
    position to judge than those who are ignorant of that evidence
    are.
        How could you be more likely to get a conviction in Federal
    court when Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has already asked to plead
    guilty before a military commission and be executed? How could
    you be more likely to get a conviction in an Article III court
    than that?
        Attorney General Holder. Well, Senator, you are dealing
    with----
        [Applause.]
        Chairman Leahy. We will have order in these hearings. As I
    always do, whether people are supportive or opposed to any
    position I take, we must have order, we will have order. The
    police will remove those who do not----
        Senator Kyl. Mr. Chairman, let me say that your request for
    order is exactly appropriate, and I concur with that.
        Can you answer my question, Mr. Attorney General.
        Attorney General Holder. The determination that I make on
    where I think we can best try these cases does not depend on
    the whims or the desires of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. He said he
    wanted to do that then. I have no idea what he wants to do now
    with regard to these military commissions that, as a result of
    the work that this Committee did and this Congress did, now has
    enhanced protections and I think are better than they once were
    before. He may still want to do that in the military
    commission. I have no idea. My job is to look at the
    possibilities--Article III, military commission. Where is my
    best chance of success? And----
        Senator Kyl. If I could interrupt, it would seem to me that
    given the fact----
        Attorney General Holder.--I decided that Article III courts
    were the best place to do that.
        Senator Kyl. Right, I know that is what you----
        Attorney General Holder. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is not
    making this decision. The Attorney General makes----
        Senator Kyl. Of course he is not. Mr. Attorney General, you
    have based this on where you think you are more likely to get a
    conviction. He talked about the best chance to prosecute, the
    chances of success are enhanced, and so on. One of the factors
    has to be the fact that he has at least at some time to plead
    guilty. I mean, you had to have taken that into account.
        Attorney General Holder. That was then. I do not know what
    Khalid Sheikh Mohammed wants to do now, and I am not going to
    base a determination on where these cases ought to be brought
    on what a terrorist, what a murderer wants to do. He will not
    select the prosecution venue. I will select it. And I have.
        Senator Kyl. But my understanding is that one of the key
    reasons for your decision is where you think you are going to
    have the best chance of success. One would think that his
    express desire to plead guilty in the military commission would
    have some effect on your decision.
        Attorney General Holder. Well, Senator Kyl, with all
    respect, today is--I do not know--November 16th, 17th--I am not
    sure what the date is. Do we know as a fact right now that that
    is, in fact, what he wants to do? Do we know that? Do I have
    some special information, do you have some special information
    that is what Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is planning to do or
    continuing to plan to do?
        Senator Kyl. Why is it more likely that he will be
    convicted in a Federal court than he would before a military
    commission, particularly given the fact--surely you are not
    arguing that it is easier to get evidence in to an Article III
    court than it is in a military commission. I mean, you have
    made the point that you are aware of a lot of evidence in this
    case that others are not, of course. But the rules for
    admitting evidence are more lenient before military commissions
    than in Article III courts. So that cannot be the basis for
    your decision, is it?
        Attorney General Holder. That is not necessarily the case.
    With regard to the evidence that would be elicited in a
    military commission, evidence elicited from the detainees, from
    the terrorists as a result of these enhanced interrogation
    techniques, it is not clear to me at all that information would
    necessarily be admitted in a military commission, even with the
    use of a clean team, or that it would withstand appellate
    scrutiny. And on the basis of that concern and other things, my
    desire to go to an Article III court and to minimize the use of
    that kind of information, that kind of evidence, I thought was
    paramount.
        Senator Kyl. Suppose that another terrorist of the same
    kind as KSM argues that he, too, should be tried in an Article
    III court, but he is one of the ones destined for a military
    commission. On what basis do you argue against that request
    since this appears to be simply a subjective judgment on your
    part as to which court it is easier to get a conviction?
        Attorney General Holder. It is not a question of where I
    think we can get an easier conviction. It is a question of
    looking at the protocol that exists, talking to the Secretary
    of Defense and other people in trying to make determinations of
    where cases are more appropriately held.
        The case, for instance, involving the Cole that involves
    Mr. Nashiri, an attack on an American warship, it seems to me
    is something that is uniquely situated for a military
    commission as opposed to an Article III court.
        Senator Kyl. But how do you answer the rationale that the
    more heinous crime is the killing of civilians and, therefore,
    is more ripe for resolution in a military commission than in an
    Article III court?
        Attorney General Holder. I am not making value judgments
    about which case is more heinous or which lives are more
    valuable. I am looking simply at the facts and at the protocols
    and trying to make determinations as to where cases are
    appropriately sited.
        Senator Kyl. It is hard to understand a rationale, though,
    that when you kill 3,000, almost, civilians that that,
    therefore, calls for Article III as opposed to a military
    commission. The logic of that escapes me. Let----
        Attorney General Holder. Well, the Federal law that governs
    the administration of the death penalty dictates that cases
    should be brought in the place where the offense occurred. So
    that is at least another factor that I think has to be used in
    trying to determine where the cases should be brought.
        Senator Kyl. Well, that assumes that the person is in the
    United States for one thing, and he is not.
        Let me just close with this point. You said--and this
    really bothers me, Mr. Attorney General, with all due respect:
    ``For 8 years, justice has been delayed for the victims of the
    9/11 attacks.''
        I want to put in the record, Mr. Chairman, ask unanimous
    consent to insert in the record an article called ``Justice
    Delayed,'' by Andrew McCarthy.
        Chairman Leahy. Without objection.
        Senator Kyl. I will just quote two paragraphs from this.
    ``This is chutzpah writ large,'' he writes. ``The principal
    reason there were so few military trials is the tireless
    campaign conducted by leftist lawyers to derail military
    tribunals by challenging them in the courts. Many of those
    lawyers are now working for the Obama Justice Department. That
    includes Holder, whose firm, Covington & Burling, volunteered
    its services to at least 18 of America's enemies in lawsuits
    they brought against the American people.''
        And he concludes, ``...within 2 years...KSM and four fellow
    war criminals stood ready to plead guilty and proceed to
    execution. But then the Obama administration blew into
    Washington. Want to talk about delay? Obama shut down the
    commission despite the jihadists' efforts to conclude it by
    pleading guilty. Obama's team permitted no movement on the case
    for eleven months and now has torpedoed a perfectly valid
    commission case--despite keeping the commission system for
    other cases--so that we can instead endure an incredibly
    expensive and burdensome civilian trial that will take years to
    complete.''
        [The article appears as a submission for the record.]
        Senator Kyl. The witness can surely respond to what I said.
        Attorney General Holder. I do not even know where to begin,
    other than to say that, you know, this notion of ``leftist
    lawyers'' somehow prolonging this, the vast majority of the
    time in which these matters were not brought to trial, to
    fruition, happened in the prior administration. The Supreme
    Court--not, I think, a group of leftist lawyers--had concerns
    about the way in which the commissions were constructed.
        The Congress reenacted, and I think appropriately so, the
    way in which the commissions were constructed. This is not a
    Congress peopled only with leftist lawyers, as Mr. McCarthy
    would say.
        So, you know, that makes for nice rhetoric, and it makes
    for, you know, good fodder on the talk shows and all of that
    stuff. But I am here to talk about facts and evidence, real
    American values, and not the kinds of polemics that he seems
    prone to. So, you know, that is----
        Chairman Leahy. Thank you.
        Attorney General Holder.--about Mr. McCarthy.
        Chairman Leahy. I would put into the record the statistics
    since 9/11. Since September 11, 2001, the Department of Justice
    has brought 119 terrorism cases in Federal court with a
    conviction rate of over 90 percent. Since January 1, 2009, more
    than 30 individuals charged with terrorism violations have been
    either successfully prosecuted and/or sentenced in Federal
    courts nationwide. And there are currently more than 200
    inmates in Bureau of Prisons custody who have a history of or a
    nexus to international terrorism that were convicted by Federal
    courts.
        Our next----
        Senator Sessions. Mr. Chairman, I would just add that I do
    not doubt that you can try people successfully in Federal
    court, but there are other issues that have been raised here
    about that. And I would--I understand Senator Kyl has asked for
    the names of these cases and the defendants but has not
    received information on that. Will you provide that?
        Attorney General Holder. The names of?
        Senator Sessions. The names of the cases and defendants
    that you say are pending or have been tried and convicted and
    what they have been tried and convicted of.
        Attorney General Holder. Of the material support charges?
    Is that----
        Senator Sessions. You said there are 300 cases. I would
    like all 300 of them, when they were tried, when they were
    convicted, and what they were charged with.
        Attorney General Holder. What I said was that there were
    300 people in the Federal system, the Federal Bureau of
    Prisons----
        Senator Sessions. Well, will you provide the names and what
    they have been charged with and why they are being detained? If
    you haven't done so, with Senator Kyl's request----
        Chairman Leahy. I think we can let the witness----
        Senator Sessions. No. I would just like a yes or no.
        Chairman Leahy.--answer the question. Well, then----
        Attorney General Holder. I do not think that was
    necessarily a request that was made, but I will certainly--at
    least I think Senator Kyl, I thought, was asking what Senator
    Grassley had asked about. That was not quite the same thing.
        Senator Sessions. Well, my understanding is previous to
    that----
        Attorney General Holder. I will supply you with those 300
    names and what they were convicted of. I will be glad to do
    that.
        Senator Sessions. Thank you.
        [The information referred to appears as a submission for
    the record.]
        Chairman Leahy. The only member of this Committee who
    actually lives in New York City is----
        Senator Schumer. Brooklyn.
        Chairman Leahy. In Brooklyn, and proudly so. I have visited
    there with you.
        Senator Schumer. Yes, you did.
        Chairman Leahy. Is Senator Schumer, and I yield to Senator
    Schumer.
        Senator Schumer. Thank you, and thank you, Mr. Attorney
    General. I also want to thank the families from New York who
    are here who have been such strong advocates on this and so
    many other issues. We all deeply live with the losses that New
    York and the rest of the Nation suffered in 2001.
        My first question relates to the practical matters of the
    trial in New York City. I spoke with Commissioner Ray Kelly
    yesterday about the strain that conducting trials in New York
    City will place on local law enforcement. Obviously, it is a
    large burden, which Commissioner Kelly willingly and Mayor
    Bloomberg willingly accept. Rough estimates from the city of
    New York which I received yesterday place the added cost of
    moving the trials of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other
    terrorist suspects to New York somewhere in the ballpark of $75
    million. That is a minimum. That is just for the year of the
    trial. The figure does not include costs of ramping up
    personnel, placing additional perimeter units around the
    courthouse and the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Lower
    Manhattan, and other consistent demands that will be placed on
    our police force as soon as the detainees are physically
    transferred.
        As you can imagine, such a high-profile case involving such
    dangerous subjects will require substantial manpower for the
    necessary enhanced security. The city will require the
    following: police officers to establish a secure perimeter
    around Lower Manhattan, many of those, obviously, the hours are
    going to vary, and so there will be overtime and other things
    like that; police officers and equipment for demonstration
    areas and crowd control police officers to enhance security
    units for City Hall and for police headquarters, both of which
    are near the courthouse and the MCC; as well as for our bridges
    and transit systems; increased traffic agents, aviation
    flyovers, sniper teams, and hazmat units. This list does not
    come from me, but from the police commissioner in New York.
        Commissioner Kelly estimated--this is a rough estimation at
    this early point, because I just asked him to do it yesterday--
    that as much as 90 percent of the additional outlays would need
    to go to overtime alone because they are not going to be able
    to hire new police officers for all of this.
        All of this comes at a time when, of course, we compete,
    New York City does, for Federal grants of the COPS hiring
    grant. We did not receive any money for that program last year.
    So I worry about safety first, obviously, but also the burden
    on the taxpayers of New York.
        In 1995, the city of New York was host to the trial of
    Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, the mastermind of the 1993 bombing at
    the World Trade Center, and costs associated with that trial
    were fully reimbursed by the Federal Government.
        So my general question to you is: Will you recommend to the
    President that he include in his budget dedicated funding to
    cover all of New York City's added security costs?
        Attorney General Holder. Yes, I think that is fair. America
    was attacked on September the 11th. That attack was of national
    consequence. What we are doing is a national responsibility,
    and although the trial will be hosted in New York, it seems to
    me that New York should not bear the burden alone. This is a
    national----
        Senator Schumer. So you will recommend and, I presume,
    fight for these funds from OMB, which we know sometimes has
    other things on its mind?
        Attorney General Holder. With your help, I would----
        Senator Schumer. You will have my full and undivided help.
    I just do not want--I mean, Mayor Bloomberg, the commissioner,
    they did not make the decision, but they stepped up to the
    plate and willingly agreed. I do not think either they or New
    York City or New York State should be left hanging out there
    paying any of the costs of this, and I take it you fully agree
    with that.
        Attorney General Holder. I do not disagree with that at
    all, Senator.
        Senator Schumer. OK. Second question--and just one other
    thing on this. There may be other costs that we cannot
    envision, and I take it we are not going to find somebody sort
    of trying to say, well, this was not in an original application
    or on an original request. I take it there will be flexibility
    and generosity because of New York's generosity here.
        Attorney General Holder. You are going to be with me at
    OMB, yes, that does----
        Senator Schumer. I will be there, believe me, with you or--
    gladly with you rather than alone. Thank you.
        Attorney General Holder. I look forward to working with you
    in that regard.
        Senator Schumer. OK, great. The next question is about the
    death penalty. As you know, because we discussed this back
    then, I was the primary author of the Federal death penalty
    provisions for terrorists in the 1994 omnibus crime bill, and
    you have already indicated you intend to seek the death penalty
    against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his cohorts, which I think
    is totally appropriate.
        Can you tell me if you currently see any legal impediments,
    that is, existing court cases, because what we worry about
    here--and this happened in the military courts with Hamdan and
    other cases--that would stand in the way, provided all the
    proper procedures were followed, of seeking and imposing the
    death penalty?
        Attorney General Holder. No. When I made that statement, I
    did so on an informed basis and looked at what the potential
    impediments were, and I do not see any legal impediments to our
    seeking the death penalty. We will obviously have to convince a
    jury of 12 people that the death penalty is appropriate. But I
    do not see any legal impediments in that regard.
        Senator Schumer. My guess is a normal jury of 12 people
    would clearly see that, but we have a jury system and we trust
    it.
        Khalid Sheikh Mohammed expressed a desire in the tribunal
    to plead guilty. If he wants to plead guilty in Federal court--
    and as you correctly point out, we have no knowledge that he
    still wants to do that and cannot rely on the whims of him to
    make any decisions--but he waives his right to a jury trial for
    the penalty phase, will you agree to that to, for instance,
    avoid some of the theater that some people are justifiably
    worried about?
        Attorney General Holder. He certainly has the right to
    plead guilty, and if we are spared a trial and simply go to the
    penalty phase, that is something we would, I think, clearly
    agree to.
        Senator Schumer. Thank you. One quick other question. I
    know my time is coming to an end. This is about Fort Hood and
    guns. Senator Feinstein talked about the Lautenberg law and
    others to prevent terrorists and people on the watchlist from
    getting guns, and that makes sense. But there is another aspect
    here. There are restrictions on even notification. So, for
    instance, the people in one end of the justice system, the
    Joint Terrorism Task Force, were not notified when Major Hasan
    bought a gun. That is not talking about whether the law should
    allow it or not, but, clearly, there should be notification.
    Now the Tiahrt amendment, the 24-hour background check
    requirement, gets in the way of that.
        My question is: Will the Justice Department remove the
    Tiahrt 24-hour background check destruction requirement from
    its 2011 budget to allow the FBI to keep records of guns
    purchased by subjects of terrorist inquiries--I am just
    limiting it to that issue--like Major Hasan?
        Attorney General Holder. The position of the administration
    is that there should be a basis for law enforcement to share
    information about gun purchases. We fully respect the Second
    Amendment, fully respect the Heller decision. It does not seem
    to us that it is inconsistent to allow law enforcement agencies
    to share that kind of information--for that information to be
    retained and then to be shared by law enforcement.
        Senator Schumer. I would just urge that you urge they write
    it into the budget that they are going to bring to us, the
    administration. It would be very important.
        Attorney General Holder. I believe it is, but I have to
    check. But I believe it is.
        Senator Schumer. Thank you.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Leahy. Thank you. I was going to take a short
    break, but Senator Graham tells me he has a conflict, so why
    don't I yield to you, Senator Graham. And then after Senator
    Graham's questions, we will take a very short break while we
    reconnoiter.
        Senator Sessions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Senator Graham. Thank you, Mr. Attorney General. I have,
    quite frankly, enjoyed working with you on this difficult
    topic, and I am afraid we have reached different conclusions.
    But this is an important discussion for the American people to
    understand, you know, how this affects us now and in the
    future.
        The first thing I would like to make the public understand
    is that you are not suggesting that if by some one in a million
    fluke one of these defendants were acquitted or given a short
    sentence, they would be released anywhere, are you?
        Attorney General Holder. No.
        Senator Graham. We would hold them as an enemy combatant.
        Attorney General Holder. As I indicated to Senator--as I
    should have indicated to Senator Kohl when that question was
    initially asked of me, I think we have Congressional
    restrictions on how these people would be treated in such a
    circumstance so that, no, that would not be----
        Senator Graham. But the administration's position would
    be--and this is not going to happen. I am here to tell you that
    I am sure he will get convicted in Federal court, but not
    because we are threatening the judge or the jury, but just
    because of the nature of the case. That is not really my
    concern about what happens to him because he will get his day,
    he will meet justice. But in the future, if one of these
    terrorists were taken to Federal court and somehow acquitted or
    given a short sentence and the administration still felt they
    presented a military threat to the country, you would have the
    legal authority to hold them as an enemy combatant, right?
        Attorney General Holder. I certainly think that under the
    regime that we are contemplating, the potential for detaining
    people under the laws of war, we would retain that ability.
        Senator Graham. Yes. So in a Sheikh Mohammed case, we are
    never going to let him go if something happened wrong in the
    Federal court.
        Attorney General Holder. I do not anticipate that anything
    is going to go wrong in the Federal court----
        Senator Graham. Nor do I, but here is my concern. Can you
    give me a case in United States history where an enemy
    combatant caught on a battlefield was tried in civilian court?
        Attorney General Holder. I do not know; I would have to
    look at that. I think that, you know, the determination of----
        Senator Graham. We are making history here, Mr. Attorney
    General. I will answer it for you. The answer is no.
        Attorney General Holder. Well, I think----
        Senator Graham. The Ghailani case, he was indicted for the
    Cole bombing before 9/11, and I did not object to going into
    Federal court. But I am telling you right now, we are making
    history, and we are making bad history, and let me tell you
    why.
        If bin Laden were caught tomorrow, would it be the position
    of this administration that he would be brought to justice?
        Attorney General Holder. He would certainly be brought to
    justice, absolutely.
        Senator Graham. Where would you try him?
        Attorney General Holder. Well, we would go through our
    protocol, and we would make the determination about where he
    should appropriately be tried.
        Senator Graham. Would you try him--why would you take him
    someplace different than KSM?
        Attorney General Holder. Well, that might be the case. I do
    not know. I would have to look at all of the evidence, all of
    the--indicted----
        Senator Graham. Well----
        Attorney General Holder. He has been indicted already in
    Federal court.
        Senator Graham. Does it matter if you use the law
    enforcement theory or the enemy combatant theory in terms of
    how the case would be handled?
        Attorney General Holder. Well, bin Laden is an interesting
    case in that he has already been indicted in Federal court.
        Senator Graham. Right.
        Attorney General Holder. We have cases against him in
    Federal court.
        Senator Graham. Right. Well, where would you put him?
        Attorney General Holder. It would depend on a variety of
    factors.
        Senator Graham. Well, let me ask you this question. Let me
    ask you this. Let us say we capture him tomorrow. When does
    custodial interrogation begin in his case? If we captured bin
    Laden tomorrow, would he be entitled to Miranda warnings at the
    moment of capture?
        Attorney General Holder. Again, that all depends. I mean,
    if we capture----
        Senator Graham. Well, it does not depend. If you are going
    to prosecute anybody in civilian court, our law is clear that
    the moment custodial interrogation occurs, the defendant, the
    criminal defendant is entitled to a lawyer and to be informed
    of their right to remain silent. The big problem I have is that
    you are criminalizing the war, that if we caught bin Laden
    tomorrow, we have mixed theories and we could not turn him over
    to the CIA, the FBI, or military intelligence for an
    interrogation on the battlefield because now we are saying that
    he is subject to criminal court in the United States, and you
    are confusing the people fighting this war.
        What would you tell the military commander who captured
    him? Would you tell him, ``You must read him his rights and
    give him a lawyer'' ? And if you did not tell him that, would
    you jeopardize the prosecution in a Federal court?
        Attorney General Holder. We have captured thousands of
    people on the battlefield, only a few of which have actually
    been given their Miranda warnings.
        With regard to bin Laden and the desire or the need for
    statements from him, the case against him at this point is so
    overwhelming----
        Senator Graham. Mr. Attorney General----
        Attorney General Holder.--that there is no need to----
        Senator Graham.--the only point I am making is that if we
    are going to use Federal court as a disposition for terrorists,
    you take everything that comes with being in Federal court. And
    what comes with being in Federal court is that the rules in
    this country, unlike military law--you can have military
    operations, you can interrogate somebody for military
    intelligence purposes, and the law enforcement rights do not
    attach. But under domestic criminal law, the moment the person
    is in the hands of the U.S. Government, they are entitled to be
    told they have a right to a lawyer and can remain silent, and
    if we go down that road, we are going to make this country less
    safe. That is my problem with what you have done.
        You are a fine man. I know you want to do everything to
    help this country be safe. But I think you have made a
    fundamental mistake here. You have taken a wartime model that
    will allow us flexibility when it comes to intelligence
    gathering, and you have compromised this country's ability to
    deal with people who are at war with us by interjecting into
    the system the possibility that they may be given the same
    constitutional rights as any American citizen. And the main
    reason that KSM is going to court apparently is because the
    people he decided to kill were here in America and mostly
    civilian, and the person going into military court decided to
    kill some military members overseas. I think that is a
    perversion of the justice system.
        Attorney General Holder. What I said repeatedly is that we
    should use all the tools available to us--military courts,
    Article III courts. The conviction of Osama bin Laden, were he
    to come into our custody, would not depend on any custodial
    statements that he would make. The case against him, both for
    those cases that have already been indicted, the case we could
    make him against for his involvement in the 9/11 case, would
    not be dependent on----
        Senator Graham. Mr. Attorney----
        Attorney General Holder.--would not be dependent on
    custodial interrogations. And so I think in some ways you have
    thrown up something that is--with all due respect, I think is a
    red herring. It would not be something----
        Senator Graham. With all due respect, every military lawyer
    that I have talked to is deeply concerned about the fact that
    if we go down this road, we are criminalizing the war, and we
    are putting our intelligence gathering at risk. And I will have
    some statements from them to back up what I am saying.
        Chairman Leahy. Senator Graham----
        Senator Graham. My time is up. I look forward to talking to
    you. There are some issues we can agree on.
        Attorney General Holder. One thing I would say, that with
    regard to those people who are captured on the battlefield, we
    make the determinations every day as to who should be
    Mirandized, who should not. Most are not Mirandized. And the
    people who are involved in that decision involve not only
    lawyers and agents but also military personnel who make the
    determination as to who should be Mirandized.
        But, again, the notion that a conviction of Khalid Sheikh
    Mohammed would depend on his getting Miranda rights is simply
    not accurate.
        Senator Graham. I am not saying that.
        Chairman Leahy. And, Senator Graham, you were out of the
    room when I put into the record some very significant, well-
    qualified military people who support what Attorney General
    Holder has done, as well as numerous other commentators.
        I would also put into the record statements of those who
    have called for the closing of Guantanamo: General Colin
    Powell, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Chairman of the Joint
    Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mullen, the CENTCOM Commander General
    David Petraeus, the Director of National Intelligence Admiral
    Blair, former Guantanamo Commander Marine Corps Major General
    Michael Lehnert, former Navy General Counsel Alberto Mora, and
    Senator John McCain.
        Senator Sessions. That is to close Guantanamo but not
    dealing with what Senator Graham talked about.
        Chairman Leahy. We have already put into the record
    statements across the political spectrum, including military
    who take a different view than Senator Graham.
        [The statements appear as a submission for the record.]
        Chairman Leahy. We will stand in recess for 10 minutes.
        [Recess 11:32 a.m. to 11:46 a.m.]
        Chairman Leahy. The Committee will come to order.
        We have finished with Senator Graham, so next is Senator
    Durbin. Senator Durbin, I yield to you.
        Senator Durbin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Attorney General, thank you for your appearance. I
    would like to call your attention to a matter which has been
    discussed here, a matter of discretion by the Attorney General
    of trying an accused terrorist before the tribunals of our land
    that are available. In fact, the terrorist who was being tried
    was accused of being the 20th hijacker on 9/11, and the
    decision was made by the previous administration to try that
    terrorist in an Article III court in the Eastern District of
    Virginia, literally 15 minutes away by car from the Pentagon,
    where on 9/11 innocent lives were lost and families still
    grieve to this day, and we join them in that grief.
        That decision was made in 2006 to try Zacarias Moussaoui in
    the Eastern District of Virginia. I do not recall any
    complaints from either the Republican side of the aisle of
    their President, President Bush's decision through his
    Department of Justice, to try that case in an Article III
    court, or on our side of the aisle either. And I ask you, as
    you reflect on the parallels between Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's
    prosecution in New York and this prosecution in the Eastern
    District of Virginia, can you tell me what the distinction
    might be, why Khalid Sheikh Mohammed should be tried in a
    military commission?
        Attorney General Holder. Well, again, we have learned, I
    think, a great deal from the Moussaoui trial which I think will
    assist us in the conduct of the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed trial
    and the other four. Again, I think determinations are made as
    to what is the best forum for a particular case. What I have
    tried to do is make individualized determinations looking at
    each of these matters and trying to decide what is in the best
    interests of the American people in terms of safety, what is
    consistent with our values, and I have made determinations that
    some should go to our Article III courts and some should go to
    the reformed military commissions.
        Senator Durbin. I would like to quote former Mayor
    Giuliani, who has been outspoken about the trial of Khalid
    Sheikh Mohammed, in what he said about the Moussaoui trial,
    tried in an Article III court. He said, ``At the same time, I
    was in awe of our system. It does demonstrate that we can give
    people a fair trial, that we are exactly what we saw we are. We
    are a nation of law. I think it is going to be a symbol of
    American justice.''
        That was the trial of an accused terrorist, 20th hijacker,
    9/11, in an Article III court, within a minute's drive away
    from the scene of that horrific loss of life at the Pentagon.
    And I struggle to find the difference, but I want to draw one
    point, too. You refer, accurately so, to the reformed military
    tribunals, reformed military commissions, and it reflects the
    fact that because of Supreme Court decisions in Hamdan and
    actions by Congress, at the time controlled by the Republicans,
    that we have changed the laws when it relates to military
    tribunals to try to come in conformance with Supreme Court
    requirements. You have noted that since 9/11, only three have
    been successfully tried before military tribunals accused of
    terrorism, and I want to ask you this question: As you referred
    the five to military tribunals under the reform, are you not
    also aware of the possibility that some will challenge this new
    procedure as to whether or not it conforms with earlier Supreme
    Court decisions, which may lead to procedural delays and some
    delay in the final outcome of those tribunals?
        Attorney General Holder. No, that is a distinct possibility
    and something that we will have to try to deal with, or the
    prosecutors in that case will have to deal with, and that is
    something we will certainly not have to deal with in bringing
    Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his cohorts in the Article III court
    in Manhattan. We have a 200-year history of trying cases, these
    kinds of cases. And so the question of legitimacy is not an
    issue that we will have to deal with at all.
        Senator Durbin. So we have a very close parallel where the
    Bush administration decided on the 20th hijacker for 9/11 to
    prosecute him in the Article III court, in a venue very close
    to the scene of the horrific tragedy. We have a situation now
    where some are calling for any future trials to be in military
    tribunals or commissions, which have procedures still not ruled
    upon by the Supreme Court which could lead to some ultimate
    delay in the outcome of those proceedings.
        I think those are things which should be made part of this
    record in our hearing today.
        I would like to move, if I can, to the issue of the future
    of Guantanamo. I support the administration's decision in
    closing Guantanamo. It is consistent with positions taken by
    General Colin Powell, who said, ``If I had my way, I wouldn't
    close Guantanamo tomorrow. I'd close it this afternoon.''
        Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, under both President
    Bush and President Obama, has called for the closure of
    Guantanamo because of the danger that it presents to our troops
    in the field.
        President Bush on eight separate occasions called for the
    closure of Guantanamo. Admiral Mullen, Chairman of the Joint
    Chiefs of Staff, called for the closure of Guantanamo. General
    David Petraeus called for the closure--all believing that the
    existence of Guantanamo was, in fact, an incitement for those
    who would do harm to our soldiers and to the American people.
        And so now there is a possibility that we will find another
    venue, and one of the opportunities or possibilities is in my
    home State of Illinois in the small town of Thompson, fewer
    than 1,000 people, in the northwestern part of our State, a
    rural area. And the Bureau of Prisons and Department of Defense
    have been out to look at this site. It is my understanding that
    they are considering the configuration of this facility if it
    is chosen, and one of the things they are proposing is to put a
    new perimeter fence beyond what currently exists at this
    maximum security prison, built 8 years ago and never fully
    occupied. And it is my understanding that if this new perimeter
    fence is installed, this would indeed be the most secure, the
    safest maximum security prison in America. Is that correct?
        Attorney General Holder. That is correct.
        Senator Durbin. And to date, we have never had an escape
    from a supermax facility in the United States.
        Attorney General Holder. That is also correct.
        Senator Durbin. You mentioned some 300-plus convicted
    terrorists, domestic and international, being held; in our
    State, some 35. And, incidentally, one of those happens to be a
    man accused of being in a sleeper cell for al Qaeda, al-Bari,
    who is serving in the Marion Federal penitentiary, without any
    danger to the surrounding community.
        I might also ask, one of the congressional critics in my
    State has said that there would be a requirement if we brought
    the Guantanamo detainees to Thompson, Illinois, that they would
    be allowed up to ten visitors, which means if there were 100
    transferred, we would, in his words, have 1,000 jihadist
    followers going through O'Hare, trekking across Illinois to
    visit, as, he said, they were legally entitled to do. My
    understanding is that those held in military facilities--and
    this would be a military facility for Guantanamo detainees--are
    denied access to any visitors, family or friends, and the only
    visitation is from legal counsel. Is that your understanding as
    well?
        Attorney General Holder. That is my understanding.
        Senator Durbin. So the statement that has been made about a
    thousand jihadist followers streaming across the highways of
    Illinois is inconsistent with the law.
        Attorney General Holder. That is not consistent with my
    understanding of how people are held in military detention.
        Senator Durbin. Thank you, Mr. Holder. I appreciate your
    testimony.
        Chairman Leahy. Thank you very much Senator Durbin.
        Senator Cornyn.
        Senator Cornyn. Thank you.
        Mr. Attorney General, please forgive my voice. We are going
    to try to croak through this together.
        Attorney General Holder. OK.
        Senator Cornyn. Let me just ask, do you acknowledge the
    legitimacy of military commissions?
        Attorney General Holder. Absolutely. I think that what
    Congress has done in response to the Supreme Court concerns in
    reforming the military commission, military tribunals, has
    legitimized them and makes them places in which people can be
    referred and tried. And it was one of the reasons why I sent
    five of those people there last Friday.
        Senator Cornyn. And so your decision to try some of these
    9/11 co-conspirators in an Article III court is not compelled
    by any law. It was a matter of your judgment and discretion.
        Attorney General Holder. A matter of my judgment, my
    discretion, my experience, my interaction with the Secretary of
    Defense, my interaction with prosecutors both on the military
    side and on the civilian side. All of that went into making
    that determination.
        Senator Cornyn. Does the President of the United States
    agree with you?
        Attorney General Holder. I believe that he does. I have not
    had a direct conversation with him. I have seen reports
    indicating that he agrees with the decision that I made. But
    the decision I made I think is consistent with his Archives
    speech where he laid out how he viewed how the detainees at
    Guantanamo should be handled.
        Senator Cornyn. Well, you acknowledge that you work for the
    President of the United States, that he could fire you if he
    disagreed with you, that he could overrule you. Correct?
        Attorney General Holder. Yes, he could do that.
        Senator Cornyn. Well, I want to ask you, you mentioned that
    we are currently offering Miranda rights or reading Miranda
    rights to suspected terrorists on the battlefield. Is that
    correct?
        Attorney General Holder. No. What I said was that happens
    very, very rarely. It happened during the Bush administration.
    It happens very rarely. I have talked to the FBI about this.
    There was some misreporting about the notion that people
    captured on the battlefield were automatically being read their
    Miranda warnings and that the reality is there are thousands of
    people who are captured and a very, very small number have been
    read Miranda warnings after military lawyers, civilian lawyers,
    investigators from both sides made the determination that there
    was some reason to give Miranda warnings to those captives.
        Senator Cornyn. And you support that decision to give
    Miranda rights to some suspected terrorists?
        Attorney General Holder. Well, give them Miranda warnings
    if that means it is going to preserve an option for us. I think
    that is why it is done.
        Senator Cornyn. And you support it?
        Attorney General Holder. Well, I would support it to the
    limited extent that it is done. I defer to the people in the
    field who make these determinations and, I think, are capable
    of making those determinations given the facts that they have
    to confront that are right in front of them.
        Senator Cornyn. And should Khalid Sheikh Mohammed have been
    read his Miranda rights?
        Attorney General Holder. There was no need. We do not need
    his statements.
        Senator Cornyn. With all due deference, you are not going
    to be the ultimate arbiter of that decision. It will be a
    judge, won't it, at the trial or appellate level? Correct?
        Attorney General Holder. That is true, if that is an issue
    that they raise on appeal, should there be an appeal. But I am
    confident that the way in which this case is going to be
    structured, given the way in which and the various places in
    which we will be able to find statements that he made, there
    was no need for Miranda warnings.
        Senator Cornyn. Well, he did ask for a lawyer, didn't he,
    when he was detained?
        Attorney General Holder. I frankly do not know.
        Senator Cornyn. You are not aware of the fact that he asked
    for a lawyer and he said he wanted to go to New York?
        Attorney General Holder. Yes, I do remember that. Yes, that
    is correct. ``I want a lawyer'' and ``I want to go to New
    York,'' I remember those two, yes.
        Senator Cornyn. And he is getting his wish, I guess. When
    did he first get a lawyer, do you know?
        Attorney General Holder. No, I do not know the exact date.
        Senator Cornyn. Do you acknowledge the possibility that a
    judge, consistent with what you believe to be the sound policy
    of providing Miranda rights to some suspected detainees, would
    conclude that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was denied his rights and,
    thus, he cannot be prosecuted for the crimes for which you
    anticipate charging him?
        Attorney General Holder. Well, Senator, you have been a
    judge; I have been a judge. And there is no--I cannot say, you
    cannot say, no one can say with any 100-percent degree of
    certainty that a judge would not look at a particular set of
    facts and rule in a particular way. And yet, as I look at the
    facts surrounding the interaction with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,
    the detention of him, the evidence that we will present at
    trial, I am very confident that Miranda issues are not going to
    be a part of that trial.
        Senator Cornyn. Well, General Holder, you have been a
    judge, I have been a judge, and you are correct to acknowledge
    the fact that you will not make that decision.
        Attorney General Holder. Right.
        Senator Cornyn. I will not make that decision. Some judge
    will make that decision. Just like you said you are not going
    to defer to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in determining the venue
    where he is going to be tried, you are the one making that
    decision. But isn't it the fact that you will not be the one
    making that decision, ultimately--if an attempt to transfer
    venue based on the notoriety of this event on 9/11 is such,
    just like Timothy McVeigh, who killed so many Americans in
    Oklahoma, he was tried in Colorado. Isn't it a distinct
    possibility that a judge would transfer this case based on a
    local prejudice?
        Attorney General Holder. Sure, that is entirely possible.
    There may be a motion for a venue change. But just as in the
    McVeigh case, the venue change did not have a material negative
    impact on the outcome of the trial. He was convicted and he was
    executed.
        Senator Cornyn. Well, in terms of local security
    arrangements, I mean, this case might be tried in Connecticut
    or Vermont or some other part of the Second Circuit. And you
    cannot control that; I cannot control that. The judge is
    ultimately going to make that decision, correct?
        Attorney General Holder. Well, I would think that one of
    the things a judge would take into account--again, we are
    speculating here about the possibility of this case being
    moved. I would hope that a judge----
        Senator Cornyn. Well, you have to consider all the
    possibilities, don't you, consider the risk----
        Attorney General Holder. We consider the possibilities, and
    I would hope that the judge would take into account in deciding
    where the case would be tried the very real security concerns
    that this trial would present.
        Senator Cornyn. And you said that if Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
    is acquitted, he will not be released. What if a Federal judge
    orders the Department of Justice to release him? Will you defy
    that order?
        Attorney General Holder. We have taken the view that the
    judiciary does not have the ability necessarily to certainly
    require us, with regard to people held overseas, to release
    them. It is hard for me to imagine a set of circumstances given
    the other things that we could do with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
    There are other things that we can do with him aside from
    simply immigration. There are other legal things we can do with
    him. It is hard for me to imagine a set of circumstances under
    which, if he were acquitted, that he would be released into the
    United States. There are other matters. There are other things
    that we have the capacity to do, other legal matters that we
    can bring.
        Senator Cornyn. Well, you recognize the Supreme Court has
    said you cannot hold somebody indefinitely, for example, who
    cannot be repatriated to their home country.
        Attorney General Holder. You can certainly hold people in
    connection with matters that are pending, and we have the
    capacity to make sure that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is not
    released into the United States.
        Senator Cornyn. My time has expired. Thank you.
        Chairman Leahy. Thank you. Of course, I might say on half-
    facetiously, I suspect that a lot of people in New York would
    not mind having him released onto the streets of New York. I
    suspect he would not want to be released onto the streets of
    New York.
        Senator Cardin.
        Senator Cardin. Thank you, Chairman.
        Attorney General, it is a pleasure to have you before the
    Committee. There is risk involved in any trial, whether it is a
    military trial or whether it is a civilian trial. And I think
    you have gone over that very well. You give us great confidence
    of the confidence that you have in this trial of our
    terrorists. So I think we need to also underscore the
    advantages of trying the terrorists in the civilian courts,
    Article III courts. It gives us an established process that has
    been used before. It gives us the credibility of our system,
    which is internationally understood and respected. And it gives
    us the ability to showcase that we are using the American
    values to hold the terrorists responsible. So I think there are
    a lot of positive reasons to use Article III courts,
    particularly considering the history of how we have not only
    ignored international laws, we have ignored our own laws, as
    the Supreme Court has held on previous occasions.
        I want to follow up on Senator Kohl's point where we are
    talking about the closing of Guantanamo Bay, which I strongly
    support, and Senator Feingold's point of how you have made
    informed decisions as to how to basically classify the
    detainees at Guantanamo Bay, those who are going to be
    relocated to other countries, those who are going to be tried
    in military courts, those who are going to be tried in our
    Article III courts; and then in response to Senator Feingold,
    your ability to detain these individuals basically indefinitely
    under certain circumstances.
        When you previously testified before us, you indicated that
    there was going to be a process, a more open process with
    accountability. Can you just share with us how that is
    progressing as to how we can showcase to the world that, in
    fact, we are using fair procedures that everyone who is
    detained has their opportunity to challenge the methods that we
    are using?
        Attorney General Holder. Well, that is something that we
    are still in the process of trying to put together. Actually,
    it is something that I have worked a great deal with or talked
    about with Senator Graham--about the mechanism that we would
    use in order to detain somebody under the laws of war. But it
    certainly would involve a due process determination at the
    outset, that this was a person who could be detained under the
    laws of war with some periodic review to ensure that the
    continued detention of that person was appropriate, that that
    person continued to be a danger to the United States. It would
    not simply be placing somebody in a gulag and never hearing
    from or seeing that person again. There would be continuous
    reviews, as I said, to make sure that that person's continued
    detention was appropriate.
        Senator Cardin. I would just encourage you to be as open as
    you can on the procedures that are being used so that we can,
    in fact, justify the issues. I do not think anyone disagrees
    with the need to preserve public safety and the need to deal
    with the urgencies of war. But we want to make sure that it is
    not an arbitrary decision and is one that can withstand
    international scrutiny, and the more transparency that you
    bring to that process I think would be valuable for our
    country.
        Attorney General Holder. Senator Cardin, what I want to
    assure you and all the members of this Committee and the
    American people is that if we were to put such a regime in
    place, we would seek the approval of Congress--hold hearings,
    however that is to be done--to ensure that the mechanisms that
    we put in place have the support, perhaps generated by the
    executive branch, but have the support of the legislative
    branch. That is where the executive is most powerful, when it
    works in conjunction with the legislature.
        Senator Cardin. Thank you. I want to mention another area
    of concern on terrorist activities in the United States, and
    that is cybersecurity. I held a hearing yesterday in the
    Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security, and the
    Department of Justice was represented very ably at that
    hearing. We also had the Department of Homeland Security and
    NSA.
        I think the consensus there was that the line
    responsibility rests with the Department of Justice, although
    there are interagency working groups now. The vulnerability of
    America is great here. The assessment was made that we might be
    able to prevent 80 percent of the attacks, and I made the
    comment we would never do a defense budget based upon an 80-
    percent efficiency. We have to do better than that.
        I just want to get your assessment as to how high a
    priority you are placing on dealing with this issue. There have
    been some recommendations made about establishing a
    cybersecurity person who is principally responsible on the
    interagency issues. There are the legal matters as to whether
    our current laws are adequate to deal with this from the point
    of view of both protecting our country against cyber attacks,
    as well as protecting individual liberties of the people in
    America.
        It is a complicated area, but it is an area that is
    changing every day and making us more at risk every day.
        Attorney General Holder. You are absolutely right, Senator
    Cardin, and I think that the hearing that you held yesterday
    was an important one because I think it draws attention to
    something that has not gotten the attention that it needs.
        The cyber issues present problems for us when it comes to
    espionage, when it comes to terrorism, when it comes to
    economic harm that is done to our country. The potential in all
    those areas is great, and unless we have an effective response,
    an effective defensive capability in that regard, I worry about
    what the future could look like. And so I think we have to
    devote attention. We are doing that at the Justice Department.
    We are working with our partners in the executive branch. But
    we also need the help of Congress to, as you have done, examine
    these issues, propose legislation where that is appropriate. We
    have to be partners in dealing with this very real 21st century
    issue.
        Senator Cardin. Thank you. I look forward to working with
    you on that.
        I just really want to point out for the Committee, in your
    report to us the section you have on civil rights, I do not
    want this hearing to go by without just applauding you and
    urging you to continue to make civil rights a priority. We know
    the problems we had in the last administration, and we are very
    pleased that we have moved forward with Tom Perez as the head
    of the Civil Rights Division. And I noticed that you are taking
    action on voting rights, as you did for military personnel and
    absentee ballots. We think that is absolutely the right thing
    to do, that you are moving forward with Native Americans. We
    would urge you to continue an aggressive policy, as we get into
    redistricting and the challenges that one has to protect
    Americans' rights of voting as well as the other civil rights
    issues that have been, I think, not given the priority that
    they deserve in the previous administration and restoring that
    confidence to the Civil Rights Division.
        Attorney General Holder. Well, as I said at my confirmation
    hearing, my primary focus I think has to be on the national
    security responsibilities that I have, but the Justice
    Department also has to do the traditional things that it has
    always done under Republican as well as Democratic Attorneys
    General. And a revitalized, reinvigorated Civil Rights Division
    that I believe in some ways is the conscience of the Justice
    Department remains a priority for me. The confirmation and now
    the installation of Tom Perez as the head of that Division I
    think will help a great deal. I think there is a sense, as I
    walk around, that there is a greater sense of mission among the
    lawyers, the career folks in the Civil Rights Division, and I
    think we are starting to see that in the statistical things
    that I see in terms of number of cases filed, where they have
    investigations open. I think the Civil Rights Division is
    coming back.
        There is still more work to be done, but I think we are on
    a good path.
        Senator Cardin. Thank you.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Leahy. Thank you very much, and I would also put
    in the record a number of military and other national security
    and terrorism experts, their support for the closing of
    Guantanamo.
        [The information referred to appears as a submission for
    the record.]
        Chairman Leahy. Senator Coburn, you are next. Thank you for
    waiting.
        Senator Coburn. Mr. Attorney General, welcome. We are about
    through here. I appreciate your patience.
        Just to clear up some small things, I sent you a letter on
    March 30th about thousands of Oklahomans that are freedmen, and
    I have not gotten a response from you. I would just appreciate
    it if you would get us a response on that.
        Attorney General Holder. OK.
        Senator Coburn. That affects thousands of people in my
    State, and I would very much appreciate it.
        Attorney General Holder. Senator, I will get you that
    response.
        Senator Coburn. Thank you. Also, I am not going to spend a
    whole lot of time on what has been the main subject, and you do
    not have to answer these because I do not expect you to have
    the answer right now, but I do want to put into the record and
    ask that you answer it at a later time.
        During your press conference you noted that Federal
    prosecutors have successfully prosecuted--and you have alluded
    to it today--a number of terrorists who are now serving lengthy
    sentences in our prisons. And the three questions about that
    that I would have that I do not expect you to answer now: How
    many of those convicted terrorists were picked up during
    firefights in Pakistan or Afghanistan or elsewhere? How many of
    them were held without being Mirandized? And how many of them
    were interrogated by the CIA to gather intelligence about
    pending plots? If you could answer that, I would appreciate it
    very much.
        Attorney General Holder. All right. We will answer those
    questions.
        [The information referred to appears as a submission for
    the record.]
        Senator Coburn. And one other question I have, we have
    recently--on October 30th, the Recovery and Accountability
    Transparency Board issued a list of recipients of Federal funds
    who submitted reports to the Government that were fraudulent on
    information as pertaining to a judge. Does the Department have
    a plan to prosecute that fraudulent behavior or that fraudulent
    reporting, especially not just in this instance, but in all
    instances related to the recovery?
        Attorney General Holder. Yes. In fact, that was one of the
    things that we mentioned yesterday in the announcement of that
    task force, that economic crimes task force. One of the areas
    that we are going to be focusing on is the misuse of Recovery
    Act funds, fraud connected to the Recovery Act funds. We will
    be working with our partners both at Treasury, SEC, other
    Federal agencies, as well as our State and local counterparts.
    That is one of the priority areas, I would say, of the four or
    five priorities that we identified yesterday. That is one of
    them.
        Senator Coburn. It is going to be big because the Special
    Inspector General says it is going to be over $50 billion. So
    it is a lot of money to play with, but a lot of negative things
    can happen.
        At our last oversight hearing, you were kind enough to talk
    with me about the hate crimes issue, and I had asked you about
    the murder of some of our recruiters in Arkansas and whether or
    not that would apply, and you said you would have to think
    about that and get back to me. It has been 5 months. I wonder
    if you have given any thought to that, especially in light of
    what has happened now at Fort Hood.
        Attorney General Holder. Well, I think that we now have,
    you know, a hate crimes bill that, in fact, does say that such
    actions are potentially hate crimes.
        Again, there is, I believe, a mandatory minimum sentence
    that Senator Sessions introduced with regard to the hate crimes
    bill that deals with the set of facts that you are talking
    about.
        Senator Coburn. OK. Thank you.
        One other issue--and you really do not have to go into it
    now, but I wanted to raise it with you because it--and it has
    to do with the Voting Rights Act, and it has to do with
    Kingston, North Carolina. I do not know if you are familiar
    with that or not. But, in fact, in North Carolina, only 9 out
    of 551 localities hold their election on a partisan basis, and
    in Kingston, seven of the nine minority--which actually in
    Kingston is the majority--voted to eliminate that, and then the
    Civil Rights Division went back and, because they fall under
    the Voting Rights Act, having to have that approved, reversed
    that. And I would just like to hear the comments about that and
    why that was seen, because 73 percent of which the vast
    majority of those are African Americans, voted by over 2:1 to
    remove party labels, and yet what we did in Washington was tell
    them, ``You cannot decide that because you fall under the
    Voting Rights Act.''
        And so there are a lot of complicated questions with that,
    and I understand that, but I would appreciate you giving me a
    written response justifying how we would reverse what the
    majority of African-Americans in that town thought to be
    prudent for them when they are doing local elections.
        Attorney General Holder. All right, Senator. I will get you
    a written response on that. I do not know enough about the case
    at this point, I think, to respond to you today, but we will
    get--I am familiar with it, but not as well as I think I need
    to be to respond intelligently.
        Senator Coburn. I understand, and I do not expect you to
    have to----
        Attorney General Holder. But I will get you a written
    response to that.
        Senator Coburn. Thank you.
        [The information referred to appears as a submission for
    the record.]
        Senator Coburn. Thank you.
        Now, here is the area that I really want to get into
    because I am really concerned. As a practicing physician, I
    have dealt with lots of drug abuse in this country and know the
    significant power of marijuana use to lead to other drug use.
    On October 12th, Deputy Attorney General David Ogden issued a
    memorandum to U.S. Attorneys in all the States that have laws
    authorizing the use of medical marijuana directing prosecutors
    not to focus Federal resources on individuals whose actions are
    in clear and unambiguous compliance with State law. Never mind
    the fact that it violates U.S. Federal law. It is a dramatic
    break with previous administration policies, both the Clinton
    and the Bush administration policies, which demanded the
    prosecution of marijuana distributors, even those acting in
    accordance with State law. It is prohibited for any use under
    Federal law, meaning that no matter what the States' laws are,
    it is still a Federal crime to use it or to distribute it.
        The Obama Justice Department is saying that it simply will
    not enforce those Federal laws as long as you are legal in your
    State, and I think that is kind of the summation of where you
    all are. And I know that you have limited resources, so I
    understand there can be a--did you personally approve of the
    issuance of this new policy?
        Attorney General Holder. I did.
        Senator Coburn. Do you agree that this is a dramatic break
    from past administration policies?
        Attorney General Holder. It is certainly a break. I will
    let other people decide whether it is dramatic. It----
        Senator Coburn. It is a break. I will cancel the word
    ``dramatic.''
        Attorney General Holder. It is certainly a break, but it
    seems to me it is a logical break given, as you indicated, the
    limited resources that we have, the use of marijuana in the way
    that these State laws prescribe, which is for medical purposes.
    But what that directive from the Deputy Attorney General, I
    guess on October 19th, indicated was that we are not blind, and
    to the extent that people are trying to use these State
    marijuana laws to do things that are not consistent with State
    law, that are not being used for medicinal purposes, that are
    not being used to help cancer patients, for instance, the
    Federal role is still there, and we will be vigorous in our
    prosecutions. And on, I guess, page 2 of that memo, there are a
    number of factors that are set out that are, we think, indicia
    of a non-compliance with State law.
        The Mexican cartels make most of their money from the
    importation of marijuana from Mexico into the United States,
    and so this continues to be a priority for this administration.
        Senator Coburn. The fact is that 90 percent of the people
    that have a medical marijuana prescription in California do not
    have a real illness. What they have is a desire to smoke
    marijuana, and yet we are allowing State law to usurp Federal
    law.
        I would quote former Clinton White House Director of Public
    Affairs, White House Office of National Drug Policy, Bob
    Weiner, was recently quoted warning the administration, Be
    careful about the new lax enforcement policy for medical
    marijuana because you may get way more than you bargained for.
    Prescription marijuana use has exploded for healthy people. And
    there is no question about that that it has. I want to make
    sure that you are concerned with that as well, and this will be
    my last question.
        You know, pay attention to this because 2 years ago I
    released a report on the Justice Department that outlined the
    $1 billion of waste a year that most Americans would concur
    with in terms of low priorities. And if, in fact, there is 10
    percent truth to that report, which I believe it is very
    accurate, those monies could certainly be used to enforce the
    drug laws. The No. 1 risks for our kids is not obesity. It is
    illicit marijuana.
        Chairman Leahy. I tried to give and have given extra time
    to the Senator, but----
        Attorney General Holder. All I would say is, Senator
    Coburn, is that one of the purposes of the guidance that was
    issued by the Deputy Attorney General, as I indicated to you in
    my response to your question that I approved, was to make clear
    to people in the field that this remains a priority enforcement
    for us. And to the extent that we have people who are misusing
    these State laws or using these State laws for traditional
    marijuana importation or growing purposes, the Federal
    Government, the DEA, the Justice Department, will be vociferous
    in our enforcement efforts.
        Chairman Leahy. Thank you.
        Senator Whitehouse.
        Senator Coburn. Mr. Chairman, may I----
        Chairman Leahy. The what?
        Senator Coburn. To have questions submitted for the record.
        Chairman Leahy. Oh, of course, and we will keep the record
    open until the end of the week.
        Senator Whitehouse.
        Senator Whitehouse. I believe Senator Klobuchar was here
    before me, Mr. Chairman. I am happy to yield to her.
        Chairman Leahy. Sorry. I did have a list, and I neglected
    to look at it.
        Senator Klobuchar.
        Senator Klobuchar. Thank you very much, and thank you,
    Senator Whitehouse. I would have said it was fine, but I have
    some people waiting out there from Minnesota.
        Thank you very much for being here today, Attorney General
    Holder. You mentioned the tragedy at Fort Hood in your opening
    statement, and that terrible crime weighs heavily on all our
    minds. I was one of several Senators on this Committee that
    went to Fort Hood to that memorial service. We had a young man,
    Kham Xiong, who was killed there. He was waiting in line for a
    physical, ready to deploy. His family had come over from--they
    fought in the wars in Laos, were then relocated to Thailand,
    ten kids, in St. Paul, Minnesota. He has three himself. And the
    saddest thing I remember from that memorial service is that
    family huddled next to his picture propped next to the combat
    boots.
        So we are very interested in a thorough investigation
    here--I know the Justice Department has a hand in this--and
    that no stone is left unturned, that we get the results not
    only for a strong prosecution but also so that we can make sure
    that this does not happen again.
        Attorney General Holder. Well, I think President Obama has
    given us unequivocal direction that we are to find out what
    happened there, how do we prevent what happened there from
    occurring again, and it is our intent to, again, share the
    findings of that inquiry with the Committee and with the
    American people.
        Senator Klobuchar. Today I want to focus on some of the
    bread-and-butter law enforcement issues, but I want to quickly
    summarize. So much of the questions have been understandably
    about your decision about the trial. This resonates for me
    because it was in Minnesota where some diligent citizens caught
    Moussaoui, so we watched that with great interest, the trial in
    Virginia.
        First of all, of course, my focus is on security, and I
    think you have talked about how you consulted with the mayor
    and with the police chief, and Senator Schumer went over that
    at length. But, obviously, most of us are interested in getting
    these guys.
        Senator Leahy mentioned that the conviction rate I think is
    90 percent--is that right?--of people tried in----
        Attorney General Holder. It is about 94 percent.
        Senator Klobuchar. 94 percent, and you feel that you have a
    strong case. Could you just briefly talk about your decision to
    do this in New York and why you picked that particular
    jurisdiction in terms of the expertise of the U.S. Attorneys
    that will be handling that case?
        Attorney General Holder. We are going to have a joint team
    that involves lawyers from the Eastern District of Virginia as
    well as lawyers from the Southern District of New York. New
    York is a place that has tried these kinds of cases before. You
    have a hardened detention facility. You have a hardened
    courthouse. You have a means by which a person can go from the
    jail to the courthouse without seeing the light of day.
        I had a Marshals Service report done looking at all of the
    potential venues if we were going to do this in an Article III
    court, and the recommendation from the Marshals Service was
    that this be done in New York City. That is the place that was
    the most secure, and did not have to have any construction work
    done in order to try to harden those facilities. And so for
    that reason and for other reasons, that was why I made the
    determination that New York was the appropriate place to try
    these cases.
        Senator Klobuchar. Focusing now on some of these domestic
    issues, Senator Kaufman has a bill on health care fraud
    enforcement. I am a cosponsor, a number of us are. I have my
    own bill with Senator Snowe that complements that bill. And I
    know in May--and this is a question from me and Senator
    Kaufman, who is presiding over the Senate. I know that in May
    you and Secretary Sebelius created a Health Care Fraud
    Prevention and Enforcement Action Team to work on coordinating
    the Federal Government's response to this issue. Could you say
    more about what that group has been working on since it was
    formed? Because we just had a report, $47 billion lost in
    Medicare fraud. The health reform that we are working on now
    must contain provisions that make it easier to go after this
    kind of fraud, because it is an outrageous amount of money.
        Attorney General Holder. Yes, the creation of the HEAT task
    forces, as we call them, are, I think, critical tools in trying
    to deal with an immense problem. We have seen the misuse of
    Medicaid, Federal health care funds for procedures that never
    occur, for devices that are never bought. We have actually seen
    people who were once engaged in drug dealing and in organized
    crime activities moving into this area because they determined
    that it is safer, it is easier, and we are determined to put an
    end to that. We will have to work with our partners at HHS.
    Secretary Sebelius and I have been giving particular attention
    to this.
        We made the announcement I think in--I believe in April or
    May. We have already announced significant numbers of arrests
    that have occurred in a variety of cities. We are in four
    cities now. We are going to be expanding those task forces into
    other cities as well. This is a national problem.
        Senator Klobuchar. Right, and I am hoping we can give you
    more tools in this bill. One of the things I found most
    interesting was that areas where you seem to have hot spots of
    this crime tend also to be areas that have high-cost health
    care, disorganized health care systems, which is something we
    should be looking at as well.
        A second thing I wanted to raise is the important
    reauthorization that we are going to be handling in the
    Violence Against Women Act. Senator Leahy mentioned the rape
    kit issue and the backlog. There are also other issues as well
    with the rural services--we had a hearing on this recently--as
    well as child protection issues. Could you talk about what your
    priorities will be as we work to reauthorize this important
    piece of legislation?
        Attorney General Holder. If we want to get a handle on the
    crime problem that we have had success in knocking down to
    historically low numbers, we have to deal with the problem of
    violence against women, and we have to deal with the problem of
    children who are exposed to violence and who often see that in
    a domestic violence context. We have to deal with these issues.
        This Senate, this Congress, our Government, 15 years or so
    ago made a commitment in the Violence Against Women Act. It
    seems to me that we need to celebrate the successes that we
    have had, the consciousness that we have raised in our Nation,
    but we need to do more.
        There are still issues, you know, the whole question of
    rape kits. I mean, we have to deal with that. We have people on
    the streets who, because we have not analyzed those kits, are
    free to commit these acts yet again.
        The whole question of children who are exposed to violence
    and who are the victims of violence I think is part and parcel
    of this same issue. And if we are ever to get a handle on this
    crime problem, we have to deal with those who are most
    vulnerable. We are doing much better than we have, but not as
    well as I think we can do.
        Senator Klobuchar. Thank you very much.
        Chairman Leahy. Thank you very much.
        Next will be Senator Franken, then Senator Whitehouse, and
    Senator Specter.
        Senator Franken.
        Senator Franken. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will just pick
    up on the rape kit matter that both the Chairman and Senator
    Klobuchar brought up.
        I think it is important for people to realize that this is
    pro-law enforcement rape kit management. It puts criminals
    behind bars. It protects people who are innocent, and it brings
    victims closure and justice.
        In Hennepin County, Minnesota, one prosecutor has recently
    filed charges in eight separate rape cases as a result of cold
    hits produced by cleaning up their backlog, and they have done
    this in New York, and it has also increased the number of
    convictions that they have gotten. I think they have gone from
    40 percent to 70 percent of the convictions just because they
    cleaned up the backlog.
        I am just wondering--and maybe this is an answer you cannot
    give me right now, but what has gone wrong with this? Because
    we had, you know, this act, the Debbie Smith Rape Kit Reduction
    Law Act in 2004 with $500 million to address the problem, and
    we still have this problem. So it is just that we do not seem
    to have a regular system in place to specifically track rape
    kit backlogs around the country.
        Can you tell me what you are doing about it? And if you do
    not have an answer right now, get back to me or us?
        Attorney General Holder. What I would like to do is give
    you a more fulsome response maybe in a written form, but to
    tell you that what you are talking about is exactly right--what
    you said in the early part of your comment. This is an ultimate
    law enforcement tool, and the ability to process these kits and
    then compare the results from those analyses to the data bases
    that exist will, as you have indicated, solve cases and put
    people behind bars who are responsible for really heinous and
    very serious crimes.
        Exactly why the prior legislation which was designed to
    avoid the very situation we find ourselves in----
        Senator Franken. Which, by the way, the Chairman was a
    great leader on.
        Attorney General Holder. I do not know why it has not
    worked. But we in the Department are trying to come up with
    ways in which we can work with our State and local partners to
    effectuate that act and would look forward to working with you
    on this Committee and in Congress, again, to identify why it
    has not worked as well as we thought in the past and how we can
    prevent that from happening in the future. But this is
    something that, for me, matters a great, great deal. I know you
    have devoted a lot of attention to this, but these are crimes
    that we can solve. And inability to do that is extremely
    frustrating.
        Senator Franken. I am going to get to just a macro issue
    here on the United States and crime and the number of people we
    have incarcerated. We have 5 percent of the world's population
    and 25 percent of the world's prisoners. And so many of these
    people are in because of drug addiction or mental health
    problems, and very many of these people have no history of
    anything violent or any even high-level drug activity. We are
    essentially sending kids who are in possession of drugs and
    sending them to crime school. We put them in prison, and then
    they learn from other criminals how to do crime. And two-thirds
    of them come back when they are released within 3 years.
        More than a third of the counties in Minnesota have drug
    courts that stop this cycle. These are special courts for
    nonviolent drug offenders that steer them toward rehabilitation
    and treatment. In Minnesota, offenders who use our drug courts
    are ten times more likely to continue their treatment than
    other offenders.
        Can you tell us about drug courts, what they are, and what
    your Department is doing to support them?
        Attorney General Holder. Well, we certainly have supported
    them in connection with the budgets that the President has
    proposed to increase the use of drug courts. I am familiar with
    the one that we have here in Washington, D.C., that started I
    guess a little after I left the D.C. Superior Court and has
    proved to be, I think, very successful in dealing with people
    who are selling drugs because they are addicted to drugs. These
    are the low-level dealers, not the people who live in
    penthouses and drive big cars and all that. And so I think that
    drug courts are an effective way at getting at the problem, and
    their expansion is something that this administration supports.
        In terms of those macro issues that you were talking about,
    we have a sentencing group that is looking at a whole variety
    of issues now that I put together to look at that whole
    question of recidivism. Are we doing the right things? I think
    we should ask ourselves--we should always be asking ourselves:
    is the criminal justice system that we have in place truly
    effective?
        My thought is that we should have a data-driven analysis to
    see exactly who is in jail. Are they in jail for appropriate
    amounts of time? Is the amount of time that they spend in jail
    a deterrent? Does that have an impact on the recidivism rate?
    And so this group will be reporting back to me I hope within
    the next couple of months, and it is on that basis that we will
    be formulating policy and working with the Committee with, I
    hope, some interesting and innovative ideas.
        Senator Franken. And in doing that, might I suggest an
    increase in drug rehabilitation within prison? Because there
    are people in prison who are--a lot of people in prison who
    have addiction problems who should be in prison, but are going
    to get out, and it would be nice if while they were in there
    they got treatment.
        I just wanted to mention one thing on health care fraud,
    which is I would like to see those people go to prison. I know
    I may be contradicting myself by saying we have too many people
    in prison. It seems like health care fraud folks might belong
    there more than people who are simply addicted to drugs.
        If I could quickly just touch on trafficking in women, it
    is a subject I just want to touch on. I am running out of time,
    but trafficking of Native American women is a big problem that
    I think is being ignored. And in international trafficking,
    there are women who are trafficked into this country for
    prostitution who, because some of these cases are sent to ICE,
    these women have a disincentive to report these crimes. And I
    think that is something that needs to be looked at.
        Attorney General Holder. That is an issue, I think, that is
    worthy of examination. We are paying particular attention to
    the plight of women on reservations. I was in Minnesota I think
    about 3 or 4 weeks or so ago for a listening conference, and if
    you look at the levels of violence that young girls and women
    are subjected to on the reservation, sometimes ten times as
    high as the national averages with regard to particular crimes,
    that is simply unacceptable in our country, and it is something
    that the President followed up on by having a listening
    conference at the White House.
        The international trafficking of women and youngsters is
    something that we need to look at as well, and to the extent
    that ICE--or their interaction with ICE somehow prevents us
    from being very effective in our enforcement efforts, I will
    work with Secretary Napolitano and with members of the
    Committee to see if we can come up with ways in which we can be
    really effective in dealing with the problem that we have to
    get a handle on.
        Senator Franken. Thank you, General.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Leahy. Thank you.
        Senator Whitehouse.
        Senator Whitehouse. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And welcome,
    Attorney General Holder.
        Now that we are toward the end of the hearing, I would just
    like to take a moment and react to two things that I think have
    come out during the course of the hearing today. One is, I
    think, perhaps inadvertently, a disparaging tone about Federal
    prosecutors and our United States law enforcement mechanism. I
    hope it is inadvertent, but I want to take a moment to say
    that, having had some experience in that world, I am extremely
    proud of our Federal law enforcement officers, of our career
    prosecutors. I have had prosecutors have to go to court in body
    armor. I have had prosecutors have to go home to their families
    and explain why a security system needs to be put in their home
    because of threats. They take this on day in and day out, and
    as you know, they do not get paid a great deal. And they are, I
    think, among the best lawyers in our country, and I just want
    to make that point because I did not like the tone that I was
    detecting.
        The second point that I want to make is one in favor of
    prosecutorial independence, and to the extent that you have
    been criticized that your decision is unpopular, I think people
    looking at this should bear in mind that the implication of
    that is that prosecutors should seek to make decisions that
    meet with popular opinion. And from my perspective, popular
    opinion is a very dangerous bellwether as a standard to hold
    prosecutors to, and I would not want that to emerge from this
    hearing as an unchallenged point.
        I think it gets worse when you move from popular opinion to
    legislative opinion. There are very significant separation-of-
    powers reasons why I as a prosecutor did not want to hear from
    the legislature, why the Founding Fathers set up a system in
    which the legislature was kept for good and prudent reasons out
    of these prosecutorial decisions. We are entitled to our
    opinions. Everybody has one. Fine. We can come here and
    ventilate. But nobody watching this should not react to the
    proposition that a prosecutor should either listen to the
    threats or criticisms--I mean, obviously with courtesy you
    should, and you did. But I want to assert the proposition here
    that a prosecutor should not make their decision or allow their
    decision in any way to be influenced by legislative opinion.
    And if there is any way to make it worse, it would be to allow
    it to be influenced by talk show opinion, and there has been a
    whiff of that here today.
        This country is going to last a long time, long after
    Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is safely either in prison for life or
    executed, or whatever the outcome is, and we want to stand by
    the principles that have gotten us through 220 years and that
    will get us through to the future. And one of them is that
    people like us--and I say this as a sitting Senator--have no
    business attempting to influence the prosecutorial decisions of
    our law enforcement officials.
        In evaluating this, I do want to make an additional point
    and get your reaction to it. In Article III courts, we have
    probably had tens of thousands of criminal prosecutions. Almost
    every possible permutation of law and fact and procedure has at
    one point or another reared its head in Article III courts and
    been disposed of and left a trail of precedent for future
    prosecutors to follow.
        Military commissions, no matter how well we may have
    drafted them in our recent repair of the original flawed
    military commissions, have now, as I understand it, only
    achieved three convictions, and one came by plea. So in terms
    of the military commission, however properly statutorily
    established, being able to contribute the same kind of
    reliability and resilience that Federal courts have obtained
    through those tens of thousands of cases and through the
    exploration of all those different permutations, it strikes me
    that even a perfect military commission still bears some risk
    of unreliability in that you are either in new territory, in
    which case there are questions about where you go on appeal, or
    you are modeling yourself on an Article III existing legal
    structure, in which case you might as well stick with it; but
    that they are to a very significant extent, even if properly
    constituted, still untested.
        I wonder if you share that view.
        Attorney General Holder. Well, first, I would like to thank
    you for the statement that you made in support of the career
    people who work at the Justice Department and other parts of
    the executive branch and at the State and local level as well.
    I mean, you were a great U.S. Attorney and a great Attorney
    General in Rhode Island. I am proud to say that you were my
    colleague. But your comments are really appreciated.
        To the extent that people have any question about the
    determination of the people who work in the Justice Department
    and who will be responsible for these cases, about their
    abilities, they should put those fears to rest. These people
    are among the best of the best. They could be in other places
    making a lot more money, but they serve their country, and they
    do it quite well. And I am proud to say that I am their
    colleague. So I really thank you for that.
        In terms of the question of Article III versus the military
    commissions, I think there is no question that there is a
    greater experiential base on Article III courts, and I think
    your observation is correct. We have seen virtually every
    permutation. I am not naive. I know that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
    in an Article III court will do as he tried to do in the
    military commission--spew his ideology, his hate, you know,
    whatever.
        Article III judges have dealt with these issues before. The
    unique issues that I think in some ways sound unique are not
    going to be found to be unique. In the Article III courts over
    the past 200 years, we have dealt with, as you said, just about
    every permutation. There is going to be precedent for almost
    every decision that a judge is going to have to make, from
    obstreperous defendants to questions of admissibility of
    evidence.
        I do not want to denigrate, however, the fact that these
    reformed military commissions, though not having that
    experiential base, are, I think, much better than they were. I
    think the action that Congress took in reforming them is
    significant. And I think they are a legitimate place in which
    we can try some of these defendants. But there is no question
    that in terms of the experience, the Article III courts have an
    advantage.
        Senator Whitehouse. Mr. Chairman, it was certainly not my
    intention to denigrate what has been accomplished with the
    military commissions. It was simply--and I agree with the
    Attorney General that there is this experiential base
    differential. If I could ask unanimous consent that three
    questions for the record be propounded by me.
        One has to do with where we are on the Drug Enforcement
    Administration's new rules that will allow them to move off
    paper records so that we can move to e-prescribing, so that we
    can buildup our electronic health record network, as the
    President wishes, timing on that determination.
        The Second is we have people in our present bankruptcy
    courts who are being, I think, harshly treated under the new
    law. We have a U.S. Trustee vacancy. When will we have a U.S.
    Trustee recommendation from the Department of Justice?
        And, finally, as you probably have come to expect from me,
    when is OPR going to put out its report on the Office of Legal
    Counsel? And I think my time has expired, so I will have to
    take those for the record.
        Attorney General Holder. Well, maybe I could say with
    regard to the first two, we will certainly send you something
    in writing, but I think given the fact that you have asked this
    question before--and I think this is a matter of great public
    interest, the whole question of the OPR report--if I could be
    allowed to respond to that.
        Chairman Leahy. Sure.
        Attorney General Holder. The report is completed. It is
    being reviewed now. It is in its last stages. There is a career
    prosecutor who has to review the report. We expect that that
    process should be done by the end of the month, and at that
    point the report should be issued. It took longer than we
    anticipated and certainly longer than I anticipated when I
    testified I think 5 months or so ago because of the amount of
    time that we gave to the lawyers who represented the people who
    are the subject of the report an opportunity to respond, and
    then we had to react to those--people in OPR had to react to
    those responses.
        The report, as I said, is complete and is now simply being
    reviewed by that last career person in the Justice Department,
    and my hope is that by the end of the month it should be
    complete.
        Senator Whitehouse. I thank you, Chairman, and I extend my
    gratitude to my colleagues for that little extra time.
        Chairman Leahy. Thank you. I appreciate that. I also wanted
    to associate myself with what you said about the role of a
    prosecutor. Those of us who--and there are several on this
    panel who have had the privilege of serving in law enforcement
    as prosecutors, and I concur with what Senator Whitehouse said.
        Senator Specter.
        Senator Specter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Attorney General Holder, thank you for your service, coming
    back to head up the Department of Justice. Tomorrow this
    Committee will take up the issue of a reporter's shield, which
    has been very carefully crafted to try to provide some balance
    so that we do not have reporters jailed, as so many have been,
    or threatened. Judith Miller, 85 days in jail, no justification
    yet explained.
        Just one question, which I will cite tomorrow if your
    answer is right, and that is, are you confident that the
    compromises crafted will protect the national security
    interests of the United States?
        Attorney General Holder. Yes, I think that the bill as it
    presently exists, as opposed to the form that it was in before,
    now gives us the tools to protect the national security, to go
    after leaks if we desire. What----
        Senator Specter. I do not want to interrupt you, Attorney
    General Holder, but I have only got 7 minutes, and I heard your
    ``yes'' answer.
        Attorney General Holder. OK. Yes.
        Senator Specter. A report publicized within the past
    several days is that out of the $440 billion a year for
    Medicare, $47 billion is a result of waste--or fraud, rather,
    criminal fraud. We are working hard to craft a health care
    reform bill, and the President is committed not to sign one
    which adds to the deficit, and I am committed not to vote for
    one which adds to the deficit.
        Medicare and Medicaid fraud are enormously consequential.
    So many cases result in fines, and that really results in being
    added to the cost of doing business. Jail sentences, as we
    know, are a deterrent. Others look at them and do not want to
    be sent to jail.
        Would you submit to the Committee an action plan as to what
    you can do to see to it that there are jail sentences as a
    matter of a very active governmental policy? I know you agree
    with the thrust, but we do not have time to discuss it within
    the 7 minutes that each of us has. But if you would submit in
    writing how you will aggressively attack this issue with jail
    sentences.
        Attorney General Holder. Sure. I will work the folks in the
    Criminal Division, and we will have a response. But I agree
    with your overall thrust in that regard.
        Senator Specter. The Bureau of Prisons does a good job, I
    think, with very limited funding, and among the many challenges
    you have and the many jobs you have, I would like you to
    undertake a personal review of the adequacy of their funding on
    rehabilitation. There have been some real studies which show
    that a two-pronged attack to violent crime would be successful
    in America, perhaps reducing violent crime by as much as 50
    percent, with life sentences for career criminals, as, for
    example, under the armed career criminal bill. And we passed
    the Second Chance Act, the Biden-Specter bill. The President
    signed it last year. And it seems to me that we need more
    funding on detoxification, job training, literacy training,
    reentry. No surprise when a functional illiterate leaves prison
    without a trade or skill, they go back to a life of crime. And
    I would like you to take a look at that.
        I would also like you to take a look at the issue on
    attacks on prison guards, a rash of them because of the very
    substantial overcrowding. And I wrote to the Director of the
    Federal Bureau of Prisons, Mr. Lappin, who I think is doing an
    excellent job, with some suggestions about giving the guards
    some protective measures. Some suggestions have been made about
    pepper spray. Some suggestions have been made about the
    breakaway batons, stab-proof vests.
        I would appreciate it if you would take a look at those
    items and others which could provide safeguards for prison
    guards.
        Attorney General Holder. I will do so. I have actually had
    a meeting with the head of the union who represents these
    guards, and he is actually, I thought, a very considerate
    person and has raised some issues and potential solutions to
    the problems you have identified.
        Senator Specter. I want to ask you in the remaining 2
    minutes that I have about the distinction between trying some
    of the terrorists in Article III court as opposed to the
    military commissions, and, preliminarily, let me agree with
    what Senator Whitehouse has had to say about the standards you
    apply. I am confident you will apply them as you see them
    professionally.
        As I take a look at the protocol which has been issued by
    the Department of Justice, I have a hard time in seeing the
    discretionary judgments. If you talk about the strength of the
    interest, it looks to me like they are very, very similar. I do
    not think the location of where the offense occurred in Yemen
    as opposed to New York City is very important since
    extraterritorial jurisdiction applies all over the world as a
    result of amendments we made in 1984. The point on protecting
    intelligence sources and methods looks to me to be in line.
    With respect to the evidentiary problems there could be, the
    decision to make these trials in Article III courts is quite a
    testimonial to our criminal justice system to try these
    horrendous criminals with the rights of a criminal court,
    constitutional rights, is a great credit to the United States.
    And military commissions have been crafted after a lot of
    starts and stops.
        But what standards do you apply to try the terrorists one
    place instead of the other?
        Attorney General Holder. Well, we do it on a case-by-case
    basis using the protocol that I think you have in front of you.
    There are evidentiary questions. I think the location of the
    crime can be a factor, and I think you are right, given the
    extraterritoriality----
        Senator Specter. Are you saying you have less evidence than
    necessary in a commission as opposed to an Article III court?
        Attorney General Holder. No. I focus more on the
    admissibility of the evidence and where the possibility exists,
    if there are problems in one forum or the other with regard to
    the admissibility of evidence.
        Senator Specter. Can you give me an example?
        Attorney General Holder. Well----
        Senator Specter. Just one.
        Attorney General Holder. I have one that I--the kind of
    interrogation perhaps that a person was subjected to might lead
    you to want to use one forum as opposed to another. There might
    be questions of techniques that were used, and one forum might
    be more hospitable than another to the admission of such
    evidence.
        No one should read into that anything more than what I have
    said. This administration has indicated that we will not use
    evidence that was derived as a result of torture. But even
    saying that, there is at least a possibility that some
    techniques were used that might be better received in one forum
    than another.
        Chairman Leahy. Thank you. I would note that this is
    Attorney General Holder's fourth appearance before this
    Committee this year, and I appreciate that. Every Senator on
    the Committee has asked questions, both Democrat and
    Republican, and I understand the Republicans have a couple more
    questions on 5-minute rounds. I am asking Senator Klobuchar if
    she would chair for me.
        And I just want to note that one of the good things about
    this, Attorney General Holder, I think the American public,
    having been told by some commentators and others, that the 9/11
    suspects will gain access to classified material and they will
    be able to block the admission of evidence obtained by torture,
    I think those claims have been refuted very directly today, and
    I appreciate that. In fact, some of those same protections were
    adopted into the revised military commissions that Congress
    passed last summer. The concern I have is that military
    commissions before have been repeatedly overturned by the
    Supreme Court. They have comparatively little precedent. I like
    the fact that our Federal courts have 200 years of precedent
    and a track record of successfully convicting terrorists and
    murderers. Prosecutors know how the systems work. The courts
    have established systems. And we have a lot of confidence that
    following that, convictions can be upheld.
        So I am pleased that you have the preference to use the
    Federal courts whenever you can, and as Chairman of this
    Committee, I want to acknowledge the 9/11 families that are
    here present today. I want to recognize their losses. They and
    their families have been constantly in my prayers and my
    thoughts, along with the victims and the survivors of the Fort
    Hood shooting.
        Senator Kyl, we are going to go out of order. I realize you
    have other matters, and I thank Senator Sessions for agreeing
    to that. Please go ahead, sir, for 5 minutes.
        Senator Kyl. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you,
    Senator Sessions.
        Mr. Attorney General, I had some other questions on the
    subject we have mostly dealt with this morning, and I will ask
    those for the record. But I want to turn to the media shield
    discussion which you and I talked about on November 4th. You
    had indicated your willingness to address that at more length
    in a hearing, and I am hopeful that the Chairman will call a
    hearing at which you could express your views in more detail
    than you did in the views letter that was sent to us recently.
        Did you consult with Secretary Gates in determining to
    support the current version of the legislation, the media
    shield legislation?
        Attorney General Holder. Secretary Gates?
        Senator Kyl. Yes, the Secretary of Defense. The reason I
    ask is that you said in your confirmation hearing that you
    would do so.
        Attorney General Holder. I believe we have had
    conversations, but I do not--I am trying to remember the extent
    to which I have had this conversation. I do not think we have
    had a major conversation about this, but I think I have
    discussed it with him.
        Senator Kyl. Well, the reason I ask is, I will just quote a
    small portion of the letter that he wrote to us concerning the
    bill. He said, ``The bill would undermine our ability to
    protect national security information and intelligence sources
    and methods and could seriously impede investigations of
    unauthorized disclosures.''
        In view of that strong opinion--and, incidentally, he was
    joined in that by several other members, people in position of
    authority in our intelligence and national security community--
    it seems to me that it would be important for us to hear from
    them and certainly, Mr. Attorney General, for you to weigh
    their views before expressing absolute support for a bill which
    you say should not be amended in any additional way.
        Attorney General Holder. Well, I think, first off, the
    letter that you quote from Secretary Gates deals with a prior
    version of the bill.
        Senator Kyl. It does indeed. There were a couple of major
    changes made--actually several changes, a couple of which in my
    view would, arguably, make the situation worse. But what I am
    going to propose is that we talk to all of the people who have
    expressed a view about the previous legislation since many of
    its provisions remain in the bill that you have supported.
        Did you consult with the FBI Director?
        Attorney General Holder. Yes, I have talked to Bob about
    that.
        Senator Kyl. Did you tell him that this was going to be the
    result, or did you elicit his--did he express any concerns?
        Attorney General Holder. We certainly have discussed it. I
    know that he has taken a different position, at least with
    regard to a prior bill. I think that he understood the position
    that I took, and I think he accepted where I was coming from
    with regard to this present form of the media shield
    legislation.
        Senator Kyl. I appreciate he had expressed as recently as
    September that his views were the same as previously expressed
    in opposition to the bill, which is why I asked.
        United States Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, who has been
    commented on, has recommended that the law include another
    provision, and I want to just specifically ask you about this.
    It is in effect an offer of proof under which the information
    that is being sought by the Government would be provided to the
    court in camera, and only if the Government prevailed,
    utilizing all of the provisions of the law, would the
    information be then turned over. If the Government did not
    prevail, then obviously it would not.
        You have previously, again, in the confirmation hearing,
    said that that seemed like a reasonable requirement. Would you
    be open to having a provision like that added to the
    legislation? I know in your views letter you said you do not
    want to see any other amendments, but there are a few
    amendments, it seems to me, make sense, and that clearly is one
    that both you and I and Mr. Fitzgerald think is reasonable.
        Attorney General Holder. Well, the bill as it presently
    exists is a compromise, and I can----
        Senator Kyl. Excuse me. It is a compromise between the
    journalists and you all and Democratic Members of the Senate.
    Nobody has talked to me, and I have been noting my concerns
    about this bill for a long time.
        Attorney General Holder. Well, I think this is right, but I
    think Senator Graham on the Republican side is a cosponsor. I
    believe that that is true.
        Senator Kyl. That is right. None of us who are opposed to
    it were consulted when the so-called compromise was put
    together. I just wanted to make it clear in case you had any
    doubt about that.
        Attorney General Holder. Well, that is fair. That is fair.
    And so the views letter was to express the concern I think that
    we had that in its present form this is something that is
    satisfactory to us in law enforcement.
        Senator Kyl. Could I just interrupt you? I have only got 19
    seconds left. Just to make the point that I would hope you
    would be open to the suggestion that I just made and a couple
    of others, if I could bring those to your attention.
        And, last, your letter did not comment on the new, in
    effect, absolute privilege in one sense, and I am curious about
    why you--and would, again, elicit your views on that in the
    future if not today--on the privilege extending to protect
    those who actually violate Federal law by leaking the
    information itself. In other words, that act of leaking would
    be subject to the privilege, would be privileged. And I just
    wonder--the letter did not express itself on that, and that
    seemed to me to be new and odd, and I really wanted to get your
    views on that.
        Attorney General Holder. I did not see an absolute
    privilege to leak. I mean, it seems to me that there are
    provisions within the bill that deal with leaks and how they
    can be dealt with, and there are certain steps that the
    Government has to go through in order to prosecute or get
    information from a reporter in connection with a leak
    investigation. But I do not think that the steps that the
    Government has to go through are necessarily going to frustrate
    our efforts to identify and ultimately prosecute leakers.
        Senator Kyl. Good. Then what I want to do, since I am over
    the time, is to show you Section 3 and have you show me why
    that does not provide, in effect, an absolute privilege here
    not to disclose information where the crime itself is the leak.
    I hope we will have a further opportunity to talk about that
    and some other concerns that I have about the bill. Thank you.
        Attorney General Holder. That is fine.
        One thing, if I could just add, in response to--Senator Kyl
    I guess was asking the question on behalf of Senator Grassley
    before. I did not mean to be flip when I said that I would
    consider the request about turning over the names of people who
    had previous representations that might conflict with their
    duties as Department of Justice attorneys. When I said I would
    consider it, I only meant to say that I do not know if there
    are ethical concerns with regard to attorney-client privilege
    and things of that nature and I needed to consider those before
    I would actually be able to respond to the question. So I was
    not trying not to be responsive or not taking seriously a
    question that was posed, I guess initially by Senator Grassley
    and then by you, Senator Kyl. I just wanted to talk to the
    experts back at the Department about whether there is an
    ethical concern in responding to the question.
        Senator Kyl. Thank you. I suspect that you and Senator
    Grassley will have more conversations about that.
        Senator Klobuchar. [presiding.] Thank you, Senator.
        Senator Cornyn.
        Senator Cornyn. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. I do
    not know if we are going to get through this or not, but let us
    try.
        I want to follow up on a question that Senator Specter
    asked about admissibility of evidence in deciding in which
    forum you would try these defendants. Is it your position that
    it is going to be easier to get evidence of their guilt in an
    Article III court than it would be in a military commission?
        Attorney General Holder. I am not sure I view it that way,
    what evidence would be used in the Article III courts in
    connection with the cases that I have already made the
    determination should go there as opposed to the way in which
    the military prosecutors wanted to conduct the case.
        Senator Cornyn. Well, surely you would not decide in your
    discretion to try a case in a tribunal where it would be harder
    to get actual conviction, would you?
        Attorney General Holder. No. I mean, what I take into
    account are all of the factors that are part of the protocol.
        Senator Cornyn. You mentioned the Marshals report on the
    potential venues where this case could be tried, and as you
    noted, a judge could, contrary to your wishes, contrary to my
    wishes, transfer to another venue other than New York City.
    Based on the Marshals report, in what other venues are you
    prepared to try this case?
        Attorney General Holder. Well, I asked the Marshals not to
    look at the entirety of the United States but really just to
    look at two districts and the courthouses in two districts and
    to make a determination as to where in those two districts the
    case could be best tried, and----
        Senator Cornyn. And where was the other one?
        Attorney General Holder. I looked at the Eastern District
    of Virginia as well as the Southern District of New York.
        Senator Cornyn. And those are the only two?
        Attorney General Holder. Those are the two I asked the
    Marshals Service to look at.
        Senator Cornyn. When the detainees come to the United
    States, will they have some immigration status?
        Attorney General Holder. I am not an immigration expert. I
    do not know what their status might be. I am confident,
    however, that given the fact that they would be here under the
    supervision of and as a result of their being charged in a
    Federal court, that we would be able to detain them, that we
    would be able to hold them, as we would do anybody who is
    charged with such serious crimes.
        Senator Cornyn. Are you aware of any bar to their ability
    to claim asylum or argue that they should not be removed from
    the U.S. because of the Convention Against Torture?
        Attorney General Holder. Again, I am not an immigration
    expert. One can be paroled into the United States solely for
    this purpose, but there is no right to be here after. I cannot
    imagine a situation in which these people would be paroled into
    the United States for that purpose.
        Senator Cornyn. So is it your position they will not be
    conferred rights that they did not previously have by virtue of
    their coming to the United States?
        Attorney General Holder. That is my belief, but, again, I
    am not an immigration expert. I am confident--my expertise
    deals more on the Department of Justice side, and I am
    confident that on that side we can detain them safely and
    prevent them from ever walking the streets of the United
    States.
        Senator Cornyn. I understand we cannot all be an expert in
    everything in the law. It is complicated. But will you
    acknowledge that it is possible--or let me ask you if you will
    look into whether if a detainee claims an immigration status by
    virtue of their presence on U.S. soil, it will allow them to
    immediately trigger tandem administrative and Federal judicial
    immigration proceedings? Will you look into that?
        Attorney General Holder. OK. I can look into that, because
    I would not be able to answer that question today.
        Senator Cornyn. And if the detainee is acquitted or there
    is a mistrial, let us say one juror decides to hang up this
    jury, on what basis do you believe that you can permanently
    detain Khalid Sheikh Mohammed or any other of the 9/11
    detainees? Is that on the basis of a Supreme Court decision? On
    the basis of a statute that Congress has passed? What is the
    foundation of that belief?
        Attorney General Holder. Well, the initial determination
    that a judge would make for the detention of Khalid Sheikh
    Mohammed would be one that would last beyond a mistrial. If,
    for instance, there were a trial and a determination made--a
    hung jury, we would--I suppose the defense could move to have
    his detention status changed. It is hard for me to imagine that
    a judge, having heard the evidence and making that initial
    determination, as I am confident a judge would, to hold him,
    seeing that he is a danger and a flight risk, would then change
    that status of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed between the time of a
    hung jury and the next trial.
        Senator Cornyn. I believe the Supreme Court has held that
    you cannot indefinitely detain somebody under the Zadvydas
    case, but let me just ask a final question. Are you concerned
    that a judge may say you have made an election to try these
    terrorists as a criminal and you are bound by that election and
    you cannot go back and revert to the laws of war in order to
    claim that you can indefinitely detain that individual? Are you
    worried about that?
        Attorney General Holder. No, I am not. I think that under
    the Congressional provisions that we have and the laws of war,
    you cannot perhaps indefinitely detain somebody, but you
    certainly can detain somebody for lawful reasons.
        Again, I do not think that we are going to be facing that
    possibility. We are talking about very extreme hypotheticals, I
    believe, based on my understanding of the evidence and the law
    and the ability of our prosecutors to present a very strong
    case.
        Senator Cornyn. I hope you are right.
        Senator Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Senator Cornyn, and
    we hope your voice improves. I know Attorney General Holder
    will join me in saying you are sitting dangerously close to
    Senator Graham, and we would never want to muzzle Senator
    Graham, so I hope it is not contagious.
        Senator Graham. I wish more people felt that way.
        [Laughter.]
        Senator Klobuchar. Senator Graham.
        Senator Graham. This is an important point here that, you
    know, the idea of preventive detention, I do not think Senator
    Feingold is high on that idea. But I am, not because I like
    keeping people in jail for the hell of it; I just think when
    you are at war and the people you have in your capture the
    commander-in-chief has determined through a rational process
    are part of the enemy force or may go back to the fight, that
    America is not a better place for letting them go. Do you agree
    with that general concept?
        Attorney General Holder. I agree with that general concept.
    It is something that the President talked about in his Archives
    speech, about the possibility of detaining somebody, again,
    pursuant to the laws of war and dialing in due process.
        Senator Graham. Well, and I would like to help--do you
    believe that Congress needs to weigh in here, or do you have
    the authority as the executive branch to make that decision
    without any Congressional involvement?
        Attorney General Holder. I personally think that we should
    involve Congress in that process, that we should interact with,
    I guess in the first instance, this Committee in crafting a law
    on detention process or program.
        Senator Graham. I totally agree with you, and, you know,
    obviously we parted ways on some of this, but these are not
    easy decisions, so I do not--you know, I think the Bush
    administration made their fair share of mistakes and also did
    some good things, too, and preventive detention is a concept
    only known in military law.
        Is there any theory under domestic criminal law where the
    Government can hold someone without trial indefinitely?
        Attorney General Holder. Indefinitely?
        Senator Graham. Yes. There are speedy trial rights, which--
    --
        Attorney General Holder. There are speedy trial rights. I
    do not think that holding somebody--you can certainly
    preventively detain somebody with the expectation that there is
    going to be a trial without an adjudication of guilt.
        Senator Graham. Right. And under military law, you can hold
    somebody without any expectation of trial if they are, in fact,
    part of the enemy force. That is the big difference, right?
        Attorney General Holder. Right. I mean, there is certainly
    precedent throughout history of holding combatants for the
    duration of the war.
        Senator Graham. Right. And, Mr. Attorney General, my
    problem with what we are doing here is that--let us play this
    forward. In Afghanistan, Pakistan, you name the venue, in the
    future we capture a suspected al Qaeda member. Under your
    rationale, the decision as to whether they go into Federal
    criminal court or military commissions would not be known at
    the point of capture. Is that correct? You would make that
    decision later?
        Attorney General Holder. Yes, I think that is correct.
        Senator Graham. Now, from the protocols that we would
    institute from the military side, what would you recommend that
    our military commanders, intelligence officials do at the point
    of capture? Because under domestic criminal law, if that is
    where they wind up, once they are in the hands of the
    Government suspected of a crime, that is when custodial
    interrogation Miranda rights attach. Under military law, there
    is no such concept. Under military commissions, there is no
    requirement for Miranda warnings or Article 31 rights. You
    expect the person to be interrogated for military intelligence
    purposes, not worrying about the criminal aspects.
        What do we tell our soldiers and our commanders when they
    capture somebody about how to interrogate and when to
    interrogate?
        Attorney General Holder. Well, first I would say that, you
    know, this notion of when a person is in custody is something
    that there are lots of cases that people have to deal with and
    that the automatic capture of a person is not necessarily going
    to be viewed as in custody by our courts, though I think that
    is something we certainly----
        Senator Graham. If you were a defense attorney, would you
    not raise that? I mean, I would. I have no desire----
        Attorney General Holder. Sure.
        Senator Graham. But, you know, I would defend anybody
    because I think defending the worst among us makes us all
    better. So let me tell you what I would do, Mr. Attorney
    General. If you took my client who was suspected to be a member
    of al Qaeda and they were captured on the battlefield into
    Federal court, I would argue that at that moment in time any
    questioning of my client without Miranda warnings would be a
    violation of criminal domestic law. What would your answer be?
        Attorney General Holder. Well, it would depend again on the
    circumstances. You know, again, ``in custody'' is defined in a
    variety of ways, and that is something that we have to be
    sensitive to.
        Senator Graham. In custody, custodial interrogation, you
    lose the freedom to leave?
        Attorney General Holder. That is certainly a factor. But I
    think what we have to understand is that these determinations
    are being made now and have been made during the prior
    administration with thousands of people who have been
    captured----
        Senator Graham. If I may, because our time is--no one in
    the past up until now has ever worried about this, because no
    one ever envisioned that the detainee caught on a foreign
    battlefield would wind up in domestic criminal court with the
    same constitutional rights of American citizens. They have
    never worried about that before. Now I think we have to
    seriously worry about that, and what I am afraid of is the war
    on terror has become a police action, and I think that
    undermines our National security.
        But at the end of the day, I look forward to working with
    you about what we can do with preventive detention and see if
    we can find a way forward as a Nation. Thank you.
        Senator Klobuchar. OK. Thank you.
        Senator Sessions.
        Senator Sessions. Thank you, Madam Chairman, and I know you
    are knowledgeable about all these issues, but I would just say,
    Mr. Attorney General, that if a police officer stops someone on
    the street and his gun is in his holster and asks questions,
    that can be considered custody. If the individual has any sense
    they are not free to go, then that is considered custody. I
    cannot imagine somebody captured on the battlefield not being
    considered in custody.
        I went through this with Mr. Mueller, the Director of the
    FBI, and eventually he flatly conceded that if you are going to
    try an individual in Federal civilian court and they are
    captured, you should give them Miranda warnings or the
    statements they make would probably be suppressed. I mean, that
    is the rule in civilian Federal courts. And it is not
    constitutional, the Supreme Court still says it must be given,
    but it is not really required by the Constitution. So the
    military commissions, that is one of the differences, I think,
    that we have in those matters.
        And Senator Graham is raising a point that you cannot
    avoid, and that point is, if the presumption is, according to
    the U.S. Department of Justice, your Department, that
    individuals who are terrorists would be tried in Federal court
    and not in military commissions, then it is almost an absolute
    requirement that people apprehended need to be given Miranda
    warnings and told they can have a lawyer and they do not have
    to talk.
        When our military is in a life-and-death struggle to win a
    victory over the enemy and one of the key things the 9/11
    Commission drove home to us is that intelligence is the way to
    do that in this kind of battle we are in. So I think that that
    is not a matter that can be lightly dismissed. I also----
        Attorney General Holder. Senator, I would not lightly
    dismiss it, but what I am saying is that we have a great deal
    of flexibility. I do not think that the military commissions
    are an illegitimate forum in which to bring these cases, and on
    a case-by-case basis what we would do would be to look at the
    admissibility of evidence, the quantum of evidence that could
    be introduced, and make that determination. That is one of the
    factors. Although there is a presumption of Article III, it is
    not an irrebuttable presumption, and the proof is in the
    pudding. Five of the people I talked about last week are going
    to go to military commissions as opposed to Article III courts.
        Senator Sessions. Well, if the presumption is these cases
    will be tried in civilian courts, then I do not know why the
    soldier he talks to on the battlefield is not instructed to
    give Miranda warnings.
        I would also just note that there has been a hostility by
    the President toward military commissions. For example, soon
    after taking office, he suspended military commissions
    immediately and later issued an order suspending all military
    commission trials, and we have not had one since.
        Attorney General Holder. But I do not think that
    necessarily indicates a hostility toward military commissions
    as opposed to a desire to perfect them, and I think that we are
    now in a position where we have a much improved military
    commission system that I think can stand on its own, that is
    legitimate, and in which we can place, as I have----
        Senator Sessions. The Supreme Court did raise questions
    about the military commissions, and Congress passed some laws,
    I think, that improved that. But the Congress did some things
    that make it clear to me that normally for these kinds of
    cases, you are better trying them in the commissions. For
    example, reliable hearsay is available, so you do not have to
    bring people off the battlefield, perhaps, and it is easier to
    have in camera hearings. We have them all the time in Federal
    court trials. But you have to have a real high reason to do
    that in a normal civilian trial to go in camera. They are on
    the record, of course. In the military commissions, you can go
    on the record, but in camera and take more evidence and protect
    our intelligence sources and methods better. I do not think
    there is any doubt about that.
        Anyway, I just would disagree there and would point out
    that General Mukasey has expressed concerns about New York
    City. He tried the blind sheikh case as a Federal judge, your
    predecessor, and he is afraid that New York City would ``become
    the focus for mischief in the form of murder by adherents to
    Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.'' That was his view of it. I do not
    think that is an irresponsible analysis. And do you remember
    the case involving Mr. Salim, who was a co-founder of al Qaeda,
    held in Federal court for the bombing of the Kenya and Tanzania
    murders? And he attempted to escape using tabasco sauce and
    pepper and put it in the eye of one of the guards and stabbed
    him in the brain with a makeshift knife and blinded him, and he
    is unable to fully speak today. I mean, these are dangerous
    people, and I would just ask you that.
        Two more things, and I will wrap up. Senator Coburn's
    concern about medical marijuana, having been involved in that
    for many years, attempting to do what we could to drive down
    the use of illegal drugs in America, working with the
    Partnership for Youth and a Drug-Free Mobile and that kind of
    thing, I have seen a little bit of the history of it. We need
    to send that clear message, and we are sending a bad message
    with the medical marijuana laws. States are making a mistake
    when they do this, and the Federal Government really needs to
    speak out against it and show some leadership there.
        And, second, I really want to affirm that I will be
    supportive of your efforts to enhance medical fraud
    prosecutions and recoveries. Every President I think has tried
    to do something about it, but it is going to take a sustained
    effort, not just a press conference, over a period of years.
    And I think, Mr. Attorney General, with your experience both as
    a prosecutor and as a judge, you could probably help make this
    become more effective than it has been in the past.
        Attorney General Holder. Well, I think there are a number
    of U.S. Attorneys on this panel who, I think if we put our
    heads together, we can come up with an effective way in which
    we can deal with this problem of health care fraud. We need to
    ask ourselves some tough questions and be honest about the
    failures that we have had in the past in trying to do this. I
    think you are absolutely right that this is something that has
    to be sustained over time, which includes funding, maybe
    dedicated resources. But I think we will make money back on the
    provision of additional prosecutors, investigators, and people
    at HHS, auditors, to do these kinds of things. They will more
    than pay for themselves, and I think we should be cognizant of
    that.
        With regard to the concerns that you raise, just kind of in
    summary, I do believe that we can protect sources and methods
    within the Article III courts, and I would note, as I said in
    my opening statement, that the provisions designed to protect
    sources and methods in the military commissions are based on
    the CIPA Act that we use in Article III courts. I have great
    respect for Judge Mukasey. He was, I think, a great Attorney
    General. He is obviously a great judge. He helped the healing
    process that has begun at the Justice Department. The only
    thing that he did not have at the Department, I think, was the
    gift of time. We owe him a great deal for starting to right the
    ship, and I am trying to continue the work that he began.
        But I disagree with him about New York. New York is--and
    this is not a secret--New York is a target for al Qaeda and for
    those who would do this Nation harm. I am not at all certain
    that the bringing of these trials necessarily means that New
    York is at greater risk. And with regard to what happened in
    the jail, that is an unfortunate, tragic incident that I think
    we probably have learned from, and I am confident that the
    marshals, the Bureau of Prisons officials who will be
    responsible for the detention of these individuals will handle
    them in a way that will be consistent with our values, but also
    allow them to protect themselves.
        I do not take lightly, though, the issues and the concerns
    that were raised by Judge Mukasey. He is a person I have great
    respect for--great respect for--and one of the things that I
    actually read in trying to make this determination was an
    article that he wrote, I believe it was for the Wall Street
    Journal--I am not sure--but I remember reading that article and
    kind of underlining things that he said and asking the people
    who were part of our group to respond to the things that Judge
    Mukasey had raised. That is the degree of respect that I have
    for him, both as a lawyer, a judge, and as a great Attorney
    General.
        Senator Sessions. Thank you.
        Senator Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Attorney General
    Holder. I just wanted to follow up on a few of my colleagues'
    questions.
        You were asked about evidence and if there were Miranda
    rights read or not. Could you just go through again this notion
    that you raised at the beginning that that is one of the
    considerations that you have when you look at whether you are
    going to use the military commissions or whether you are going
    to use Article III courts?
        Attorney General Holder. Yes. One of the things that we
    look at, one of the things that we consider is the
    admissibility issue, where can we get admitted the evidence
    that is going to be necessary to be most successful. And that
    is something that really is important in the determination that
    I made with regard to the use of the Article III courts
    concerning Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his four colleagues.
        I would also say that the people in the field have been
    making this determinations about giving Miranda warnings or not
    for some time now. They have had thousands of people who have
    come into our custody; only a small number of them have been
    given Miranda warnings. And I have faith in the ability of the
    people in the field to make those kinds of determinations, and
    to the extent that there is a problem with regard to admitting
    a piece of evidence--and I think that is the other thing we
    have to remember. The trials that we will bring will not only
    be based on admissions, confessions, there will be other ways
    in which we will prove the guilt of the people that we charge.
        So I have discretion, and I want to have the maximum use of
    the tools that I have been given by Congress and by the
    President in making these determinations, and on a case-by-case
    basis using the protocol that we have, that is what I will do.
        Senator Klobuchar. And you said at the beginning of your
    testimony today, you talked about how you were being as
    forthcoming as you could be, describing your decisionmaking
    process. But you also said that there was some evidence you
    could not share with us today, which I think is always
    difficult for prosecutors--I know this from my own work--where
    you are, you know, explaining things to people and you want so
    much to tell them about the real factor that led you to a
    decision, but you cannot until the trial is going on or until
    the trial is over. Could you expand on that a little, not
    telling us what the evidence is, but explaining that there is
    some evidence that you cannot discuss right now in this forum?
        Attorney General Holder. Yes, there is really, from my
    perspective, very compelling evidence that I am not at liberty
    to discuss now that probably will not be revealed until we are
    actually in either a trial setting or perhaps a pretrial
    setting. Once these cases have been indicted, a judge has been
    assigned, motions perhaps have been filed to the extent--you
    know, at some point an Assistant United States Attorney will
    reveal that which I cannot talk about now, but the evidence
    that I am not talking about, as I said, I think is compelling,
    is not tainted, and I think will be proved to be decisive in
    this case.
        Senator Klobuchar. Thank you. And then I wanted to move
    just last to some of these general issues. As we look at what
    you are facing, whether people on this Committee agree or
    disagree with some of your decisions, I think we are unified in
    wanting to give you the tools that you need to do your work.
    And there clearly have been issues in the past--you just raised
    this--with morale in the Justice Department. I think everyone
    knows that. And you mentioned and praised Attorney General
    Mukasey for some of the work that he did in trying to right
    that ship. I certainly know he worked hard with our Minnesota
    U.S. Attorney General's office and with me and others in trying
    to fix some of the issues there. And I think that we are well
    on their way, as you know, with Frank McGill and now our newest
    appointee, Todd Jones, to do that.
        But could you discuss more generally at the Justice
    Department what you have been doing to work on this morale
    issue and improvements you think have been made?
        Attorney General Holder. Well, first, one of the things is
    to make people again believe in the mission of the Department
    and to reassure people that some of the unfortunate things that
    happened in the past and that are identified in the Inspector
    General reports, that that is not the way in which this Justice
    Department is going to be run--we are not going to be inventing
    things. It is not going to be a new way of doing things at the
    Department. It is really going to be a return to the old ways.
        I served as a line attorney in the Justice Department under
    Republican as well as Democratic Attorneys General and had
    great respect for all of them and the way in which they dealt
    with me as a career person, and that is what I have tried to
    reassure people at the Department, that we are going back to
    that way of doing things, that they are only expected to do
    their jobs. There are no political consequences; there are no
    political litmus tests with regard to case decisions, with
    regard to who gets to be a lawyer at the Justice Department.
    This is the way things have always been done at the Department.
    It is the great tradition of a very, very special place that I
    have had the good fortune to be associated with most of my
    professional life.
        I think one of the things that would help with regard to
    morale--this is kind of an advertisement, I guess--would be for
    confirmation of those remaining Assistant Attorneys General
    who--I think we have three left now. To get them confirmed I
    think would help. To get U.S. Attorneys confirmed I think would
    help----
        Senator Klobuchar. Right, and I understand. I just checked
    this to get the numbers. We have three pending on the floor,
    and I am sure you would like to get those done, say, before
    Thanksgiving? That would be nice?
        Attorney General Holder. Tomorrow would be good.
        Senator Klobuchar. OK. And then I think there are six
    pending before this Committee, and I am sure you would like to
    get those through this Committee, because when I look at your
    workload that you are facing here, not only with these newest
    trials, but with this major investigation going on at Fort
    Hood, with the Medicare fraud that we all want you to focus on,
    as every person in this country should want you to do, with the
    new and revived focus on white-collar crime, which I think is
    long overdue, from the Madoff case, which I think that has been
    completed here, but there are offshoots from that, and there
    are other white-collar cases all across the country, to not
    have, you know, some of these nominations clogged up a bit here
    just cannot be what you want. And so I know I want to move
    forward on those as soon as possible as well as any personnel
    that you need in the Justice Department.
        Attorney General Holder. I appreciate that.
        Senator Klobuchar. All right. Thank you very much. You have
    one more thing, Senator Sessions.
        Senator Sessions. One thing. I offered for the record a
    letter earlier, and I failed to note that--from the 9/11
    victims that, according to their letter, when word of the
    letter got out, some 3,000 firefighters across the country
    joined us and added their names; less than 24 hours after the
    Attorney General's announcement last Friday, 100,000 people
    signed our letter before our computers crashed. And this is the
    box of signatures and confirmations. I just feel like I should
    make that statement for the record because I do think the
    victims felt strongly about it, and they are asking that the
    Attorney General reconsider.
        Attorney General Holder. Well, there certainly have been
    those who have opposed the decision that I made. There have
    been many people who have supported it as well. I expected that
    when I made the decision. These are tough decisions that an
    Attorney General is called upon to make, and all I can do is
    look at the evidence, look at the facts, and look at the law
    and try to make the best decision that I can. And I hope people
    would understand that.
        Senator Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Attorney General
    Holder. I want to thank you for so thoroughly and respectfully
    answering all the questions from the members of this Committee.
    I want to thank those who have been very respectful in the
    gallery here as well. I know that not all of you agree with
    every decision here, but I want to thank you for your respect.
    And for those of you who are family members, firefighters,
    thank you so much for your service. And as Senator Schumer
    said, we cannot even imagine what you have been going through,
    so I want to thank you for that.
        And I think we would all agree in this room that we want
    you, Attorney General Holder, to go back and whatever
    disagreements there may be, but to make sure you put the best
    people on this case, that they do their work, that we get the
    toughest penalties here, and we wish you well. So thank you
    very much, Attorney General.
        Attorney General Holder. Thank you.
        Senator Klobuchar. The record will stay open for 1 week for
    this hearing, and the hearing is now adjourned. Thank you.
        [Whereupon, at 1:37 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
        [Questions and answers and submissions for the record
    follow.]
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