Sen. John Cornyn says Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. is “playing politics” with the nation’s anti-terrorism efforts and has compromised national security and put the lives of military personnel at risk.
The Texas Republican used a Saturday speech at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington to rail against the attorney general, calling him “hyper-partisan” and “dangerously ideological.”
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“Holder has ignored genuine cases of voter intimidation, and he has failed to vigorously enforce the right of our men and women in uniform deployed abroad to be able to cast their ballot,” he said. “Is this the kind of behavior that instills complete confidence in the President of the United States?”
Mr. Cornyn, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Campaign and a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, also took Mr. Holder — who was appointed by President Obama — to task for releasing previously classified memos on U.S. interrogation methods of suspected terrorist “simply because he didn’t agree with the Bush administration anti-terrorism policies.”
“Holder decided to provide sensitive information to our nation’s enemies and to give our allies fresh cause to worry about our trustworthiness,” he said at CPAC, one of the nation’s premier annual gatherings of conservative activists. “Playing politics with the war on terrorism is unacceptable.”
Mr. Cornyn also called Mr. Holder’s failed push to hold the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — the self-proclaimed planner of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks — in a civil court in New York City a “recipe for disaster.” And the senator blasted Mr. Holder’s effort to close the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.
“We simply cannot afford a pre-9/11 mentality in our attorney general or president of the United States,” he said. “Holder’s record … demonstrates he’s more concerned with satisfying President Obama’s radical left-wing political base than he is doing his job.”
