The most egregious and bizarre claims of executive privilege came in exchanges with Senator -- and Judiciary Chairman -- Orrin Hatch. The 1996 report from Margaret Love that had recommended against clemency was accidentally released to the committee, and Hatch asked Holder to comment on it.
Holder: The letter should not have been produced. It seems to me that the information contained in the letter is clearly within the bounds of executive privilege.
Hatch: Seriously?
Holder: Excuse me?
Hatch: Seriously, you can't really believe that.
Holder: Oh, absolutely.
Hatch: Well, we have a copy of the letter. And you are aware that she recommended against clemency.
Holder: I really would not comment on what recommendations were made by the pardon attorney. As I said, I think that falls well within the bounds of executive privilege.
Later, Hatch asked Holder about the 1999 report that he and Roger Adams prepared that effectively replaced the 1996 Love report that recommended against clemency.
Hatch: Did the second report contain a recommendation of whether the president should or should not grant clemency?
Holder: Mr. Chairman, with respect to those questions, it seems to me the answers to those questions are prohibited by the assertation of privilege of the...
Hatch: How? Tell me. I mean, where in the law do you find that?
The befuddled senator never received an answer.
Hatch also asked if there had been any attempt to obtain information from those offered clemency concerning some of their co-conspirators who remained at large.
FALN bomb-maker William Morales was -- and still is -- hiding in Cuba. Macheteros Victor Gerena and Filiberto Ojeda-Rios were on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list (Gerena has now been on that list for a record 27 years, and Rios was killed in an FBI shootout in 2005).
Holder replied that "to my knowledge[,] those requests were not placed."
Hatch: You're a former prosecutor. I mean, don't you want to get to the bottom of these things?
Holder: Sure.
Hatch: Well, then, why weren't those questions asked?
Holder: Because it seems to me you're talking about a group of people who did not recognize the right of the government to even--
Hatch: What's that got to do with it?
Holder tried to shift the blame to Clinton. "Well, as I said, the power of the president is absolute in these areas...again, it is for the president to decide."
(pic & comment stolen from SSI)
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