In my inbox: a letter Sen. Graham wrote to Attorney General Holder asking him to stop being cute about the ultimate venue for the trial of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his co-conspirators. “In your testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on April 14, 2010, you stated that ‘New York is not off the table’ as [...]

Attorney General Eric Holder, speaking to Bob Schieffer from the Aspen Ideas Festival, told you nothing new on the ideational trial of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and the closure of Guantanamo Bay. “No decision has been made yet on exactly where the trial will occur.” … “Bound and determined” to hold some kind of trial, as [...]

But oh God, this Dana Milbank column on Attorney General Holder’s testimony yesterday. Eric Holder is a Guantanamo Bay prisoner. Stop right there. I have personally seen Guantanamo detainees. (“Prisoners” have been convicted of something.) I’ve seen them strapped to the flatbeds of small vehicles just to be driven a few yards. I’ve seen the [...]

I think it’s fair to say that the attorney general stepped into this Senate Judiciary Committee hearing with the world on his back and left standing tall. My wrapup for the Washington Independent. Update, 4:22 p.m.: Mike Isikoff agrees.

Marc Ambinder wrote a good update on Guantanamo detentions on Friday that I somehow missed. It’s a timely scorecard of who’s still at GTMO and what the administration’s plans for them are. Hanging over the head of all of them is a prospective deal between the White House and Lindsey Graham to trade the closure [...]

I see we’ve entered the farcical phase of the “Lynch Holder” movement: “Not only was the Attorney General required to provide the brief as part of his confirmation, but the opinions expressed in it go to the heart of his responsibilities in matters of national security,” Mr. Sessions said in a statement. Yes! Yes they [...]

I don’t want to step on the toes of a forthcoming piece, so I hope you’ll forgive me being a bit cryptic. But one of the basic principles animating the Obama administration, as I understand it, is a very civic-minded impulse to resolve the complex interplay of terrorism and justice. In other words, when he [...]

Building as if by magic from my last post, the Washington Post has a piece you’ve all seen by now reporting that President Obama’s advisers are nearing a deal with Sen. Graham to try KSM in a military commission after all. For what it’s worth, the story reads to me as thin, not an official [...]

Carl Levin sent letters last week — made public today — to get Eric Holder to investigate Blackwater for contract fraud and to get Bob Gates to stop Blackwater from getting yet another Afghanistan security-sector training contract. I don’t want to step on the toes of a story I’m working on, but it’s fairly astonishing, [...]

Building off Marcy’s post on the Washington Post‘s veneration of Rahm Emanuel, it now appears that Eric Holder had David Axelrod as an ally for what the Post calls an argument “rooted in principle” for trying KSM in criminal court. Rahm Emanuel had… Lindsey Graham. Obama went with Holder, Axelrod and principle. For the moment. [...]