Holder: Pakistan Taliban ‘Intimately Involved’ In Times Square Plot
Appearing on Meet The Press, Attorney General Eric Holder said that the Pakistani Taliban was behind the attempted Times Square bombing: “I can say that the evidence that we’ve now developed shows that the Pakistani Taliban has directed this plot. We know that they helped facilitate it, we know that we helped–they helped direct it, and I suspect that we are going to come up with evidence that shows they helped to finance it. They were intimately involved in this plot.”
Holder: Al Qaeda Recruiting People With ‘Clean Skins’
Also on Meet The Press, Attorney General Eric Holder discussed how al Qaeda has been recruiting U.S. citizens with clean records: “Yeah. I mean, you certainly hear from them that they’re looking for people, as they call it, people with ‘clean skins.’ They’re trying to get people into the country or use people who don’t fit any kind of a profile or not people who you might expect to be involved in these kinds of activities. And that’s why we have to redouble our efforts in terms of intelligence-gathering to make sure that we are fully cognizant of what is it they’re planning to do, who are they trying to use in, in coming up with these plots? It makes our job more difficult, not one that we can’t do, but certainly makes it more difficult.”
Holder: ‘We Have To Give Serious Consideration’ To Modifying Miranda
Appearing on This Week, Attorney General Eric Holder said the government should consider modifications to the Miranda rules, to create more flexibility for law enforcement: “We’re now dealing with international terrorism. And if we are going to have a system that is capable of dealing in a public safety context with this new threat, I think we have to give serious consideration to at least modifying that public safety exception. And that’s one of the things that I think we’re going to be reaching out to Congress to do, to come up with a proposal that is both constitutional, but that is also relevant to our time and the threat that we now face.”
Giuliani: ‘How About We Stop Studying And We Start Doing Things’
Appearing on This Week, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) criticized Attorney General Eric Holder and the Obama administration for not acting quickly enough to change the Miranda rules and address other aspects of terrorism: “I support it, but I really at this point am frustrated by the lack of urgency that is shown about these terrorism matters. I mean, we’ve had three now where we’ve seen, you know, big breakdowns: Fort Hood, Christmas Day, and now — and now this one. It’s about time that we stopped thinking about it and we stopped studying it. I don’t know how often the attorney general said he was studying things. How about we stop studying and we start doing things, like we change Miranda, like we fix what appears to be a policy of political correctness in which we missed every signal that related to Major Hasan and promoted him in the military?”
Shelby: U.S. Can’t Stop Every Terrorist Attack
Appearing on State of the Union, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) said that the United States would not be able to prevent all terrorist attacks. “We can do everything we can to protect – but there will be some things that will slip up on us, no matter what,” said Shelby. He referred to the emerging threat of one-person operations such as the attempted Times Square bombing and the failed Christmas airline bombing, adding: “Something’s going to happen and we’re not going to be so fortunate. So we’ve got to be more diligent. We’ve got to recognize that it’s not just big groups or lots of people on one hit day. It’s individuals, spread all over the country.”
Lieberman: ‘It’s Hard To Stop Them Every Times, But That Has To Be Our Goal’
Appearing on Fox News Sunday, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) criticized the government’s handling of the lead-up to the attempted Times Square bombing, declaring that “the system failed.” “We were lucky. We did not prevent the attempted attack,” said Lieberman. “It’s hard to stop them every time, but that has to be our goal. … So I’d say in terms of prevention, the system failed.”
Brennan: ‘We’re Not Lucky. We’re Good’
Appearing on Fox News Sunday, senior White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan defended the government’ handling of the attempted Times Square bombing. We’re not lucky. We’re good,” said Brennan. “We’ve stopped many, many operations, terrorist plots, from taking place here in the United States and overseas. On a daily basis, we are being successful at finding them, arresting them, killing them.”
Dodd: Automated Stock Trading ‘Getting Detached From The Real Economy’
Appearing on Face The Nation, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) criticized the use of automated stock trading and its role in the market upheaval this past week. “What you’re getting is finance is getting detached from the real economy, so you are getting sort of this casino environment that’s appearing in our markets,” said Dodd. “It does not reflect what’s going on in the real economy. You would have expected Thursday and Friday with good news coming up that the market would have been reacting to that news. Instead, of course, we had a market tumbling out of control for 17 minutes, dropping 1,000 points because we didn’t have [safeguards] in place.”
