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Panetta Faces First Big Test in Choice of CIA Deputy

By CQ Staff | January 9, 2009 5:45 AM | | Comments (0)

Next door at our Spytalk blog, Jeff Stein writes:

Am I the only person who sees some irony in the demands of some key Democrats that Steve Kappes be kept at the CIA as the price of their support for Leon Panetta to run the spy agency?

To be sure, Kappes, now the CIA's No. 2, is "highly regarded," as everyone keeps saying, inside and outside the CIA. He has been a station chief in Moscow and Kuwait and in recent years pulled off a Hollywood-like secret operation to get Libya's Muammar el-Qaddafi  to ditch his nuclear weapons program. His subordinates virtually gush over him.

He has been called "the best spy to emerge from the CIA in a generation."

Former CIA operative Gary Berntsen, who led one of the first teams into Afghanstan, said Kappes is "probably the finest man I've worked for in my career.  You would know what he wanted from you but it was clear that people would have the flexibility and the lattitide to make those difficult decisions on your own, which is  what we need."
Continue reading Panetta Faces First Big Test in Choice of CIA Deputy.

Confirmation Hearings Set for HHS, Labor and Education

By CQ Staff | December 30, 2008 4:05 PM | | Comments (0)

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee has set these dates for confirmation hearings:

January 8, 10:00 a.m. for Secretary of Health and Human Services-Designate Thomas A. Daschle.

January 9, 9:30 a.m. for Secretary of Labor-Designate, Hilda L. Solis.

January 13, 10 a.m. for Secretary of Education-Designate, Arne Duncan.

Holder Confirmation Hearing Postponed

By CQ Staff | December 15, 2008 2:27 PM | | Comments (0)

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick J. Leahy has postponed a confirmation hearing for Attorney General designate Eric H. Holder Jr. for one week, to Jan. 15, in response to GOP demands.

"It is disappointing to me that they are insisting that we delay at a time when the nation needs its top law enforcement officer and national security team in place and working," Leahy said.

Critics of Holder are expected to raise questions about his role in Clinton's pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich in 2001. Rich's ex-wife, Denise, donated heavily to Democratic causes, including Clinton's presidential library and Hillary Rodham Clinton 's 2000 Senate campaign. Holder signed off on the pardon.

Holder told the House Government Reform Committee in early 2001, "It is now clear, and this is admittedly hindsight, that we, at the Justice Department, and more importantly, former President Clinton, the American public, in the cause of justice, would have been better served if the case had been handled through the normal channels."

The Los Angeles Times reported Saturday that "at least eight Republican senators say they want to delay the start of the hearings to Jan. 26, or after inauguration week, so their staffs can investigate" the Rich pardon and his role in at least three clemency cases.

Leahy said "The Committee has not yet received the names of other designees for high-ranking Department of Justice officials that we had anticipated and more time is now available to the Judiciary Committee. Therefore, to accommodate the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, at their request we are delaying the hearing, again, until January 15."

Holder Confirmation Hearing Set for January 8

By CQ Staff | December 9, 2008 3:33 PM | | Comments (0)

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick J. Leahy has announced that the committee’s confirmation hearing for Eric H. Holder Jr. to be Attorney General will begin on Thursday, Jan, 8, at 9:30 a.m. in room 216 of the Hart Senate Office Building.

— Keith Perine

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