Reply #27: Senator Leahy's statement on Fisher

[chat_noir]

Alice Fisher comes before the Committee as the nominee to be Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division. Ms. Fisher has had a substantive law firm career, and she worked for two years in the Criminal Division overseeing the Department’s prosecutions in the high-profile areas of counterterrorism and corporate fraud. She has also been a long-time protégé of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. I am somewhat concerned, however, that Ms. Fisher is nominated for one of the most visible prosecutorial positions in the country without ever having prosecuted a case, and she brings to the position minimal trial experience in any context. In contrast, previous Criminal Division AAG’s such as Mike Chertoff, James Robinson, and William Weld were seasoned federal prosecutors prior to taking this job.

I hope that this hearing will illuminate Ms. Fisher’s views on checks of controversial provisions of the Patriot Act and her opposition to the Act’s sunset provision; her participation in meetings in which the FBI expressed its disagreement with harsh interrogation methods practiced by the military toward detainees held at Guantanamo, and her ideas about appropriate safeguards for the treatment of enemy combatants. There have been reports that she has had ties to Congressman Tom DeLay’s defense team. We will also want to know what steps she intends to take to avoid a conflict of interest in the Department’s investigation of lobbyist Jack Abramoff and possibly Mr. DeLay. I would like to know her priorities for the Criminal Division. I will be interested in her plans with respect to the growing problem of computer crime and identity theft, the responses to the Supreme Court’s recent sentencing decision, and prosecution of intellectual property theft. .

http://judiciary.senate.gov/member_statement.cfm?id=1500&wit_id=2629