Judiciary Committee with Attorney General Eric Holder
Thank you so very much, Mr. Chairman. I really do appreciate this hearing today. And I'd like it welcome our new attorney general, Mr. Holder. And I'd first like to thank him for the strong leadership that he has already demonstrated in taking this most important position in our government. I'm particularly appreciative for the direction that he has signaled already on the crack cocaine issue and getting rid of those disparities. Many of us have been working for many years to try and deal with this. The families against mandatory minimums that, you know, work with me, and we hold a workshop on it every year. And one young lady that's in the audience, Ms. Nkechi (ph) Taifa (ph), who has spent countless hours working on this issue.
And we are so pleased that you are there and that you're moving in the right direction. I have a few other things that I'd just like to mention. I'm sure that it has not come up today, but what you did with Senator Stevens' case really does define your commitment to justice. It doesn't matter, Democrat, Republican, whomever have been denied justice. And with the withholding of information by the prosecution, you threw that case out. And I want you to know that that really is what justice is all, and I appreciate it very, very much. And I hope the people of this country understand that you took -- it took courage to do that, but you did it.
So you're here today, and let me just ask about a few other things. I am very concerned about police misconduct. The last time the FBI came, there was 857 cases, 34 of them in Los Angeles. We really don't find out what the outcome is of these police misconduct cases, and I'm just wondering if there's some way we could get updated. I don't know if anybody else is interested, but my staff certainly would like to have the opportunity to get with whomever you identify and help us to understand what happens to these cases.
HOLDER: That's a difficult thing. Once an investigation is open, it becomes difficult to share information outside the department. But to the extent that we can, you know, we'll try to do so. I understand your frustration, though, where an investigation is open, perhaps, charges are brought or reforms are required. But then there are other instances where the case simply seems to go away. It gets closed. And to the extent that we can come up with a mechanism to make you and the members of the public and, certainly, the members of -- the citizens of the locality where the police department is being investigated -- to the extent that we can share that kind of information, I'll try to find ways in which we can do that while protecting, you know, privacy interests that might exist with regard to specific individuals.
WATERS: I'll appreciate that. And I'm particularly interested in the city of Englewood where we have -- we have made countless attempts to have an investigation and, thankfully, since you've been there, there is an investigation going on. And we'd like to follow it as much as we can with whatever way that you can share information or whatever -- we'll be trying to do that. Let me just go into mortgage fraud. As you know, some of us that have been working on the Financial Services Committee dealing with predatory lending, mortgage fraud, and the subprime meltdown have discovered there was a lot of fraud that was going on by the loan initiators office sometimes, and sometimes by the recipients, the homeowners.
But we're seeing cases where incomes were inflated, and that information was placed on the applications without the homeowner's knowledge. And on and on and on. It just falls through the cracks. We see it when we're working on loan modifications with the servicers. I understand that you're not going to do a task force, but can you do something to work with the city attorneys who are trying -- who have very little resources -- to help us deal with this mortgage fraud?
HOLDER: Yes. Actually, I -- we are going to be rolling something out pretty soon with regard to how we're going to approach the whole question of financial fraud, and a component of that will certainly be mortgage fraud and how we are going to be dealing with that. And we will be working with our state and local partners in that regard. Earlier, I had said I wasn't sure about the number of mortgage fraud cases that the FBI had under investigation. I wasn't sure if it was 1200 or 2100. Just for the record, it's 2100 cases that the FBI has under investigation now.
But in order for us to be effective, it seems to me, in those mortgage fraud cases, we need something that is going to be pretty extensive and that also involves people at the state and local levels. And our hope is -- our intention is to work with them.
WATERS: Thank you. And, finally, on the crack cocaine issue, I'll get back to it. I would not like you to answer this, but would you consider taking a look at the possibility of pardons for some people who have been sentenced under these crack cocaine laws, particularly, those who have never been involved in crime before. This is a first-time offense, have good backgrounds, come from, you know, environments with supportive parents and all of that, don't answer now, but just would you take a look at the possibility of considering this for recommendation to the president of the United States?
Finally, U.S. attorneys, many jurisdictions are waiting desperately to see what's going to be done. As we understand it, the protocol has been that U.S. attorneys would hand in their resignations and would give the new administration an opportunity to make new appointments. We don't see that happening quite fast enough, and there are many of these jurisdictions where there are real complaints against U.S. attorneys such as in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama. What are you doing about that? And how fast are you going to move on that? Or have you changed how it is normally done?
HOLDER: We are working as quickly as we can to put new U.S. attorneys in place. I expect that we'll have an announcement in the next couple of weeks with regard to our first batch of U.S. attorneys. I have met with some of the candidates whose names I expect we will be announcing pretty soon. They come that Washington as part of the process. And so we will have our people in place, I think, relatively soon. One of the things that we don't want to do was to disrupt the continuity of the offices and pull people out of positions where we thought there might be a danger that that might have on the continuity -- the effectiveness of the office. But it is our intention -- elections matter. It is our intention to have U.S. attorneys that are selected by President Obama in place as quickly as we can. And as I said, our first batch will be announced very soon.
WATERS: Thank you very much. I'd just like to say there is a danger with some of them being left there. So whatever you can do to move them, we appreciate it. Thank you.
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