Holder Hears A Who?

Elian Gonzales, that's who. Pictured is the Cuban communist poster boy. He's looking fit and healthy. He demonstrates just how communist youth live better, eat better, think better, and are, well, just better than their capitalist counterparts in Florida.

Perhaps this picture will look more familiar to you. It was taken about eleven years ago when INS (now ICE) agents arrived at Elian's home and gently invited him to take a cruise to Cuba to visit his father.

One person's name crops up in connection with the practice runs at Waco and Ruby Ridge and finally the capture of dangerous fugitive Elian Gonzales. That name is Eric Holder. Holder played a part in setting the rules of engagement at Waco and Ruby Ridge, but as Deputy Attorney General he set all the rules for how to persuade little Elian to return to Cuba. And I mean all the rules. Holder and his boss Barack Obama claim that their unpopular legal actions today are taken only because they are scrupulously following existing law and legal precedent. Oh? The Gonazales travesty is an example of that scrupulousness.

The Clinton administration and Attorney General Janet Reno had made a political decision to return the terrified and unwilling Elian to Cuba. Elian had been living with his relatives in Florida after being rescued from a raft fleeing Cuban totalitarianism. His mother was drowned in the attempt, but Elian made it safely to American soil and had plenty of close relatives in Florida to take care of him after the escape. Elian's father had helped to plan the escape and prepare Elian and his mother for the dangerous journey, but needed to stay behind as a cover for the escape.

The Florida state courts had already begun the process of confirming the relatives in Florida as Elian's legal guardians before the feds stepped into the situation and stepped all over Florida family law proceedings. Holder's actions involved a two-pronged approach. First, he asserted federal supremacy. Second, he applied family law principles that children should, if at all possible and reasonable, be placed with their parent or parents. Since Elian's mother had died in the crossing, that left the father in Cuba who had assisted in the escape.

What of course is missing here is that by the time Elian's father stated how much he wanted his son back, Elian's escape and his mother's death had made worldwide headlines. It was a public relations disaster for Fidel Castro and communist Cuba. Holder (with the imprimatur of his boss Reno) decided to take action to soothe the ruffled feathers of the communist dictator as quickly as possible. They ordered INS to cut short the state court proceedings by retrieving Elian and forcibly returning him to his father who was now under twenty-four hour watch by Castro thugs.

Now here's where the laugher about Holder "scrupulously following the law" comes in. In order for the feds to take control of the situation, it was necessary for the federal court to rule that federal immigration law trumped Florida state family law given the facts of the case. Holder then and now says that there is no such requirement, and that the office of the Attorney General through its INS agency could act independently. There is a valid if weak argument that Holder was right. But the courts are to take all of the facts and evidence into account before deciding proper jurisdiction and issuing orders.

Holder would be on sounder legal ground if "independent authority" had been his sole argument. But what Holder won't talk about is that he took the first step in pursuing the case in a "scrupulously legal" manner when he took the case to the Federal 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, where his pleadings asserting federal jurisdiction were rejected. He had asked for an order removing the case from the Florida court and granting the DOJ the power to order the INS to deport Elian.

Holder has maintained, then and now, that he did not need the concurrence of a federal court before taking the action that sent Elian back to the imprisoned island. But he refuses to discuss why, if that was true, he first went to a federal court to get its approval. His legal philosophy is "get the courts to rule in your favor, and if that fails, simply ignore the courts and act on your own authority."

The MSM were relatively quiet about the state court case, reporting it (if at all) on the back pages. But the moment Castro rattled his saber and Holder snapped to attention, the whole picture changed. Elian's Florida family was mercilessly trashed and defamed. There were even totally unsubstantiated charges of child sex-abuse. Suddenly, any talk of proper state court procedures was out the window, and reuniting Elian with his [coerced] father in Cuba became the rallying cry. By any means necessary, as liberals are fond of saying, including breaking into the home at which Elian was living, armed with flash-grenades, tear-gas bombs, and automatic rifles but without a warrant.

There was no warrant for Elian's capture or for the arrest of any of the family. There was most definitely no fugitive warrant. This created a lot of criticism from legal beagles of all stripes. The DOJ ultimately produced a questionable search warrant which had authorized a search for specific evidence, but not authorizing seizure of any person and only of specified items. Even ultraliberal Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz stated: "They never made it clear what kind of warrant it was. And neither could it have been legal."

Elian remains the pampered pet of Fidel Castro, and is being treated to the luxuries (and even simple necessities of life) that 90% of Cubans will never see. He is a propaganda tool extraordinaire. But the Gonzales family in Florida is not allowed any contact of any kind with him. They might remind him that he is only a tool, and that if he hadn't been forcibly returned to Cuba, he might be living free of twenty-four hour a day "bodyguards."

So this is just a reminder that Holder's lawlessness is nothing new. He practiced it at Waco and Ruby Ridge, polished it with Elian Gonzales, and after becoming the Attorney General, perfected it with the New Black Panthers and CAIR. He is scrupulous, all right. Scrupulously out-of-control, a law unto himself.