Gavel Grab

There’s a new chapter in the fracas over Justice Department lawyers who once worked on behalf of terror suspects detained by the United States, and it involves Attorney General Eric Holder Jr.

Holder didn’t disclose during his confirmation hearings that he signed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the Supreme Court not to uphold the indefinite detention of terror suspect Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen, according to a New York Times article Thursday.

A Justice Department spokesman said the brief should have been disclosed, but it “was unfortunately and inadvertently missed.” The spokesman said Holder had discussed publicly his views on detention policy on many occasions.

Republican Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona said Thursday that answer “strains credulity,” and Kyl went on: “Are we expected to believe that then-nominee Holder, with only a handful of Supreme Court briefs to his name, forgot about his role in one of this country’s most publicized terrorism cases?”

An article about the brief, and the failure to disclose it, was written by former Bush administration aides and published in National Review.

As mentioned earlier in Gavel Grab, some conservative critics including Liz Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, are attacking lawyers working at the Justice Department who in private practice had represented or advocated for detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. The attacks have drawn cries of “McCarthyism” and ardent defenses of lawyers representing unpopular clients.

Conservative legal scholars are divided over the attacks, according to a separate New York Times article.

“There’s something truly bizarre about this,” said Richard A. Epstein, a law professor at the University of Chicago and member of the Federalist Society.

Further stories and commentary on the debate are available from National Public Radio and the Main Justice blog.