Bush announces recess appointment for stalled DOJ opening News
Bush announces recess appointment for stalled DOJ opening

[JURIST] President Bush has used a recess appointment to fill an opening at the Justice Department [White House press release] that was stalled in the Senate, naming attorney Alice S. Fisher to the top post in the DOJ's criminal division. Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) [official website] had blocked Fisher's nomination in order to question a government agent who named Fisher in an email about alleged abusive interrogations at Guantanamo Bay. The email says Fisher attended meetings about using certain techniques to gather information from detainees. Fisher says she can't recall participating in the discussions, and the DOJ says the writer didn't mean to say she did. Longstanding policy prevented the agent from testifying. Levin also had blocked a Pentagon nominee who was given a recess appointment [JURIST report] in August. AP has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Ku Klux Klan founded

The US hate group known as the Ku Klux Klan was founded on December 24, 1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee as a reaction to reconstruction efforts following the Union victory in the American Civil War. The group would later become notorious for its attacks on Black Americans, being targeted by the Enforcement Act of 1871, which imposed civil and criminal liability for deprivation of constitutional rights. Read the Enforcement Act of 1871.  

Hamid Karzai born

On December 24, 1957, Hamid Karzai was born in Karz, Afghanistan. He would go on to become in 2004 his country's first elected president after the end of Taliban rule in 2001.