WASHINGTON — Eric H. Holder Jr. won Senate confirmation Monday as the nation's first African American attorney general, easily overcoming Republican concerns about his commitment to fight terrorism and his unwillingness to back the right to keep and bear arms.
The vote was 75 to 21, with all the opposition coming from Republicans.
Holder's chief supporter, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), said the confirmation was a fulfillment of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream that everyone would be judged by the content of their character.
"Come on the right side of history," said Leahy, chairman of the judiciary committee.
Holder was a federal prosecutor, judge and the No. 2 Justice Department official in the Clinton administration. Even his critics agreed that Holder was well qualified, but they questioned his positions and independence, as well as his failure to oppose a controversial pardon for fugitive financier Marc Rich in 2001.
The debate turned partisan in its first moments, when Leahy expressed anger that a few Republicans demanded a pledge from Holder that he wouldn't prosecute intelligence agents who had participated in harsh interrogations.
Leahy singled out Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) as one who wanted to "turn a blind eye to possible lawbreaking before investigating whether it occurred."
"No one should be seeking to trade a vote for such a pledge," Leahy said.
When Cornyn rose to announce his vote against Holder, he did not make such a demand. But he accused the nominee of changing his once-supportive position -- on the need to detain terrorism suspects without all the rights of the Geneva Convention -- to one of harshly criticizing the Bush administration's counter-terrorism policies.
"His contrasting positions from 2002 to 2008 make me wonder if this is the same person," Cornyn said. "It makes me wonder what he truly believes."
Cornyn and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) said Holder was hostile to gun rights, despite a Supreme Court ruling in June that affirmed the right to keep weapons in the home for self-defense.
Holder's confirmation will trigger reviews -- and changes -- to the most controversial Bush administration policies, including interrogation tactics, terrorism trials and warrantless surveillance.
Those are some of the known issues. Even Holder doesn't know what he will find when he looks at secret memos in the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel.
