From:POLITICO
Attorney General Eric Holder is coming to the defense of former Solicitor General Paul Clement, after gay rights advocates criticized his decision to take on the defense of the Defense of Marriage Act in court. The criticism apparently led Clement's firm, King & Spalding, to drop the cases and Clement to quit his firm in protest — all about a week after the firm agreed to defend the constitutionality of the 1996 ban on federal recognition on same-sex marriage.
"Paul Clement is a great lawyer and has done a lot of really great things for this nation. In taking on the representation — representing Congress in connection with DOMA, I think he is doing that which lawyers do when we're at our best," Holder said during a roundtable with reporters at the Justice Department. "That criticism, I think, was very misplaced."
Holder also compared the criticism of Clement to the attacks on Justice Department lawyers for their past work for detainees at Guantanamo. "It was something we dealt with here in the Department of Justice ...The people who criticized our people here at the Justice Department were wrong then, as are people who criticized Paul Clement for the representation that he's going to continue," Holder added.
Holder said he wasn't laying blame for Clement's disagreement with King & Spalding or disputing the firm's claim it withdrew due to improper vetting of the agreement to represent the House of Representatives, which is stepping into the cases after President Barack Obama concluded that DOMA is unconstitutional and ordered the Justice Department to stop defending it in court.
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