Well, I think the American people have to understand that the Mexican government is committed, in a very substantial way, to eradicating the effect of the impact of the cartels on Mexico. We have - what are called vetted units down there. Units that have been vetted by our law enforcement people there, the people with whom we deal - primarily.
— Eric Holder
I'm not going to let people who work in the United States Department of Justice have their characters be assailed without any basis.
It pains me whenever there's the death of a law enforcement official.
I actually think that the dotting of the i's and the crossing of the t's is what separates the United States, the United Kingdom, our allies, from those who we are fighting.
Any decision to use lethal force against a United States citizen - even one intent on murdering Americans and who has become an operational leader of al-Qaida in a foreign land - is among the gravest that government leaders can face.
I think that what I'm doing is right. And election-year politics, which intensifies everything, is not going to drive me off that course.
Though race-related issues continue to occupy a significant portion of our political discussion, and though there remain many unresolved racial issues in this nation, we, average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about things racial.
I look forward to working with the NRA to come up with ways in which we can use common sense approaches to reduce the level of violence that we see - in our streets, and make the American people as safe as they possibly can be.
Due process and judicial process are not one and the same, particularly when it comes to national security.
We are not programmed to bury our kids.
The Constitution guarantees due process, not judicial process.
You constantly hear about voter fraud... but you don't see huge amounts of vote fraud out there.
The reality is that we will be reading Miranda rights to the corpse of Osama bin Laden. He will never appear in an American courtroom. That's the reality. He will be killed by us, or he will be killed by his own people so he's not captured by us. We know that.
I am not a proponent of the death penalty, but I will enforce the law as this Congress gives it to us.
I understand the Second Amendment. I respect the Second Amendment. I think we need to use common sense tools to keep the American people safe, to keep our streets safe.
I don't have any intention of resigning.
One cannot understate the importance of eliminating Bin Laden. He was a symbolic head of the organisation and, as we now know, an operational head of the organisation.
The American people can be - and deserve to be - assured that actions taken in their defense are consistent with their values and their laws.
I think that people, despite my law enforcement background, view me as taking these consistently progressive stands, and I think that, philosophically, there is a desire to get at that person. But I think the stands I have taken are totally consistent with a person who is looking at things realistically, factually.
Saturdays and Sundays, America in the year 2009 does not in some ways differ significantly from the country that existed almost 50 years ago. This is truly sad.
Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards.
