Paul Clement, the attorney representing the Republican-controlled House in defense of the Defense of Marriage Act, received praise from a surprising source Tuesday–Attorney General Eric Holder.
Clement, a George W. Bush Solicitor General, resigned from King & Spalding Monday in protest of the law firm’s decision to withdraw from the representation of the House in the defense of a 1996 statute that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Clement said he would continue his work for the House at law firm of Bancroft PLLC.
The House hired Clement to defend the act, after the Justice Department said it no longer would
“Paul Clement is a great lawyer,” Holder told reporters during a pen-and-pad briefing with reporters in his conference room at DOJ headquarters. “He has done a lot of really great things for this nation. In taking on representing Congress in connection with DOMA, I think he was doing that which lawyers do when we are at our best.”
Holder said criticism of Clement reminds him of the attacks leveled against DOJ lawyers who represented Guantanamo Bay detainees when they were in the private sector.
“The people who criticized our people here at the Justice Department were wrong then, as are people who criticized Paul Clement for taking the representation that he’s going to continue,” Holder said.
