Below is my column on the resignation of Eric Holder as United States Attorney General. For civil libertarians, Holder’s tenure as Attorney General under President Obama has been one of the most damaging periods in our history with a comprehensive attack on various constitutional rights and principles from free speech to the free press to international law. In recent polling by NBC and the Wall Street Journal, Holder was the second most unpopular government official after the positively radioactive Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
As someone who previously called for Holder’s firing after the investigation of various journalists under national security powers, I am hardly one who can offer congratulatory sentiments for such a record. However, much like President Obama, one has to wonder what could have been if Holder had chosen a more principled and less political approach to his office. Holder is resigning the same week that a federal judge ordered the release of “Fast and Furious” documents after the Justice Department was accused of a pattern of delay and obstruction. Holder was previously held in contempt by Congress for his withholding documents and conflicting accounts to an oversight committee looking into the scandal. Indeed, Holder was looking at an even more aggressive period with the possible loss of the Senate and increased GOP seats in the House.
Ironically, Holder came into office trying to distinguish himself from such disastrous predecessors as Alberto Gonzales but proved no less political or blindly loyal to his own president. Indeed, both men fought aggressively to expand the powers of the presidency and national security laws over countervailing individual rights and separation of powers principles. It will be civil liberties and not civil rights that will be the lasting, and troubling, legacy of Eric Holder. The column is below:
The resignation of Eric Holder as attorney general is an unavoidably symbolic moment for an administration that itself appears to be waning in the final years of a troubled second term. Holder truly personifies an administration of unrivaled ambitions colliding with inescapable realities.
He proved a fierce friend to President Obama, and that loyalty might have worked to the disadvantage of both men. After a series of major court defeats and public controversies, Obama (like President Bush before him) might have been served better by an attorney general who was more detached from him and more attached to the constitutional principles that shape both their offices.
Holder has secured a well-earned position for himself in history as the nation’s first black U.S. attorney general. He is by any means an American success story. The son of a father born in Barbados and raised in New York, Holder used his considerable intellect to go to Columbia University for both college and law school. He was made a judge on the local D.C. court by President Reagan and was appointed U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia by President Clinton, who later made him deputy attorney general.
Holder’s life should be both an inspiration and a cautionary tale for young lawyers. As he ascended into power, Holder became increasingly viewed by critics as a bit too ambitious and political within the Justice Department. That reputation was reaffirmed for many with Clinton’s last-minute pardon of fugitive and major Democratic donor Marc Rich. By any objective measure, Rich was one of the least deserving pardon applicants in history — with 65 criminal counts, from tax evasion to wire fraud to racketeering to illegal trades with Iran. While his companies later pleaded guilty to 35 criminal counts, Rich fled to live the good life in Switzerland. Besides a long list of alleged felonies, Rich had a long list of friends close to Clinton … and Clinton in turn had Eric Holder.
Holder was accused of short-cutting the normal procedures to push through the pardon for Rich. Though he said he was “neutral” on the pardon (which itself is a bit shocking), former FBI director Louis Freeh said the Clinton White House had “used” Holder to keep the FBI and the DOJ from being heard on the pardon.
In his confirmation hearing, Holder promised not to have a repeatof the Rich scandal and not to allow politics to influence his decisions. It was a defining moment and one that Holder would have been wise to work to live up to.
But it did not take long for Holder’s inspiring “Mr. Smith comes to Washington” story to become “all the king’s men.” When the president was confronted with demands to investigate and prosecute individuals for torture under the Bush administration, Holder faced an early test of principle. He failed. The Justice Department blocked any prosecution despite our obligation under international treaties and the president’s (and Holder’s) acknowledgment that waterboarding is clearly a form of torture.
To quote Jerry Maguire, Obama had Holder at “hello” in seeking unbridled presidential authority. Many of the cases that Holder brought and policies that he supported resulted in startling defeats. He lost a series of criminal cases seeking massive reductions in privacy and due process protections for citizens. He unwisely pursued cases such as Canning, where a unanimous Supreme Court curtailed the powers of the president to make recess appointments.
Holder personally announced Obama’s “kill list” policy, in which the president claimed the right to kill any U.S. citizen on his sole authority without a charge, let alone a conviction. Holder’s department used the controversial Espionage Act of 1917 to bring twice the number of such prosecutions of all prior presidents under the Act. Journalists were placed under surveillance in a record that rivaled that of President Nixon. Holder led an appalling crackdown on whistle-blowers. Holder fought to justify massive warrantless surveillance and unchecked presidential authority to attack other countries without congressional approval.
Holder’s continual confrontations with Congress came to a head in a series of scandals, including the “Fast and Furious” controversy in which the government allowed drug gangs to get high-powered weapons in a truly moronic “gun walking” program. In that and other scandals, the administration withheld documents and key witnesses from oversight committees. Holder was wrong and was ultimately held in contempt of Congress.
While Holder can be credited with not shying away from our race conflicts, his actions such as intervening in the Zimmerman case (after the shooting of Trayvon Martin) and the recent Ferguson shooting were viewed by many as premature. His calling the United States a “nation of cowards” on race was a brave but also a divisive moment. In the end, however, his positive work in the area of civil rights will ultimately be eclipsed by his destructive legacy in the area of civil liberties and constitutional government.
The sad truth is that Holder could have been truly great — not simply as the first black attorney general but as a man of principle who stood with the law over politics and friendship. In one of the great lost opportunities in history, Holder will finish his tenure as he began it: a man with great but still unrealized potential.
Jonathan Turley, the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, is a member of USA Today’s Board of Contributors.
Sandi, I don’t think Holder has a racial bias. He has refused to prosecute financial industry friends who have wiped out whole communities of poor black and white people. I think he just cynically uses race to burnish his image, and really couldn’t care less. If the did care, he would have prosecuted the financial industry for its wrong doing.
I think that race is used as propaganda for both white and black people in our nation. We need to be aware that we are being lied to when this happens. Holder is a very cynical man. The only color which matters to him is green, lots of it.
Jill – Holder waves the bloody flag of being stopped while black but there is no evidence behind it. As far as I know it is a created memory.
Holder’s obvious racial beliefs tainted his decisions. The New Black Panthers in front of a voting facility holding billy clubs were exonerated by Holder. That’s when we knew his goal, good blacks, bad whites. His interference in the Ferguson situation was so biased. He met with a lot of people, but not the officer in the hospital,or police chief. I hope his FBI witch hunt is ended as his time as AG will. He didn’t respect the Constitution. There were rumors of court proceedings against Holder. If the contempt charge gets to court, Obama will,pardon him.. I see people thinking he’ll be a SCOTUS nominee. Won’t happen, he’s carrying a lot of garbage.
Champion of whose civil rights? Would that be the people who were and are being tortured in Gitmo and Bagram? Would that be the people killed by Obama via his drone king program, including a 16 year old boy and a man whom a grand jury wouldn’t indict? Would that be the Hispanic people, many of whom are citizens, being locked up by ICE, four of whom died in custody, others deported? Would that be black citizens who found no relief from being wiped out by corrupt financial industry BFFs? Would it be all American citizens who have unlawfully had our right to privacy shredded to pieces?
There’s an interesting picture of Holder in the oval office yukking it up with Cheney. Holder is an example of deep state America. As such, I am with Paul in saying he will most likely move to an extremely lucrative job in private contracting.
There have been worse…. I see a host of speaking engagements coming up for him… Many people have very little principles left…. Especially if they have political aspirations….
Eric Holder has been the guidon-bearer for the President; that’s not his job. When given the choice to stay the constitutional course or follow the President down a different path, he chose his President, When the President and AG march outside of the rule-of-law then it forces the subordinates into making a very difficult choice. This reminds me of something Bastiat said in The Law:
“No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a certain degree. The safest way to make laws respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law. These two evils are of equal consequence, and it would be difficult for a person to choose between them.”
I expect that we will see the apologists and spin doctors come out to craft him into a pillar of civil rights, virtue and transparency. Next it will be to frame those who criticized his actions and accuse them as being the threat.
Some will never accept the notion that President Obama could do any wrong, and continue their blind allegiances to him and the party. One has to wonder which is worse, those who trample our civil liberties or those who enable and support politicians who do.
SWM. I am so sorry for your loss.
I can’t get the fast and furious Mexico incident out of my mind. Here is the supporting evidence.
Very good article Professor Turley. While he deserves to be tried for his unconstitutional principles, I have a strong feeling he will find his name added to some high powered law firms partner list. So sad what might have been.
I never liked him because he was from New York.
Finally.
Hopefully his successor will not be worse.
Great summary of a terrible AG.
We can sum up Mr. Holder’s career in one phrase: “He was a poor American”.
SWM, Sorry for your loss. Death does give us perspective on the trivialities of the temporal.
Reblogged this on BLOGGING BAD w/Gunny G ~ "CLINGERS of AMERICA!".
Personally, I think Holder should be disbarred. Jailed for the contempt. Pulled over for speeding, whatever little ticky tacky laws they can find to nail him on until some over zealous cop tasers him multiple times for resisting arrest.
Paul, Had a death in the family…….
Spot on, Professor Turley. A truly sad day to reflect on what might have been.
SWM – have not seen you in a while. You have been missed. Hope you have been well and were just on vacation.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/26/us/politics/a-champion-of-civil-rights-if-not-of-civil-liberties-just-like-his-hero.html?_r=0 “A child of the civil rights era, Mr. Holder, 63, was shaped by images of violence in Selma, Ala. He relished his place in history as the nation’s first African-American attorney general and used that to engage in discussions of race and inequality, even when President Obama was reluctant to do so.
A native of New York City, Mr. Holder spoke about being stopped without cause by the police and, after the recent shooting of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo., Mr. Holder sought to go there as the administration’s emissary.
But those who cheered him one day were bewildered the next as Mr. Holder, the most prominent liberal voice in the Obama administration, took positions giving the government wide authority to keep tabs on Americans.
It happened so often, it prompted a game of amateur psychology among civil liberties groups: Was Mr. Holder, at heart, unsympathetic to issues of privacy and government overreach? Was he overrun by other national security officials? Or had he been persuaded that keeping America safe required taking positions he might otherwise have opposed?”
BRAVO! BRAVO! BRAVO!