From DeadlineLive:
1) In his final days with the
Clinton administration, Holder carried out his duties with Clinton’s last-minute pardon of fugitive and Democratic contributor
Marc Rich. Regarding discussions with the White House lawyers on the issue, Holder said he was at first “neutral” on the decision to grant Rich a pardon, but might lean in favor of it if there were national security benefits. Holder said that he was told that Israeli Prime Minister
Ehud Barakhad asked Clinton to grant the pardon.
2) Holder briefly served as Acting Attorney General under President
George W. Bush until the Senate confirmed Bush’s nominee
John Ashcroft
In 2004, Holder helped negotiate an agreement with the Justice Department for
Chiquita Brands Internationalin a case that involved Chiquita’s payment of “protection money” to the
United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, a group on the U.S. government’s list of terrorist organizations. In the agreement, Chiquita’s officials pleaded guilty and paid a fine of $25 million. Holder represented Chiquita in the
civil action that grew out of this criminal case. In March 2004, Holder and Covington & Burling were hired by
Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevichto act as a special investigator to the
Illinois Gaming Board. The investigation was subsequently canceled on May 18, 2004.
The firm represented Guantanamo inmates but Holder “never participated directly in the firm’s Guantanamo work”, and is not expected to recuse himself from matters pertaining to it.
4) During his years in private practice, Holder represented the Swiss private bank UBS. Because of this, he recused himself from participating in the
Department of Justice investigation of UBS’s abetting of
tax evasion by U.S. account-holders and the prosecution of
Brad Birkenfeld. (As Attorney General, he also had to bow out of the
Roger Clemens contempt of Congress prosecution because the pitcher was once a client of Covington and Burling.
5) Holder defended the legality of drone strikes against terrorists. Addressing the death of
Anwar al-Aulaqi, an American citizen (As well as his 16 year old son, whom had no provable ties to terrorism)
6) On April 1, 2009, Holder announced that he had ordered the dismissal of the indictment against former Senator
Ted Stevens on corruption charges. Stevens had been found guilty, but hadn’t been sentenced; Holder’s action effectively vacated Stevens’ conviction
7) In 2010, in the run up to the referendum on
California Proposition 19, which would have legalized
marijuanause for personal recreation, Holder stated that the DOJ would continue to prosecute individuals on the federal level for possession of marijuana even if voters approved a ballot measure
* House Oversight Committee chairman
Darrell Issa and Iowa Republican Sen.
Chuck Grassley sent Holder a letter in May 2011 asking for details about
Operation Fast and Furious, a “botched federal firearms sting” operation that allowed about 2,000 weapons to reach Mexican drug gangs. Grassley and Issa “urged Holder to cooperate and turn over subpoenaed records that would reveal the scope of the government coverup.” (We are all still waiting….)
8) On March 6, 2013, Holder testified to the
Senate Judiciary Committee that the size of large financial institutions has made it difficult for the Justice Department to bring criminal charges when they are suspected of crimes, because such charges can threaten the existence of a bank and therefore their interconnectedness may endanger the national or global economy.
(See his connections to Banks above – Under Holder, Prosecution rates against crimes by large financial institutions are at 20-year lows)
Holder has also endorsed the notion that prosecutors, when deciding to pursue white-collar crimes, should give special consideration to “collateral consequences” of bringing charges against large corporate institutions, as outlined in a 1999 memorandum by Holder. Nearly a decade later Holder, as head of the Department of Justice, put this into practice and has demonstrated the weight “collateral consequences” has by repeatedly sought and reached deferred prosecution and non-prosecution agreements and settlements with large financial institutions such as J.P. Morgan Chase, HSBC, Countrywide Mortgage, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and others where the institution pays a fine or penalty but faces no criminal charges and admits no wrongdoing.
Whereas in the previous decade EVEN the Bush administration’s Department of Justice often sought criminal charges against individuals of large institutions regardless of “collateral consequences” such as cases involving
Enron,
Adelphia Communications Corporation,
Tyco International, and others.
9) On May 13, 2013, the
Associated Press announced telephone records for 20 of their reporters during a two-month period in 2012, had been seized by the Justice Department. They described these acts as a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into news-gathering operations.
Holder testified
under oath in front of the
House Judiciary Committee and made it clear he recused himself from the leak investigations to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest. Holder said his Deputy Attorney General, James Cole, was in charge of the AP investigation and would’ve ordered the subpoenas. When questioning turned to possibility of journalists being charged under the Espionage Act for reporting classified material, Holder stated: “With regard to the potential prosecution of the press for the disclosure of material, that is not something that I’ve ever been involved in, heard of or would think would be a wise policy.”
It was later reported the DOJ monitored Fox News reporter,
James Rosen’s activities by tracking his visits to the
State Department, through phone traces, timing of calls and his personal emails.
NBC confirmed with the Justice Department that
Holder had personally signed off on the Rosen subpoenas.
10)
ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT AGAINST
On November 14, 2013, Representative
Pete Olson (R-TX), along with 19 Republicans, introduced an Articles of Impeachment resolution against Holder for his role in
Operation Fast and Furious and other scandals of President Barack Obama’s administration.
As of June 2014, there awere 26 co-sponsors to the bill.
via
NPR (National Petroleum Radio / or… National Protection Racket)
Eric Holder Jr., the nation’s first black U.S. attorney general, is preparing to announce his resignation Thursday after a tumultuous tenure marked by civil rights advances, national security threats, reforms to the criminal justice system and 5 1/2 years of fights with Republicans in Congress.
Two sources familiar with the decision tell NPR that Holder, 63, intends to leave the Justice Department as soon as his successor is confirmed, a process that could run through 2014 and even into next year. A former U.S. government official says Holder has been increasingly “adamant” about his desire to leave soon for fear that he otherwise could be locked in to stay for much of the rest of President Obama’s second term.
Holder already is one of the longest-serving members of the Obama Cabinet and ranks as the fourth-longest tenured AG in history. Hundreds of employees waited in lines, stacked three rows deep, in early February 2009 to witness his return to the Justice Department, where he previously worked as a young corruption prosecutor and as deputy attorney general — the second in command — during the Clinton administration.
But some of that early glow faded in part due to the politicized nature of the job and in part because of Holder’s own rhetoric, such as a 2009 Black History Month speech where he said the country was “a nation of cowards” when it comes to discussions about racial tension.
Five years later, violence erupted between police and protesters in Ferguson, Mo., after a white policeman killed an unarmed black 18-year-old. And this time, the White House dispatched Holder to speak his piece, in effect jump-starting that conversation and helping to settle nerves in the frayed community.
Another huge controversy — over his decision to try the Sept. 11 plotters in a New York courthouse in the shadow of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center — prompted venomous reaction from lawmakers, New York City officials and some victims’ families.
Under pressure that threatened his job and his legacy, the attorney general reversed his decision and instead sent the cases to military court — where they continue to languish even as Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law and other terrorism defendants are serving life sentences in maximum-security prisons on American soil.
Holder most wants to be remembered for his record on civil rights: refusing to defend a law that defined marriage as between one man and one woman; suing North Carolina and Texas over voting restrictions that disproportionately affect minorities and the elderly; launching 20 investigations of abuses by local police departments; and using his bully pulpit to lobby Congress to reduce prison sentences for nonviolent drug crimes. Many of those sentences disproportionately hurt minority communities.
And then there’s his relationship with Congress. From the day Holder’s nomination was announced, Republicans led by Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., signaled that he would be a political lightning rod.
The attorney general’s portfolio, which spans sensitive law enforcement cases and hot-button social issues including marijuana and gay marriage, didn’t help. But even longtime aides say Holder didn’t do enough to help himself by shrugging off preparations and moot sessions before congressional appearances and speaking off the cuff — and obliquely.
Things hit a crisis point when the GOP-led House voted him in contempt for refusing to hand over documents about a gun trafficking scandal known as Fast and Furious. That represented the first time an attorney general had ever been rebuked that way, but still Holder held on to his job.
In the end, the decision to leave was Holder’s alone — the two sources tell NPR that the White House would have been happy to have him stay a full eight years and to avoid what could be a contentious nomination fight for his successor. Holder and Obama discussed his departure several times and finalized things in a long meeting over Labor Day weekend at the White House.
The attorney general told DOJ staff the news this morning and has called civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., and Ethel Kennedy, the widow of former AG Robert F. Kennedy.
The sources say a leading candidate for that job is Solicitor General Don Verrilli, the administration’s top representative to the Supreme Court and a lawyer whose judgment and discretion are prized in both DOJ and the White House.
Friends and former colleagues say Holder has made no decisions about his next professional perch, but they say it would be no surprise if he returned to the law firm Covington & Burling, where he spent years representing corporate clients.
The friends say Holder is also considering donating his papers to a university in Washington, D.C., or his native New York, where he could establish a civil rights center to work more on law enforcement interactions with communities of color and host public forums on those issues.
Even though the attorney general has his eyes on the door, the two sources say several more policy and enforcement initiatives are underway and could be announced soon.
For instance, Holder sent a memo to U.S. attorneys Wednesday urging them not to use sentencing enhancements known as “851” tools to gain leverage in plea negotiations with defendants — in essence, threatening defendants into avoiding trial with huge amounts of prison time. The practice has been criticized by U.S. District Judge John Gleeson in Brooklyn and other jurists.
Holder is also expected to notify federal prosecutors in coming days that the Justice Department will no longer require defendants who plead guilty to waive their rights to appeal based on ineffective lawyering. Many U.S. attorneys now forgo that practice, but not all.
Long-awaited racial profiling guidelines for federal agents will be released soon, too. Those guidelines will make clear that sexual orientation, ethnicity and religion are not legitimate bases for law enforcement suspicion, but controversial mapping of certain communities — including Muslim Americans — would still be allowed for national security investigations, one of the sources said.
What Should We Do? Arrest the SOB!
