Eric Holder
| Tue Nov. 18, 2008 5:40 PM PST
ERIC HOLDER....I've been scanning a bunch of stuff about Eric Holder, Obama's apparent pick for attorney general, and the conventional wisdom appears to be pretty simple:
He's basically a decent guy: sound views, hard worker, smart, honest, and generally well thought of.
Conservatives are going to try their damnedest to work everyone into a lather over his rather modest involvement in the Marc Rich pardon eight years ago.
From what I can tell, though, conservatives would be smarter to lay off. Holder really does appear to be honest, well briefed, straight shooting, and temperamentally moderate. They're going to get a liberal AG whether they like it or not, and they could do a lot worse than Holder if they somehow manage to torpedo his nomination.
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Comments
Submitted by Jay Severin Has A Small Pen1s (not verified) on Tue Nov. 18, 2008 5:38 PM PST.
If they didn't like the Marc Rich pardon, wait 'til they get a load of the Bush pardons. It will be like a who's who listing of Republican civil servants and GOP miscreants. From Ted Stevens to Mot The Hoople.
Submitted by DonBoy (not verified) on Tue Nov. 18, 2008 5:42 PM PST.
I'm sure the cons would be quite happy to have a liberal AG in power who they can constantly claim has been been proven to be corrupt.
It is such a shame about Edwards; he would have been perfect for the job. One wonders about Holder; is he a large enough figure for one of the most important goals of the Obama administration-the restoration of the rule of law in the Justice Department?
They're going to get a liberal AG whether they like it or not, and they could do a lot worse than Holder if they somehow manage to torpedo his nomination.
You are thinking like a non-crazy person here, which means you are nowhere close to the thought process involved. They will scream at the top of their lungs that Holder is the second coming of the antichrist (Obama was the first), not for any rational reason but because they always go into maximum opposition mode for anyone from outside the wingnut tribe. That way in the years to come as they fabricate charges to hurl against the administration they can claim to have opposed everyone in it from the start.
How are the Republicans in any position to block him? Sure, they could try to filibuster, but what about that Gang of 14 put together to push through Bush's nominees? Dems need a lot less than 7 from the other side of the aisle.
Orin Kerr seems pleased:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2008_11_16-2008_11_22.shtml#1227041452
Submitted by Jassalasca Jape (not verified) on Tue Nov. 18, 2008 8:11 PM PST.
bob h,
I wouldn't get my hopes up too far. The "rule of law" is the expectation that the law applies equally to everyone; that no one has license to break the rules free of punishment. You can't preserve that in the saying so; it requires the prosecution of known wrongdoers.
The early signs are that the Obama administration plans to avoid the trauma of enforcing the law against the criminals of the outgoing administration. If that's where things are left, the rule of law as a general principle is dead to the country.
As for Edwards, it escapes me why someone who has demonstrated his political ambitions on the soapbox would be suitable for the Attorney General post.
Submitted by bmaz (not verified) on Tue Nov. 18, 2008 9:27 PM PST.
You have got to be kidding me. Um, did you talk to any attorneys? Any people that worked under him while he was at the DOJ?
Eric Holder is a horrid choice for Attorney General. Looseheadprop knows this and gave her take earlier. Holder conspired with his friend Scooter Libby to get a pardon for Marc Rich; Obama must have been mighty impressed by that. Or maybe he was more impressed with Holder's ability to skate his Republican/Bush bigwig friends at Chiquita Brands for their complicity in paying millions of dollars to rightwing death squads in Colombia that murdered union leaders and workers. Uh, and then Chiquita paid off the other side. While they were probably smuggling narcotics for the CIA. Another excellent entry on the resume for Obama I guess. Oh, and Holder was not very popular with the career rank and file at DOJ when he was there; he was seen as very divisive. So we got that going for us. Just what is needed for the rotting carcass at DOJ that Bush/Cheney is leaving.
In short, hey, seriously, if you like the corporate apologist, rich people coddling, torturing approving and covering, illegal wiretapping loving, breakdown in the career ranks bullshit DOJ of the last eight years, you will absolutely love Eric Holder. He will, of course, be nominally better that Mukasey. If that is good enough for you, he is your guy! Thanks Barack!
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/11/18/obamas-long-armshort-arm-st...
Submitted by bmaz (not verified) on Tue Nov. 18, 2008 9:31 PM PST.
Here is a take from a person that used to work in the DOJ at the same time that Holder was number two man there under Clinton. Holder is not progressive, he is not a great guy, and he is a terrible choice.
http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/18/holder-why-oh-why/
Conservatives want everyone worked into a lather over whatever happened in the last 15 minutes. Obama could cure cancer and Gingrich would decry the news, reminding everyone several thousand oncologists had just been thrown out of work.
You have to remember that the whole Clinton pardons issue came out and was reported in earrly 2001 when the entire news media was in the tank for the Bushies. Remember the "trashing of the White House" stories, etc.?
The fact of the matter, barely reported at the time, because the full story wouldn't have demonized Clinton so much as the half-story did - there were a whole bunch of private and state suits against Rich that were lined up in back of federal charges. For example, New York State was after Rich for about $100 million in back taxes. None of these could procede until the federal charges were resolved and as long as Rich stayed abroad *nothing* could get resolved.
As part of the pardon "deal", the federal charges were dropped, and Rich had to come home and face the music to his state and private suits. Which he did. None of this would have happened if Rich had stayed abroad. Rather than the fun anti-Clinton story that Rich escaped justice, in fact *because* of the Clinton pardon, Rich faced justice. But telling the whole story would put Clinton in a better light, wouldn't it? Can't have that....
I would have hoped that with Bush on his way out that the new media would have decided to become a little more responsible in their reporting - instead, the fact that with Holder all they same to be talking about is this indicates that nothing has really changed. I can only hope that now others with visible platforms (Glenn Greenwald? or Scott Horton? or Digby?) can actually start educating people - we can't count on the news media to do that.
I looked at the links provided by bmaz here in in another site. To the Wall Street Journal, among others. I find that they do not support his/her overheated rhetoric. Nor do they address the interesting point made by Ethel-to-Tilly that the Rich pardon achieved other aims. I recommend to others that they look at the underlying links in posts about Holder.
I think there is good point lurking in looseheadprop's piece: the president is better off not appointing a friend as attorney general. It's better to have someone independent. Bush, for example, was better served by both Ashcroft and Mukasey than by Gonzales. So Obama is probably making a mistake appointing Holder, who doesn't seem, on the Rich pardon evidence, to be the kind of guy who stands up to the boss in the first place.
New York Times March 2, 2001
Marc Rich Is Sent $137 Million New York Tax Bill
By ERIC LIPTON
New York State moved yesterday to collect $137.8 million in state and city income taxes from the billionaire financier Marc Rich, saying his pardon by President Bill Clinton cleared the way for the state to pursue a two-decade-old debt, which is accumulating $20,000 in daily interest surcharges.
The action by the State Department of Taxation and Finance stems from Mr. Rich's diversion of $105 million in crude-oil profits earned by one of his companies in New York City to a foreign enterprise he also controlled in 1980 through 1982. State officials said the move allowed Mr. Rich to evade state and city taxes.
Whoops - I highlighted the wrong sentence:
saying his pardon by President Bill Clinton cleared the way for the state to pursue a two-decade-old debt
****
In all the faux-outrage in the media about how corrupt the Clinton pardons were, and how this makes Eric Holder look bad (I'm talking to you, y81), why don't you ever hear about this part of the story???
Clinton himself in a NYTimes OpEd "My Reasons For the Pardons" (2/18/2001):
"While I was troubled by the criminalization of the charges against Mr. Rich and Mr. Green, I also wanted to assure the government's ability to pursue any Energy Department, civil tax or other charges that might be available and warranted...
"I required them to waive any and all defenses, including their statute of limitations defenses, to any civil charge the government might bring against them...
"I believe my pardon decision was in the best interests of justice. If the two men were wrongly indicted in the first place, justice has been done. On the other hand, if they do personally owe money for Energy Department penalties, unpaid taxes or civil fines, they can now be sued civilly, as others in their position apparently were, a result that might not have been possible without the waiver, because civil statutes of limitations may have run while they were out of the United States...
"Further, I regret that Mr. Holder did not have more time to review the case....
"the Justice Department in 1989 rejected the use of racketeering statutes in tax cases like this one, a position that The Wall Street Journal editorial page, among others, agreed with at the time....
"it was my understanding that Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder's position on the pardon application was ''neutral, leaning for''...
"the case for the pardons was reviewed and advocated not only by my former White House counsel Jack Quinn but also by three distinguished Republican attorneys: Leonard Garment, a former Nixon White House official; William Bradford Reynolds, a former high-ranking official in the Reagan Justice Department; and Lewis Libby, now Vice President Cheney's chief of staff..."
Submitted by Carl Nyberg (not verified) on Wed Nov. 19, 2008 9:24 AM PST.
Prediction: Republicans aren't going to want to talk about Presidents abusing their power to pardon in the months after Bush leaves office.
Holder's ties to Rod Blagojevich are going to be a more fruitful line of attack.
From Mario A. Murillo in today's Counterpunch:
"What is not being discussed too much, and was not even mentioned in today's New York Times report, is Holder's key role in defending Chiquita Brands International in a notorious case relating to the company's funneling money and weapons to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, AUC, the right-wing paramilitary organization on the U.S. State Department's own list of terrorist organizations."
With regard to TPX and others about Chiquita Brands, I just comment that the job of lawyers is to promote the best interests of their clients as the clients see those interests. That seems to be what Holder did. I am never convinced by arguments that lawyers should avoid clients because the clients are bad, as that seems to go against how our justice system works.
I think it's about time to shitcan NPR. Just turn them into another commercial network.
It would be hilarious to see the reactions to the netroots demanding the privatization of NPR.
I'd rather pay for Amtrak and railtrains and a ton of other government programs than pay for NPR as it currently stands.
"In all the faux-outrage in the media about how corrupt the Clinton pardons were, and how this makes Eric Holder look bad (I'm talking to you, y81), why don't you ever hear about this part of the story???"
Well, as an attorney, I can assure you that any one of my clients who was under federal criminal indictment would trade that indictment for a state civil tax claim anyday, and would pay me millions if I could make it happen. Which, usually, I can't.
Incidentally, I think there were plenty of news reports at the time indicating that Clinton had said privately that the Rich pardon was probably a mistake. (Not a crime, but a bad idea.) And I don't think anyone has claimed that Holder covered himself with glory in the whole episode. Is there someone who does?
The issue, y81, isn't whether Holder "covered himself with glory" - nice straw work there - but I have yet to read or hear any news media discussion of the Holder possible appointment without 1) mention of the Marc Rich pardon (e.g., AP headline today "Will Clinton pardon of tax fugitive haunt Holder?") and 2) the totally one-sided Clinton rules version of the whole pardon affair which totally ignores almost all aspects of the pardon except that (quoting AP again) "Rich's ex-wife, Denise, was a prominent Democratic Party donor."
I'm an attorney also, and representing my client, I would certainly point out and make an issue that criminal charges were inappropriate in the case and Rich was treated unfairly regardless of whether he paid me millions or not. As it is, the pardon made possible extensive civil action against Rich, which the Clinton-rules media ignores.
It was a judgement call on Clinton's part - with much more legal advice and support than just Holder's. It certainly shouldn't be held against Holder - but for the Clinton-rules the media is doing just that.
It is the job of lawyers to promote the best interests of their clients as the clients see those interests. However, the lawyers who promote the best interests of corporate clients who consider their best interests performed by death squads perhaps should not become Attorney General. At the very least, citizens should be aware of who and what a potential AG promoted while practicing the law in their clients' best interests so they can make the determination for themselves whether such an AG is in their best interests.
I've never really read through the comments at FDL before today. Is FDL essentially the liberal equivalent of Free Republic? It certainly looks that way.
The people posting in the Obama Long/Short Arm thread seem much more interested in punishing people they hate (Hillary Clinton, Joe Liberman, Rahm Emanual) than in enacting progressive policy. Whatever progressive moves Obama has made are peanuts, nothing, not good enough. He's not perfect. Therefore he must be evil.
What a bunch of nuts.
"I'm an attorney also, and representing my client, I would certainly point out and make an issue that criminal charges were inappropriate in the case and Rich was treated unfairly regardless of whether he paid me millions or not."
What can I say? Somehow the manifest injustice of the Marc Rich prosecution escaped everyone--it sure didn't make Mother Jones!--until Rich hired Quinn, who got Clinton to pardon him, and now large numbers of people rank the Marc Rich pardon up with Roe v. Wade as an item on which no concession can be made.
Submitted by Marie Burns (not verified) on Sat Nov. 22, 2008 4:05 AM PST.
George Lardner's opinion, linked on www.realitychex.com (right column) gives me plenty of pause. The AG is supposed to look out for the people's interests, not those of the President -- he has a White House counsel for that. I think, especially after the horrors of the last 8 years, we need an AG who is above reproach. Holder ain't the guy.
"In its recent report entitled, 'Breaking the Grip? Obstacles to Justice for Paramilitary Mafias in Colombia,' Human Rights Watch had specific recommendations for the U.S. Department of Justice."
"Eric Holder would have a troubling conflict of interest in carrying out this work in light of his current work as defense lawyer for Chiquita Brands ..."
"Chiquita has already admitted in a criminal case that it paid the AUC around $1.7 million in a 7-year period and that it further provided the AUC with a cache machine guns as well."
"Indeed, Holder himself, using his influence as former deputy attorney general under the Clinton Administration, helped to negotiate Chiquita's sweetheart deal with the Justice Department in the criminal case against Chiquita."
Actually, there's another similiar case, only substitute Coca Cola for Chiquita (See: Sinaltrainal v. Coca Cola - Wikipedia)
...New Years Eve, 1982: NYPD's bomb squad rushed to headquarters at One Police Plaza, where a FALN (Puerto Rican Independance Group) bomb had destroyed the entrance... A total of 4 bombs exploded in a single hour--including one at the Manhattan FBI office and one at a Brooklyn Court House...
Though Puerto Rico voted to remain part of the US, FALN waged war on America with bombings, kidnappings, ect.--the horrific 1995 Fraunces Tavern bomb was timed to go off during the crowded lunch hour...
"After members of the FALN were arrested, they threatened Judge Thomas McMillen's life ... Carmen Valentine told the judge, "You are lucky that we cannot take you right now,"... Dylcia Pagan warned the courtroom: "All of you, I would advise you to watch your back." And Ida Rodriguez told the judge, "You say we have no remorse. You're right. ... Your jails and your long sentences will not frighten us."
Yet "Eight of these FALN terrorists later would receive pardons from President Clinton ..."
"Holder played a central role in freeing these terrorists ... in this case he recommended that clemency be granted--despite vehement opposition from the FBI, the Bureau of Prisons, and his own Justice Department."
Above from:
FALN, Holder, and Obama: The Price Paid by One 'Ordinary American' / HumanEvents.com
"Federal law enforcement officials considered these individuals (FALN) so dangerous, extra security precautions were taken at their numerous trials. ... no one, including the Court officers, was permitted to carry a firearm ..."
"To push the deal through, signed statements renouncing violence and expressing remorse were required by the Justice Department. The FALN prisoners ... declined to accept these conditions. Committed and unrepentant militants who did not accept the authority of the United States, they refused to apoligize for activities they were proud of in order to obtaion a clemency they NEVER REQUESTED."
"Hilary Rodham Clinton was in the midst of her ... run for Senate in New York, a state which included 1.6 million Hispanics."
Above from:
The Clintons' Terror Pardon / Wall Street Journal.
...Whatever else such behavior might represent, it certainly makes for a good scary story around the campfire: Slowly Holden turned..., step by step..., he undermined everything America stands for!!!
WATCH OUT!!!!
