 “With Eric Holder’s departure, the nation can begin to heal.”
Shapiro, senior fellow in Constitutional Studies at the libertarian Cato
Institute, labels Holder’s nearly six years at the post the “most divisive
tenure of any attorney general” that he can recall, with Holder “tearing the
country apart on racial and partisan lines.”
“From politicizing Justice Department hiring beyond the wildest accusations
against the Bush administration, to running a bizarre guns-to-gangs operation
that even Alberto Gonzales couldn’t have concocted, to advocating a racial
spoils system at all levels of government, Holder has tarnished the nation’s
highest law enforcement office more even than Nixon’s AG John Mitchell,” Shapiro
wrote in a column published Thursday.
Eric Himpton Holder Jr. held a lot of firsts in prosecution. In 1997, serving as
U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., Holder was nominated by President Bill
Clinton and unanimously confirmed in the U.S. Senate as the first black deputy
attorney general.
Holder made history again when his long-time pal, President Barack Obama, tapped
him to become the first black U.S. attorney general.
There is history, and then there is legacy, and Holder, who will become the
third longest AG in U.S. history if he still is in the position come December,
leaves a contentious legacy, marked, many say, by prosecutorial overreach and
abuse of U.S. Justice Department power.
Shapiro, perhaps one of Holder’s harshest critics, asserts the only difference
between Obama’s AG and Nixon’s is AG is that “Holder hasn’t gone to jail.”
Although Shapiro, in his piercing column, suggests the “DOJ Inspector General
better lock down computer systems lest Holder’s electronic files ‘disappear.’”
“I don’t think he saw his goal as defending the Constitution. His goal was going
around the Constitution to support whatever policy the administration wanted …
This has all been an exercise in how much we can get away with,” Shapiro told
Watchdog.org.
Holder’s greatest government overreach hits started early.
The new attorney general in 2009 pushed the constitutionally doomed D.C. voting
rights bill, which would have given the District a vote in the House of
Representatives for the first time. As the Washington Post reported at the time,
Justice Department lawyers concluded in an unpublished opinion the bill was
unconstitutional. But Holder “ordered up a second opinion from other lawyers in
his department and determined that the legislation would pass muster.”
And who could forget the debacle that was “Fast and Furious.” The Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives operation put weapons from the U.S.
into the hands of alleged gun smugglers. The idea was to trace arms to Mexican
drug kingpins. Fail. The agency, as the Los Angeles Times has detailed, has lost
hundreds of firearms that were later linked to crimes. Among the victims, Border
Patrol Agent Brian Terry, shot dead by one of the lost weapons in December 2010.
The GOP-led House found Holder in contempt of Congress after he refused to hand
over documents related to the botched sting, marking the first time an attorney
general was held in contempt.
Beyond Fast and Furious, some of the most stinging criticism against the first
black attorney general is how racially divisive his agency’s investigations and
initiatives have been.
The attorney general in a 2009 Black History Month speech called his country a
“nation of cowards” for what Holder saw as the failure to talk about racial
tension. And recently, the attorney general insinuated himself — to cheers and
jeers — into the racial tension of Ferguson, Mo., launching a Justice Department
investigation into an incident involving a white officer fatally shooting an
unarmed young black man.
“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,” National Public Radio wrote Thursday.
Shapiro said Holder’s legacy will be particularly marred by his “racialist view
of the world.”
[to top of second column] |
 “Like a modern-day George Wallace, Holder has called for racial
preference now, racial preferences tomorrow, racial preferences
forever,” the constitutional expert wrote. “According to our
outgoing attorney general, and the 14th Amendment, Civil Rights Act,
and Voting Rights Act only protect some citizens (members of the
right kinds of racial minority groups) — and should be used to
extract political and financial concessions for them.”
Earlier this year a federal court shot down the Justice Department’s
campaign to kill Louisiana’s school choice program.
The judge denied the DOJ’s quest to be able to individually deny
vouchers, mainly to impoverished minority students stuck in
Louisiana’s failing public schools.
And in Wisconsin, the Justice Department has launched a nebulous
“ongoing” investigation into the state’s successful and nationally
leading School Choice program. That investigation, sources tell
Watchdog, continues, although the Justice Department has failed to
return several calls seeking comment.
The songs of praise for Eric Holder already are rolling in on the
left. The New York Times called the attorney general the “most
prominent liberal voice of the administration, leading its push for
same-sex marriage and voting rights.”
He pushed that left-leaning agenda, however, while shaking a
clinched fist at the Constitution, critics say.
“Attorney General Holder has done his all to expand federal
(especially executive) power and contract individual liberty beyond
any constitutional recognition,” Shapiro said.
“Eric Holder will not be missed by those who support the rule of
law.”
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M.D. Kittle
Kittle is a 25-year veteran of radio, newspaper and online
journalism. In July 2011, Kittle joined Watchdog.org as bureau chief
for Wisconsin Reporter. He has spent much of the past three years
covering the seismic political changes taking place in the Badger
State. Last year, Kittle joined Watchdog’s national reporting team,
covering everything from energy policy to governmental assaults on
civil rights. Beyond being published in Wisconsin’s daily newspapers
and in multimedia news outlets, Kittle’s work has appeared on Fox
News, and in Human Events, Reason Magazine, Newsmax and Town Hall.
His special investigation into a politically charged John Doe probe,
“Wisconsin’s Secret War,” was the basis of a 2014 documentary on
Glenn Beck’s TheBlaze. Kittle has made several appearances on Fox
News, including “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren. He serves as
weekly politics commentator for Lake 96.1 FM in Lake Geneva, and
WRJN-AM 1400 in Racine. His resume includes multiple awards for
journalism excellence from The Associated Press, Inland Press,
Wisconsin Broadcast Association and other journalism associations.
Contact Kittle at mkittle@watchdog.org.
mkittle@wisconsinreporter.com
608-257-1395
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