Originally published September 25, 2014 at 7:58 PM | Page modified September 25, 2014 at 9:16 PM
WASHINGTON —
Attorney General Eric Holder leaves a mixed legacy of highs and lows as the nation’s top law-enforcement official.
The Columbia Law School graduate was the first African American to lead the Justice Department. During his tenure, the department dealt with major issues, including civil rights, crime, same-sex marriage and terrorism.
He had setbacks: He was forced to drop plans to try a major terrorism suspect in New York, for example, and was found in contempt by the U.S. House of Representatives for refusing to turn over documents in an investigation of a Justice operation gone bad.
He also had successes, investing considerable time and effort on civil rights, voting rights and drug-sentencing issues, scoring wins in several areas.
His department has initiated a record number of systemic civil-rights investigations into local law-enforcement agencies, including most recently the Ferguson, Mo., police department. Holder, 63, also initiated high-profile Voting Rights Act challenges against multiple states, including Texas and North Carolina, and he successfully argued for scaling back certain harsh drug sentences.
“He will be sorely missed,” said Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP’s Washington office. “His departure is a tremendous loss for the country and for the African-American community.”
Holder also stumbled politically, and through long stretches of his nearly six-year tenure, he proved a convenient target for congressional Republicans and an occasional Democrat.
His low point came in the controversial Fast and Furious gunrunning operation. The operation let suspected criminals buy guns so law-enforcement officials could trace the weapons to drug-cartel members, but some of the guns were later linked to crime scenes, including the slaying of a Border Patrol agent.
In 2012, the GOP-controlled House voted to hold Holder in criminal contempt for his refusal to turn over certain documents on the ill-fated program. Though partisanship infused the exercise — Congressional Black Caucus members marched off the House floor in protest — 17 Democrats voted for the measure.
The criminal-contempt measure, the first in modern history against a member of the president’s Cabinet, died once it was forwarded to the Justice Department. But its aftershocks continued to rattle Holder’s relations with Congress.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said Thursday that he’d “lost confidence in the attorney general’s ability to lead a long time ago,” and the distaste has, at times, appeared mutual and intensely personal.
Last April, Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, told Holder at a hearing: “I realize that contempt is not a big deal to our attorney general, but it is important that we have proper oversight.”
“You don’t want to go there, buddy, all right?” Holder retorted. “You don’t want to go there, OK?”
Underscoring the nastiness, Rep. Pete Olson, R-Texas, managed to collect 29 House co-sponsors for a resolution to impeach Holder.
The African-American congressman whose district includes Ferguson, Democratic Rep. William Lacy Clay, acknowledged that Holder was a polarizing figure on Capitol Hill, but said that came with the territory.
“Hey, if you don’t break some eggs, you won’t be making an omelet, OK?” Clay said Thursday. “He broke some eggs, and I appreciated the fact that he did and (yet) didn’t back down from his principles or his positions.”
Democrats periodically faulted Holder, though less frequently and with less fervor than did Republicans. Some liberal lawmakers thought Holder’s department was too lenient with Wall Street firms after the financial crisis. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., once complained to Holder, a former partner in the elite Covington & Burling law firm, that, “We have a prosecution-free zone for large banks in America.”
The number of financial-institution fraud prosecutions fell to 1,365 in fiscal 2011, down from more than 3,000 in 2001, according to documents analyzed by the nonpartisan Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.
Holder defended his department’s corporate-accountability record, which included getting oil giant BP to plead guilty to 14 criminal counts, including manslaughter, and pay $4 billion for its role in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico. More recently, Holder’s team secured a $16.65 billion settlement last month with Bank of America to resolve wide-ranging mortgage-fraud accusations.
He also directed Justice Department attorneys to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act, which foreshadowed the Supreme Court’s decision last year striking down the law’s ban on same-sex couples receiving federal marriage benefits.
Civil libertarians decried his department’s aggressiveness in prosecuting information leaks, which sometimes entailed going after journalists with subpoenas.
In other cases, Holder had to back down in the face of bipartisan criticism that focused as much on his political management as on his policies.
Notably, he announced plans in 2009 to try suspected 9/11 plotters including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed at a civilian court in New York. The move drew protests from the likes of influential Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who feared the high costs and potential risks associated with a civilian trial in the middle of the city, and second-guessing from political pros who thought Holder had failed to properly prepare the ground. In 2011, the administration reversed course and relocated the trials to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The military commission proceedings are still ongoing.
On security issues, Holder has defended Obama’s actions in seeking out and killing those identified as terrorists even if they have not been tried in U.S. courts. In May 2011, Holder testified before Congress that the United States acted properly in tracking down and killing al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, saying international law allows for targeting enemy commanders.
He also has defended the legality of drone strikes, including those against Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen who was a leader and recruiter for the al-Qaida offshoot operating in Yemen. Despite complaints from some civil libertarians, he established a three-part test for such attacks: the target poses an imminent threat of violence to the United States, capture is not possible, and the operation is conducted in a manner consistent with the rules of war.
He had more success with some of his signature initiatives, including the reconsideration of harsh war-on-drug penalties.
On Tuesday, for instance, the former federal prosecutor said that the federal prison population has dropped by roughly 4,800 inmates since last September. This is the first time that population has fallen over a fiscal year since 1980, and the Bureau of Prisons projects that it will fall by an additional 12,000 inmates in the next two years.
“We are finally moving in the right direction,” Holder said, adding: “My hope is that we’re witnessing the start of a trend that will only accelerate.”
Material from the Los Angeles Times is included in this report.
Source: Top Stories - Google News - http://ift.tt/1n6Gvov
0 comments:
Post a Comment