Powering Up : The Case for Holder

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Wait! We're Not Done with Bush Yet...

3:18 PM, January 19, 2009 | Comments (25)

Celebratory is a safe way to describe the mood in Washington. And not just for Barack Obama's big day on Tuesday. When Obama raises his right hand, it will mark for millions of his supporters the end of something else. At Dupont Circle in Northwest Washington,...

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The Case for Holder

Newsweek

By Daniel Klaidman

The call came during a rare moment of relaxation for the deputy attorney general. It was January 1998, and Eric Holder Jr. was at a Washington Wizards basketball game. Jackie Bennett, the Whitewater deputy prosecutor, was on the line. Whitewater Independent Counsel Ken Starr's investigation into the arcane land deal that had given his meandering investigation its name had taken a grave turn. Starr's team had uncovered evidence that Bill Clinton and Washington superlawyer Vernon Jordan were covering up an affair between the president and a 21-year-old intern named Monica Lewisnky. The allegation, if true, amounted to obstruction of justice, since Clinton had specifically denied the affair in a sexual harassment lawsuit. Holder was stunned and troubled: what business did an independent counsel have investigating the sex life of a sitting president? As a personal matter, the development was also, to say the least, awkward. President Clinton was his boss; and Vernon Jordan was a towering figure among African-American lawyers in Washington--a role model and mentor to Holder's generation of striving, public-spirited lawyers. But these were serious charges. As he thought through the issues with advisers and Attorney General Janet Reno, he concluded the Justice Department had only three options. The department could seek the appointment of a separate special prosecutor; its lawyers could launch their own probe; or they could ask the special federal judicial panel that appointed Starr to expand the Whitewater counsel's mandate to investigate the new allegations. In the end, the department’s leadership decided on Option Three, even though it would likely mean the least favorable outcome for Clinton and Jordan. For Holder, it was not a hard choice, he later said. The former Public Integrity Section prosecutor, who'd put away his share of crooked officeholders and judges, understood that the Justice Department could not afford to be tainted by the perception that political appointees had interfered with a legitimate criminal investigation.

The ancient episode from the Clinton scandal files came to mind this week after my colleague Michael Isikoff broke the news on Newsweek.com that Holder would be Barack Obama's choice to be attorney general . Holder is a strong choice for a lot of reasons: He is an experienced prosecutor with strong relationships in the law-enforcement community; he has an intuitive sense of the uneasy balance between security and liberty; and his affable, low-key manner will go a long way toward restoring morale in an abused and battered agency. And episodes like the Clinton-Lewinsky decision reflect his determination to put the law above politics, even in the most delicate of situations.

But the one blemish on his otherwise stellar career was the role he played in the last-minute pardon of the fugitive financier Marc Rich--a case that has led some critics to suggest he won't speak truth to power. At the time, Holder acknowledged the mistake, allowing that in the frenzied last days of the Clinton presidency, he took his eye off the ball. Having covered Holder since he was a new judge on the D.C. Superior Court, my sense is that the Rich episode reflects a minor weakness on his part rather than some ethical blind spot or deep-seated character flaw. Holder is not a nuts-and bolts manager type. When he served as Reno's No. 2, they reversed the traditional roles of the principal and deputy to a certain extent. It was Reno who reached down through the department's ranks to question line attorneys about their cases. She was, in some ways, more the day-to-day manager of the department, while Holder provided strategic vision and tended to relationships with law enforcement, the federal judiciary and Capitol Hill. As Obama's attorney general, he will want a strong deputy to ride herd over the sprawling department. But for an agency that has been obscenely politicized over the last eight years, Eric Holder possesses the most important credentials and qualities to succeed.

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