By Daniel Klaidman

When president-elect Barack Obama rolls out his national security team tomorrow in Chicago, he will make history on several fronts. While the naming of Hillary Clinton, whom he battled against in an epic campaign for the Democratic nomination, as secretary of state, has garnered most of the attention, two other women, Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, who will be named as Homeland Security secretary, and Susan Rice, who will be named UN ambassador, will be tapped for prominent posts. And his decision to retain George W. Bush's Secretary of Defense has created buzz.  But Obama will also blow through a racial barrier when, according to transition officials who declined to be named,  he plans to announce Eric Holder, Jr. as his choice to be attorney general, the first African American named to the country's top law enforcement post. 

Holder, a former deputy attorney general during the Clinton administration, possesses a glittering resume, having held key positions throughout the ranks of the Justice Department and elsewhere in the legal profession. He earned his spurs as a crime fighter putting away crooked Philadelphia judges as a prosecutor in the department's Public Integrity section. Years later, he served as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia where he won the conviction of Dan Rostenkowski, the all-powerful Illinois congressman and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. In between his stints at Justice, Holder served as a judge on the DC Superior Court.  As deputy attorney general Holder was popular within the department as a champion of career prosecutors—and well regarded on Capitol Hill for his low-key demeanor and responsiveness.

The one blemish on career stems from the frenzied last days of the Clinton administration, when the former president handed out a series of pardons to friends and supporters. Holder's acquiescence to the pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich was sternly criticized. He acknowledged the mistake at the time. The controversy is sure to come up during Senate confirmation hearings, but Obama transition officials have been assured that Holder's confirmation will not be jeopardized by the Rich pardon. Holder counts among his supporters top Republicans, including FBI Director Robert Mueller and Orrin Hatch, the GOP senator from Utah and long-time member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Holder first met Barack Obama in 2004 at a Washington dinner party hosted by Ann Walker Marchant, the niece of Washington lawyer and power broker, Vernon Jordan, Jr.  Holder sat next to the new senator and the two men hit it off.

After securing the democratic nomination earlier this year, Obama tapped Holder to help lead his vice-presidential search—a decision that led to the selection of Joseph Biden.