Litigation

Background Information on our New Attorney General

By Jason Barrett

With the full Senate having confirmed Eric Holder as President Obama’s attorney general today, we at Justice at Stake thought some background information on the nation’s new top lawyer was appropriate.

Holder is no stranger to the Department of Justice.  In 1997, he was named by then-President Clinton to serve under Janet Reno as Deputy Attorney General, a post he held until Clinton left office in 2001.  As Deputy Attorney General, Holder advocated wait limits for gun purchases, championed the Justice Department’s Children Exposed to Violence Initiative and updated Department guidelines regarding health care fraud, computer crimes and software piracy.  Holder also helped develop the regulations by which high-ranking public officials may be investigated by special counsels.

Prior to that, Holder was appointed United States Attorney for the District of Columbia by then-President Clinton, the first African-American to hold the position.  During his time there, he successfully oversaw the conviction of Congressman Dan Rostenkowski in the money laundering scandal in the Congressional Post Office in 1995.  He also created a Domestic Violence Unit.

Since 2001, Holder has been in private practice at Covington & Burling in Washington, DC.  His clients have included the National Football League and Chiquita Bananas.  He also joined an amicus brief of former Justice Department officials supporting the D.C. handgun ban that was overturned by the United States Supreme Court in 2008.  Legal Times named Holder as one of the “Greatest Washington Lawyers of the Past 30 Years.”

While Holder’s nomination received support on both sides of the aisle, his road to confirmation was not always smooth.  Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee delayed sending the nomination to the floor for a full vote, saying that more information was needed about his stance on gun rights, his recommendation to then-President Clinton to pardon tax evader Marc Rich, and his stance on torture.  Despite those hurdles, Holder was confirmed by the full Senate Monday evening by a vote of 75-21

During confirmation hearings, Holder has made clear his belief that the use of waterboarding as an interrogation technique constitutes torture, stating “If you look at the history of the use of that technique, we prosecuted our own soldiers for using it in Vietnam. … Waterboarding is torture.”  In confirmation hearings during his Deputy Attorney General confirmation, Holder also expressed his disapproval of the death penalty, although he has pledged to “enforce the law as…Congress gives it to us.” 

For further information, Holder’s bio at  the Covington & Burling website can be seen here.

Full post as published by The Gavel on February 02, 2009 (boomark / email).