The Next Attorney General



If he is confirmed by the Senate as attorney general, Eric Holder, 
President-elect Barack Obama’s choice for the job, will inherit a 
Justice Department that has been mired in scandal and that has 
seriously lost its way in critical areas. Under President Bush, the 
department has been used to defend the indefensible, like indefinite 
detention and torture of prisoners, and to undermine rather than 
protect Americans’ cherished rights. Mr. Holder could be an exemplary 
choice to face this daunting agenda, but he must answer serious 
questions before the Senate votes on his confirmation.

Mr. Holder, who would be the first African-American attorney general, 
has a particularly good record of public service for this job. He has 
been a United States attorney for the District of Columbia, a 
prosecutor in the Justice Department’s public integrity section and a 
deputy attorney general under President Bill Clinton.

He has been outspoken on the most critical issue facing the 
department: restoring the rule of law. In a speech in June, he 
described the Bush administration’s anti-terrorism policies as 
“excessive and unlawful.” And he has called for closing the prison in 
Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

But senators should ask Mr. Holder to square those views with 
comments he made after the Sept. 11 attacks when he defended the Bush 
administration’s prisoner policies by declaring that “you can think 
of these people as combatants and we are in the middle of a war.”

Americans need to know that Mr. Holder does not believe that 
detainees can be held indefinitely without being brought before a 
judge — and that he would stand up for the Constitution when times 
are tough.

There are other aspects of Mr. Holder’s record that are of concern, 
starting with his role in Mr. Clinton’s pardon of Marc Rich, a 
billionaire financier who had fled the country rather than face 
federal tax-evasion charges whose ex-wife, Denise Rich, had 
contributed heavily to the Clinton presidential library and the 
Democratic Party.

The Senate needs to probe that serious lapse in judgment closely to 
seek assurances that Mr. Holder will be unyielding about keeping 
political influence out of the Justice Department, which was 
shamefully politicized under Alberto Gonzales.

In addition to signing off on torture memos and depriving detainees 
of basic rights, the Bush Justice Department adopted legal positions 
that greatly expanded executive power. These policies must be quickly 
undone. The next attorney general also will have to get to the bottom 
of the department’s disgraceful record of politicized hiring and 
firing. The attorney general will need to ensure that the 
investigation of the firings of United States attorneys for what 
appear to be partisan reasons is thorough and credible, and that 
witnesses who have been defying subpoenas, including Karl Rove and 
Harriet Miers, the former White House counsel, testify under oath.

There already are people — mainly Republicans — who say investigating 
these matters would be divisive. But the department’s integrity 
cannot be restored until the truth comes out and any wrongdoers are 
punished.

Many parts of the Justice Department must be pointed in a new 
direction. In the Bush years, the voting rights section worked 
against voting rights. The civil rights division too often sat idly 
by, or supported the wrong side, when rights were infringed. The 
antitrust division all but abandoned its responsibility to protect 
the public from the harm of monopoly power.

The attorney general is the nation’s top law enforcement official. 
The Senate must make sure that Mr. Holder is committed to the right 
kind of change in that job.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/03/opinion/03wed1.html?
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