Eric Holder
Eric Himpton Holder Jr. is an American lawyer who served as the 82nd United States attorney general from 2009 to 2015. A member of the Democratic Party, Holder was the first African American to hold the position.
Born in New York City to a middle-class family of Bajan origin, Holder graduated from Stuyvesant High School, Columbia College, and Columbia Law School. Following law school, he worked for the Public Integrity Section of the U.S. Department of Justice for twelve years. He next served as a judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia before being appointed by President Bill Clinton as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia and subsequently U.S. deputy attorney general.
Holder prosecuted cases involving government corruption. While U.S. attorney, he prosecuted congressman Dan Rostenkowski for corruption charges related to his role in the Congressional Post Office scandal. Following the Clinton administration, he worked at Covington & Burling, representing the firm's multinational corporate clients in litigation. Holder was senior legal advisor to Barack Obama during his 2008 presidential campaign and one of three members of his vice-presidential selection committee. Holder was a close ally and confidante of Obama's and was selected as his first attorney general.
Holder became the first sitting attorney general to be held in contempt of Congress during an investigation of the Operation Fast and Furious ATF gunwalking scandal. The Justice Department's inspector general under Obama refused to prosecute him and later cleared him of the charges. After he was succeeded as attorney general by Loretta Lynch in April 2015, Holder returned to Covington & Burling, where he continues to practice corporate litigation, primarily for financial firms, and is also involved with efforts at gerrymandering reform through the National Democratic Redistricting Committee.
Early life and education
Eric Himpton Holder Jr. was born in The Bronx, New York, to parents with roots in Barbados. Holder's father, Eric Himpton Holder Sr., was born in Saint Joseph, Barbados, and arrived in the United States at the age of 11. He later became a real estate broker. His mother, Miriam, was born in New Jersey, while his maternal grandparents were emigrants from Saint Philip, Barbados. Holder grew up in East Elmhurst, Queens, and attended public school until the age of 10. When entering the 4th grade he was selected to participate in a program for intellectually gifted Black students.In 1969, he graduated from Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan and attended Columbia University, where he played freshman basketball and football, and was a teammate of actor Ed Harris. During that time, he lived in Carman Hall. He earned a B.A. degree in American history in 1973. Holder received his J.D. degree from Columbia Law School, graduating in 1976. He worked for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund during his first summer and the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York during his second summer.
In 1969, while a freshman at Columbia, Holder was one of several dozen students who staged an occupation of the Reserve Officers' Training Corps office, renaming it as the Malcolm X student center. At that time Holder was a member of the Student Afro-American Society which had ties to the student activist organization Students for a Democratic Society. In explanation for the occupation of the ROTC office the students said they needed the space because of "the general racist nature of American society."
Career
After graduating from Columbia Law School, Holder joined the U.S. Justice Department's new Public Integrity Section, where he worked from 1976 to 1988. During his time there, he assisted in the prosecution of Democratic Congressman John Jenrette for bribery discovered in the Abscam sting operation. In 1988, President Reagan appointed Holder to serve as a judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.Holder stepped down from the bench in 1993 to accept an appointment as United States Attorney for the District of Columbia from President Bill Clinton. He was the first Black American U.S. Attorney in that office. At the beginning of his tenure, he oversaw the conclusion of the corruption case against Dan Rostenkowski, part of the Congressional Post Office scandal. He was a U.S. Attorney until his elevation to Deputy Attorney General in 1997. Holder also served on The George Washington University's Board of Trustees in 1996 and 1997.
Deputy Attorney General
In 1997, after the retirement of Jamie Gorelick, Clinton nominated Holder to be the Deputy Attorney General under Janet Reno. Holder was confirmed several months later in the Senate by a unanimous vote. During his confirmation hearing, Holder's opposition to the death penalty was questioned, but he pledged his intention to cooperate with the current laws and Reno, saying, "I am not a proponent of the death penalty, but I will enforce the law as this Congress gives it to us." Holder was the first African American to serve in that position.As Deputy Attorney General, Holder's primary responsibilities were in the areas of budget and personnel issues; this also included resolving disputes among department heads and briefing reporters on policy initiatives, national security issues, and major investigations, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation investigations into allegations of bribery and corruption in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. Holder later advised Reno in the matters regarding the Independent Counsel statute. Reno made the decision to permit Kenneth Starr to expand his investigation into the Lewinsky affair, leading to Clinton's impeachment.
In the wake of the murders of Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr., Holder was a vocal proponent of new hate crimes laws in the United States. Holder said that the current laws placed major constraints on the ability of federal investigators and prosecutors to assist in these types of cases.
In his final days with the Clinton administration, Holder carried out his duties with Clinton's last-minute pardon of fugitive and Democratic contributor Marc Rich. Regarding discussions with the White House lawyers on the issue, Holder said he was at first "neutral" on the decision to grant Rich a pardon, but might lean in favor of it if there were national security benefits. Holder said that he was told that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak had asked Clinton to grant the pardon. Holder said that, at the time, he did not give the case much thought, because he did not think the pardon would be granted, as no fugitive had ever previously been granted a presidential pardon. He later said he wished that he had looked into it more thoroughly, and expressed regret over the incident. "I wish that I had ensured that the Department of Justice was more fully informed and involved in this pardon process", he said admitting the mistake.
Republicans on the House Government Reform Committee disagreed with Holder's version and alleged that he was a knowing participant, according to a 2003 report. They said Holder failed to fully inform prosecutors of the pending pardon, and they criticized his "neutral leaning favorable" opinion to Clinton.
Former FBI director, Louis Freeh, commented on the matter in 2009, saying that the Clinton White House had "used" Holder and kept both the FBI and the Department of Justice in the dark as to their full activities around the last minute pardons.
Holder briefly served as Acting Attorney General under President George W. Bush until the Senate confirmed Bush's nominee John Ashcroft.
Private practice
From 2001 until he became attorney general, Holder worked as an attorney at Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C., representing clients such as Merck and the National Football League. He represented the NFL during its dog fighting investigation against Michael Vick.In 2004, Holder helped negotiate an agreement with the Justice Department for Chiquita Brands International in a case that involved Chiquita's payment of "protection money" to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, a group on the U.S. government's list of foreign terrorist organizations. In the agreement, Chiquita's officials pleaded guilty and paid a fine of $25 million. Holder represented Chiquita in the civil action that grew out of this criminal case. In March 2004, Holder and Covington & Burling were hired by Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich to act as a special investigator to the Illinois Gaming Board. The investigation was subsequently canceled on May 18, 2004.
The firm represented Guantanamo inmates but Holder "never participated directly in the firm's Guantanamo work" and was not expected to recuse himself from matters pertaining to it.
In October 2004, he defended Purdue Pharma in a West Virginia court against accusations of deceptive marketing of their product OxyContin.
During his years in private practice, Holder represented the Swiss private bank UBS. Because of this, he recused himself from participating in the Department of Justice investigation of UBS's abetting of tax evasion by U.S. account-holders and the prosecution of Brad Birkenfeld.
While District of Columbia v. Heller was being heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2008, Holder joined the Reno-led amicus brief, which urged the Supreme Court to uphold Washington, D.C.'s handgun ban and said the position of the Department of Justice, from Franklin Delano Roosevelt through Clinton, was that the Second Amendment does not protect an individual right to keep and bear arms for purposes unrelated to a State's operation of a well-regulated militia. Holder said that overturning the 1976 law "opens the door to more people having more access to guns and putting guns on the streets."
In late 2007, Holder joined then-Senator Barack Obama's presidential campaign as a senior legal advisor. He served on Obama's vice presidential selection committee.