by Jack Cashill
Eric Holder was the most nakedly partisan attorney general since JFK picked baby brother Bobby for the job a half-century prior.
In a Washington Post op-ed Barack Obama’s attorney general Eric Holder call Bill Barr “so nakedly partisan” he is “unfit” to serve as President Trump’s attorney general.
As we’d say in New Jersey, “Da Noive!” A quick review of Holder’s record shows him to be the most nakedly partisan attorney general since JFK picked baby brother Bobby for the job a half-century prior.
As late as 2013, Holder was boasting about his partisanship. When asked whether he would continue on as Obama’s attorney general after the reelection, Holder famously replied, “I’m still the President’s wingman. So I’m there with my boy.” Forget “wingman.” The very use of the word “boy” would have caused a scandal had someone less privileged said it.
Obama picked Holder for the job in no small part because of his proven willingness to do a president’s dirty work and keep his mouth shut. Holder made his bones as deputy attorney general in the waning days of the Clinton administration when he orchestrated the scandalous pardoning of fugitive billionaire Marc Rich. At the time of his nomination to head the Justice Department eight years later, even the New York Times had misgivings about Holder.
Times reporters acknowledged that Holder was “deeply involved” in the Rich affair. And although they daintily use words like “blemish” and “misstep” to describe Holder’s corrupt acts, the reporters document in detail his two years of maneuvering to sidestep outraged New York prosecutors and spring the wildly undeserving Rich. Had Obama not played the race card adeptly, Holder would never have been confirmed as attorney general. Once confirmed as AG, Holder himself played that card until he wore the spots off.
Wingman Holder got right to work. In January 2009, before Holder took office, the Department of Justice (DoJ) had filed a civil suit against the National Black Panther Party and several of its members for the Election Day harassment of voters at a Philadelphia polling station. Veteran civil rights attorney Bartle Bull called their action "the most blatant form of voter intimidation I've ever seen."
When none of the named individuals appeared in federal district court to answer the suit, it seemed certain the DoJ would prevail by default. By this time, however, Holder’s people had taken over the department, and they ordered prosecutors to abandon all action against the Panthers. “For the first time in our lifetime the power of the administration of the United States was working against the Voting Right Act,” said Bull. “They were protecting the people who were abusing the law.”
Holder promptly chastised Bull, who is white, for comparing the Panthers’ intimidation to that inflicted in the 1960s South on what Holder called “my people.” In fact, Bull knew those people. Holder did not. In the 1960s, Bull served as a civil rights lawyer in Mississippi and was arrested for his troubles. In the 1960s, Holder, the son of immigrants from Barbados, was attending a prestigious high school in New York City. The media chose not to notice any of this.
The media chose not to notice Holder’s role in the lethal gun-walking fiasco known as “Fast and Furious.” In May 2011, when the House Judiciary Committee asked Holder when he first knew about the program, he said, “I probably heard about Fast and Furious over the last few weeks.”
In fact, Mexican bandits using Fast and Furious weapons killed border agent Brian Terry five months prior. CBS began running Sharyl Attkisson’s reports on Fast and Furious three months prior. Obama told a Mexican audience that Holder launched an investigation six weeks prior. And yet Holder claimed to have learned of the operation a few weeks after he allegedly started investigating it. In time, the House would cite Holder for contempt, the first attorney general ever to suffer that fate, and Obama had to invoke executive privilege for the first and only time in his presidency. The media shrugged.
A notorious procrastinator on issues unfavorable to the White House like “Fast and Furious,” Holder did not take long to weigh the pros and cons of the shooting death of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman in late February 2012. Within weeks, the FBI, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Florida had all announced they would investigate a non-federal offense. Holder also sent the DoJ’s Community Relation Service to Florida to help the locals organize protests demanding the arrest and prosecution of a conspicuously innocent man.
Hoping to turn a local issue into a federal one, FBI agents questioned individuals in an Orwellian "parallel investigation" that focused less on Zimmerman’s actions that fateful night than on his thoughts, past and present. Did he really say “coon” on his call to the dispatcher? Had he ever told a racial joke? Were the suspicious persons he reported to the police disproportionately black? Once again, however, the feds turned a blind eye to the New Black Panthers who put a ten-thousand-dollar bounty on Zimmerman’s head without consequence.
Although Zimmerman was rightfully acquitted in a state court, Holder and his DoJ had stirred enough doubt to assure fury over the acquittal. Black Lives Matter (BLM) was created in response. In 2014, BLM took its show on the road to Ferguson, Missouri. There, with more than a little encouragement from Holder and Obama, BLM set in motion an anti-police movement that led directly to a major homicide spike in black communities nationwide.
Holder had far less interest in investigating the IRS agents who suppressed the tea party movement during Obama’s first term. The public face of the scandal, political appointee Lois Lerner, eventually pled the Fifth Amendment lest she incriminate herself and was declared in contempt of Congress. Throughout the congressional investigation, however, the DoJ did little but obstruct.
When the House subpoenaed Lerner’s emails, the IRS claimed the hard drive crashed, and the emails were lost. Allegedly unable to access the emails, a DoJ investigation came to naught. Wrote Assistant Attorney General Peter Kadzik, “Not a single IRS employee reported any allegation, concern or suspicion that the handling of tax-exempt applications -- or any other IRS function -- was motivated by political bias, discriminatory intent, or corruption." Wingman Holder could not have said it better himself.
Space does not permit a full accounting of Holder’s blemishes and missteps, but books could be written about the outrageous Pigford settlement, the refusal to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act, the equally unconstitutional implementation of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), and the White House spying on unfriendly reporters, in all of which Holder played a major role.
Although Holder left office in April 2015 before Spygate gained steam, his influence lingered on. Consider this gem from an otherwise benign Washingtonian article on the friendship between Jim Comey and Robert Mueller, “Both men were rising stars mentored and guided by Eric Holder in the 1990s during Holder’s time in the Justice Department under the Clinton administration.”
Why does that not surprise us?
Jack Cashill’s new book, Unmasking Obama: The Fight to Tell the True Story of a Failed Presidency will be released in the spring. Signed copies of his novel, The Hunt, are available at www.TheHuntBook.com.
As we’d say in New Jersey, “Da Noive!” A quick review of Holder’s record shows him to be the most nakedly partisan attorney general since JFK picked baby brother Bobby for the job a half-century prior.
As late as 2013, Holder was boasting about his partisanship. When asked whether he would continue on as Obama’s attorney general after the reelection, Holder famously replied, “I’m still the President’s wingman. So I’m there with my boy.” Forget “wingman.” The very use of the word “boy” would have caused a scandal had someone less privileged said it.
Obama picked Holder for the job in no small part because of his proven willingness to do a president’s dirty work and keep his mouth shut. Holder made his bones as deputy attorney general in the waning days of the Clinton administration when he orchestrated the scandalous pardoning of fugitive billionaire Marc Rich. At the time of his nomination to head the Justice Department eight years later, even the New York Times had misgivings about Holder.
Times reporters acknowledged that Holder was “deeply involved” in the Rich affair. And although they daintily use words like “blemish” and “misstep” to describe Holder’s corrupt acts, the reporters document in detail his two years of maneuvering to sidestep outraged New York prosecutors and spring the wildly undeserving Rich. Had Obama not played the race card adeptly, Holder would never have been confirmed as attorney general. Once confirmed as AG, Holder himself played that card until he wore the spots off.
Wingman Holder got right to work. In January 2009, before Holder took office, the Department of Justice (DoJ) had filed a civil suit against the National Black Panther Party and several of its members for the Election Day harassment of voters at a Philadelphia polling station. Veteran civil rights attorney Bartle Bull called their action "the most blatant form of voter intimidation I've ever seen."
When none of the named individuals appeared in federal district court to answer the suit, it seemed certain the DoJ would prevail by default. By this time, however, Holder’s people had taken over the department, and they ordered prosecutors to abandon all action against the Panthers. “For the first time in our lifetime the power of the administration of the United States was working against the Voting Right Act,” said Bull. “They were protecting the people who were abusing the law.”
Holder promptly chastised Bull, who is white, for comparing the Panthers’ intimidation to that inflicted in the 1960s South on what Holder called “my people.” In fact, Bull knew those people. Holder did not. In the 1960s, Bull served as a civil rights lawyer in Mississippi and was arrested for his troubles. In the 1960s, Holder, the son of immigrants from Barbados, was attending a prestigious high school in New York City. The media chose not to notice any of this.
The media chose not to notice Holder’s role in the lethal gun-walking fiasco known as “Fast and Furious.” In May 2011, when the House Judiciary Committee asked Holder when he first knew about the program, he said, “I probably heard about Fast and Furious over the last few weeks.”
In fact, Mexican bandits using Fast and Furious weapons killed border agent Brian Terry five months prior. CBS began running Sharyl Attkisson’s reports on Fast and Furious three months prior. Obama told a Mexican audience that Holder launched an investigation six weeks prior. And yet Holder claimed to have learned of the operation a few weeks after he allegedly started investigating it. In time, the House would cite Holder for contempt, the first attorney general ever to suffer that fate, and Obama had to invoke executive privilege for the first and only time in his presidency. The media shrugged.
A notorious procrastinator on issues unfavorable to the White House like “Fast and Furious,” Holder did not take long to weigh the pros and cons of the shooting death of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman in late February 2012. Within weeks, the FBI, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Florida had all announced they would investigate a non-federal offense. Holder also sent the DoJ’s Community Relation Service to Florida to help the locals organize protests demanding the arrest and prosecution of a conspicuously innocent man.
Hoping to turn a local issue into a federal one, FBI agents questioned individuals in an Orwellian "parallel investigation" that focused less on Zimmerman’s actions that fateful night than on his thoughts, past and present. Did he really say “coon” on his call to the dispatcher? Had he ever told a racial joke? Were the suspicious persons he reported to the police disproportionately black? Once again, however, the feds turned a blind eye to the New Black Panthers who put a ten-thousand-dollar bounty on Zimmerman’s head without consequence.
Although Zimmerman was rightfully acquitted in a state court, Holder and his DoJ had stirred enough doubt to assure fury over the acquittal. Black Lives Matter (BLM) was created in response. In 2014, BLM took its show on the road to Ferguson, Missouri. There, with more than a little encouragement from Holder and Obama, BLM set in motion an anti-police movement that led directly to a major homicide spike in black communities nationwide.
Holder had far less interest in investigating the IRS agents who suppressed the tea party movement during Obama’s first term. The public face of the scandal, political appointee Lois Lerner, eventually pled the Fifth Amendment lest she incriminate herself and was declared in contempt of Congress. Throughout the congressional investigation, however, the DoJ did little but obstruct.
When the House subpoenaed Lerner’s emails, the IRS claimed the hard drive crashed, and the emails were lost. Allegedly unable to access the emails, a DoJ investigation came to naught. Wrote Assistant Attorney General Peter Kadzik, “Not a single IRS employee reported any allegation, concern or suspicion that the handling of tax-exempt applications -- or any other IRS function -- was motivated by political bias, discriminatory intent, or corruption." Wingman Holder could not have said it better himself.
Space does not permit a full accounting of Holder’s blemishes and missteps, but books could be written about the outrageous Pigford settlement, the refusal to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act, the equally unconstitutional implementation of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), and the White House spying on unfriendly reporters, in all of which Holder played a major role.
Although Holder left office in April 2015 before Spygate gained steam, his influence lingered on. Consider this gem from an otherwise benign Washingtonian article on the friendship between Jim Comey and Robert Mueller, “Both men were rising stars mentored and guided by Eric Holder in the 1990s during Holder’s time in the Justice Department under the Clinton administration.”
Why does that not surprise us?
Jack Cashill’s new book, Unmasking Obama: The Fight to Tell the True Story of a Failed Presidency will be released in the spring. Signed copies of his novel, The Hunt, are available at www.TheHuntBook.com.
Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/12/obama_wingman_holder_calls_ag_barr_nakedly_partisan.html
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