On Thursday, United States Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr. announced his resignation from his position as the top law enforcement official in the country. His official departure from the Department of Justice (DOJ) will leave behind a mixed legacy with respect to some of the country’s most divisive legal issues, a legacy filled with some successes, but also some inexcusable failures.
Should we, as young, educated Americans, be happy about Holder’s resignation? The answer is yes, we absolutely should be.
Holder is the first black individual to hold the position of United States Attorney General. His career was met with some success when he focused his efforts on issues such as same-sex marriage, voting rights and the criminal justice system.
His biggest victory in office was when he publicly stated that the Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional; furthermore, he, on behalf of the Justice Department, refused to enforce it or defend it in court during the landmark case in 2013 of United States v. Windsor.
Additionally, Holder vehemently defended the Voting Rights Act and went on the offensive against some of the peskier states after the Supreme Court declared a key provision of the act unconstitutional. Since the ruling in Shelby County v. Holder (2013), he has sued Texas and North Carolina for new legislation on the state level that the DOJ claims disproportionally disenfranchises minority and elderly voters. He championed voting rights by pressuring states to be lenient with ID-checks during elections, which dramatically assisted indigent individuals.
Also, Holder issued a ground-breaking memorandum telling prosecutors to reduce the quantity of drugs that they report, so as not to trigger mandatory minimum sentencing for nonviolent, low-level drug offenders in order to mitigate the institutionalized racial discrimination that goes hand-in-hand with the War on Drugs. Although this directive did not retroactively free victims of our overzealous drug policies, it was certainly a step in the right direction.
With these actions, it is evident that Holder’s six-year term would be worthy of some applause, if it weren’t for his other colossal failures. Below are the top four actions by Holder that will forever taint his political career.
Firstly, in 2012, Holder was held in contempt by a bipartisan vote in the House of Representatives for his refusal to testify in a notorious case called “Fast and Furious.” It was discovered that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), which is under Holder’s responsibility, was involved in selling weapons to Mexican drug-smugglers involved in cartels; however, the ATF lost track of the weapons, and some were later found at the crime scene of a murdered Border Patrol agent in Arizona. The U.S. Department of Justice and Holder have consistently provided conflicting statements about this operation.
Secondly, Holder released a memorandum instructing federal prosecutors to not focus their prosecutorial resources on medical marijuana clinics in compliance with state laws. He told Congress in June of 2012 that, “We limit our enforcement efforts to those individuals and organizations that are acting out of conformity with state laws.”
However, the hypocrisy of Holder’s statements is made apparent by the staggering amount of marijuana dispensaries that faced criminal sanctions during Holder’s tenure. California National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws reported that, “the DOJ has targeted many facilities that were in full compliance with local laws and regulations.”
Since Holder has been in office, the DOJ has charged over 335 defendants with federal crimes associated with medical marijuana, even though their respective states authorized the use of marijuana for medical purposes. The Obama administration averages 36 federal prosecution cases per year against fully compliant medical marijuana dispensaries and users, as opposed to President George W. Bush’s mere 20. This staggering increase in prosecutions amounts to a total waste of $500 million, according to Yesterday Americans for Safe Access.
His record for failing to prosecute some of the most egregious culprits of the 2008 mortgage crisis is particularly troubling; instead of faithfully executing the laws and prosecuting higher ups in banking institutions such as Bank of America, he adopted the following policy: not only are certain banks too big to fail, they are too big to jail. He told Congress that the sheer size of certain banking institutions “has an inhibiting influence… on our ability to bring resolutions that I think would be more appropriate.”
The last, and perhaps most disturbing, is Holder’s vital role in personally approving the secret monitoring of various journalists such as Associated Press and Fox News reporter James Rosen. Despite his passionate defense of mass data collection by the NSA, Holder reversed his stance after public outrage continued to mount. In response to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy’s (D-Vt.) bill to curtail the bulk collections of phone records, he responded with a letter earlier this month that stated that reform would “provide the public greater confidence in our programs and the checks and balances in the system.”
However, this change of heart merely illustrates how hypocritical and situational his statements and ethics have been throughout his tenure.
Only time will tell if Holder’s legacy will transcend and be seen as a positive one. Perhaps, the future will be blind to Holder’s lies and hypocritical leadership. As of right now, a new Attorney General cannot come soon enough.
Good riddance to Eric Holder.
Mara is a senior double majoring in criminal justice and political science.