In the February 17 issue of the New Yorker magazine, Jeffrey Toobin wrote, based on an interview he had with Attorney General Eric Holder (shown) back in December, that Holder would be leaving office sometime this year, perhaps sooner rather than later. Almost immediately the Justice Department said Toobin was misinterpreting what Holder meant, and issued a partial transcript of Toobin’s interview to prove it:
Toobin: And how long are you going to be the Attorney General?
Holder: Well, you know, I’ve still got things I want to do. I mean, I’ve got this fight, this criminal justice reform stuff … I’ve got financial cases I’m still working on. So I’m going to be here for a while.
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Toobin: Do you want to [be] any more specific … do you know? A year? Two years?
Holder: I guess, I think what I’ve said is, I’m going to be here certainly into 2014.
Toobin: That’s a big commitment. It’s in like three weeks.
Holder: I think I’ve said, “well into 2014.”
Toobin: I see. “Well into”? OK, very good.
In another interview that Holder had with the Washington Post in November, he addressed the issue, saying:
I’ve made the determination — I’m not sure I’ve ever said this publicly — but I’m going to certainly stay in this job well into 2014.
If you had asked me that six months ago, I’m not sure I would have given you that answer. I think I probably would have come up with a shorter time frame. But given the issues that I want to focus on and given the condition that they’re in, I think that staying into 2014 is necessary, but also something that I want to do.
To many observers, his departure can’t happen soon enough. The New American reviewed the articles of impeachment introduced in the House by Rep. Pete Olson (R-Texas) in November which followed hard on the heels of a resolution joined by 130 members of the House calling for Holder to resign immediately. Four articles were noted as grounds for impeachment, including Holder’s coverup of his and his department’s role in the Fast and Furious gun-running scandal and his refusal to hand over related documents demanded by the House. The second article concerned Holder’s refusal to uphold and defend various U.S. laws including the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). The third article concentrated on Holder’s refusal to prosecute IRS officials accused of leaking sensitive private information to opponents of conservative organizations, while the fourth related to Holder’s lying under oath about his department’s targeting of journalists, specifically James Rosen of Fox News.
These, however, scarcely scratch the surface of the myriad potential charges that could be brought against Holder. J. Christian Adams, a former Justice Department official who resigned because of the blatant lawlessness that he witnessed while he was there, spelled out in 31 lurid pages ten reasons to impeach the Attorney General. He wrote:
Impeachment isn’t something to be lightly pursued. It is a congressional power best left to gather dust, except when there is evidence of extreme lawlessness and dishonesty that endangers the Constitution.
But Eric Holder has done more than mislead the American people; he has done more than provide false testimony to Congress. He has tried to transform the federal agency intended to be above politics into an institution advocating radical change and extreme remedies.
One or two examples of Holder’s impeachable actions will suffice. Consider his testimony regarding the “Fast and Furious” probe, in which federal agents were allegedly ordered by superiors in the Justice Department to allow hundreds of weapons to flow illicitly into Mexico from gun shops in Arizona so the arms could be traced to the higher echelons of Mexican drug cartels.
On May 3, 2011, when Holder first testified before the House Judiciary Committee about Fast and Furious, he was asked what he knew about the program and when he first knew it.
Holder’s response? “I’m not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.”
Internal DOJ documents suggest, however, that Holder was familiar with Fast and Furious many months earlier.
This parallels Ann Coulter’s analysis of Holder’s scheme, which she characterized as “the most shockingly vile corruption scandal in the history of the country.” She explained Holder’s motives:
Administration officials intentionally put guns into the hands of Mexican drug cartels, so that when the guns taken from Mexican crime scenes turned out to be American guns, Democrats would have a reason to crack down on gun sellers in the United States.
A second far less well-known but equally egregious example is Holder’s hostility toward religious freedom as shown in his desire to abolish the “ministerial exemption” which, according to the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, “provides that, under the First Amendment, federal employment discrimination law does not apply to claims concerning the employment relationship between religious institutions and their ministerial employees.”
In other words, ministries are free to run their operations as they see fit, but Holder’s argument in the Hosanna-Tabor case would have, according to Adams, “Opened the door to comprehensive government regulation of how American religious organizations conduct their ministries, and even who could be a minister.” Such abolition would lead eventually and inevitably to every church in America becoming a government church. Holder’s position was so radical that the Supreme Court ruled against him 9-0, including far-left Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan.
Adams’ study was published in 2012, but by August 2013 Holder’s unconstitutional and impeachable behaviors caused Adams to write Seven More Reasons to Impeach Eric Holder. These additional reasons include Holder’s intervention in the Zimmerman-Martin shooting, his failure to indict Black Panthers for voter intimidation, his contempt of Congress, his vendetta against Fox News, his refusal to remove four million ineligible voters from the rolls in the 2012 elections, and others.
Whatever Holder decides about his plans for 2014, he will not be missed once he is gone, and hopefully the repairing of the damage he has deliberately caused can begin in earnest.
Photo of Attorney General Eric Holder: AP Images
A graduate of Cornell University and a former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American magazine and blogs frequently at www.LightFromTheRight.com, primarily on economics and politics.
