Posted on 06/28/2014 12:53:32 PM PDT by Kaslin
I dont know who the next U.S. attorney general will be. But I know I pity that person. Restoring the Justice Departments reputation in the wake of Eric Holders tenure will take a lot of work.
You can find out just how big a task it will be in Obamas Enforcer: Eric Holders Justice Department, a new book by John Fund and Hans von Spakovsky. Even at a relatively slim 217 pages, its quite a bill of indictment.
Its one thing to read about certain cases as they pop up in the news cycle -- an article about a civil-rights investigation here, a blog post about Operation Fast and Furious there. Its another to assemble them in one place and get the big picture in one sitting.
Holder is the first attorney general in U.S. history to be held in contempt of Congress. Considering his behavior toward the legislative branch, its not surprising. He stonewalled, for example, when the Senate Judiciary Committee questioned him about the scandal that erupted when it was revealed that the IRS was targeting conservative organizations.
Or take the testimony he gave the House Judiciary Committee when asked about prosecuting the press over publishing classified material. Holder swore that he had never been involved in that or even thought about doing so.
Yet the committee subsequently learned that Holder had approved a search warrant for Fox News reporter James Rosens emails by swearing to a federal court that Mr. Rosen was a co-conspirator in a national security leak investigation.
How did Holder explain this gap between his answer and the truth when the committee asked about it? He didnt. He refused to answer.
Then theres the deplorable way the Civil Rights Division has been run under Holder and Thomas Perez, an assistant attorney general from 2009 to 2013.
In their chaper The (Un)Civil Rights Division, Fund and von Spakovsky detail numerous instances in which Holder and Perez pursued a militant civil rights agenda intended to help Democrats win elections and implement . a socialized America where racial, ethnic, and sexual quotas are required in everything from college admissions to public employment to school discipline.
But Holder will probably be best known for overseeing Operation Fast and Furious, which put more than 2,000 guns into the hands of a Mexican drug cartel and led to the deaths of hundreds of Mexican citizens and a U.S. Border Patrol agent. When federal lawmakers began investigating, Holder again opted not to cooperate, but to cover up.
Any claim that ATF sanctioned or otherwise knowingly allowed the sale of assault weapons to a straw purchaser who then transported them to Mexico is false, Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich wrote to Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) in February 2011. ATF makes every effort to interdict weapons that have been purchased illegally and prevent their transportation into Mexico.
But nine months later, after weeks of foot-dragging and attempts to find dirt on those who had blown the whistle on Fast and Furious, the Justice Department finally came clean. In November 2011, Holder admitted under oath that the gun-walking had, in fact, occurred. The February denial was rescinded.
To some observers, the idea of a truly ethical Justice Department is something of a pipe dream. As far as theyre concerned, the attorney general is nominated by a president whos either Democrat or Republican, so we shouldnt be surprised when he conducts business is a partisan manner.
Such a cynical view, though, is unfounded. Many fine attorneys general have served ethically defensible terms under both Republicans and Democrats. The tenures of Edwin Meese under Ronald Reagan and Griffin Bell under Jimmy Carter, for example, prove that the Justice Department can be run in an entirely independent, professional way.
Holders term as attorney general represents the other end of the spectrum: driven by politics, tainted by scandal and mired in corruption. The need for an attorney general that will, in fact, uphold the Constitution in a fair, impartial and ethical fashion has never been greater.
Saw good review of the book with Fund and Spakovsky tonight on C-Span2 - will probably be repeated several times over the next few days - Holder was actually number two at DOJ under Clinton, specifically because they didn’t expect that Reno would follow Clinton’s political orders very well and needed an operative there to do the dirty work - most discouraging was the authors’ opinion that so many leftwing ideologues/operatives had by now been put into career legal positions in the Department that it will take years to clean them out and get ethical, non-partisan lawyers in their place - well worth watching if you can catch the program.....
Precedent has been established. There is no going back.
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