http://www.cato.org/blog/eric-holder-worst-attorney-general-ever?utm_content=buffer9aec2&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=bufferSEPTEMBER 25, 2014 11:57AM
Eric Holder: Worst Attorney General Ever?
By ILYA SHAPIRO SHARE
With Eric Holder’s departure, the nation can begin to heal. His was the most divisive tenure of any attorney general I can recall, tearing the country apart on racial and partisan lines. From politicizing Justice Department hiring beyond the wildest accusations against the Bush administration, to running a bizarre guns-to-gangs operation that even Alberto Gonzales couldn’t have concocted, to advocating a racial spoils system at all levels of government, Holder has tarnished the nation’s highest law enforcement office more even than Nixon’s AG John Mitchell.
Indeed, the main difference between Holder and Mitchell is that Holder hasn’t gone to jail (yet; the DOJ Inspector General better lock down computer systems lest Holder’s electronic files “disappear”). Of course, Holder has been cited for contempt by the House and referred to a federal prosecutor for his involvement in Fast & Furious – which referral went nowhere due to invocations of executive privilege (sound familiar?). And who knows what role he may have played in the IRS’s targeting of the administration’s political enemies (and even those who merely educate about the Constitution)?
Just as bad Holder’s legal violations and contempt for the separation of powers, however, is his racialist view of the world. Like a modern-day George Wallace, Holder has called for racial preference now, racial preferences tomorrow, racial preferences forever. According to our outgoing attorney general, and the 14th Amendment, Civil Rights Act, and Voting Rights Act only protect some citizens (members of the right kinds of racial minority groups) – and should be used to extract political and financial concessions for them.
Still, it must be said that Holder was a “uniter not a divider” on one front: under his reign, the Justice Department has suffered a record number of unanimous losses at the Supreme Court. In the last three terms alone, the government has suffered 13 such defeats – a rate double President Clinton’s and triple President Bush’s – in areas of law ranging from criminal procedure to property rights to securities regulation to religious freedom. By not just pushing but breaking through the envelope of plausible legal argument, Attorney General Holder has done his all to expand federal (especially executive) power and contract individual liberty beyond any constitutional recognition.
Eric Holder will not be missed by those who support the rule of law.
