Eric Holder
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| Eric H. Holder, Jr. | |
| Born | 1951 Queens, New York, U.S. |
|---|---|
| Education | Columbia University Columbia Law School |
| Occupation | Attorney |
Eric H. Holder, Jr., (born 1951), is a former Deputy Attorney General of the United States and a senior legal advisor to Barack Obama and his campaign for the presidency. Along with Caroline Kennedy and Jim Johnson, he serves on Senator Obama's vice presidential selection committee.
He was born in 1951 in Queens, NY; his parents emigrated from Barbados. He was educated at Columbia University earning a B.A. in 1973 and a J.D. from the law school in 1976. After graduating from law school he worked in the U.S. Justice Department as a trial attorney from 1977 to 1988. He was then appointed by President Ronald Reagan as a member of the Supreme Court of District of Columbia. In 1993 he was appointed as the first black U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia by President Bill Clinton.
Holder was born and raised in a working-class section of Queens, New York. His parents had both emigrated from Barbados. By virtue of his scholarship, he was accepted into the academically elite Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan, and after graduation he enrolled at Columbia University. There he majored in American history, earning top grades, and he spent his spare time absorbing black culture at such notable Harlem landmarks as the Apollo Theater and the Abyssinian Baptist Church. Feeling a responsibility toward fellow black Americans who were less fortunate than himself, Holder began spending his Saturday mornings at a Harlem youth center and taking selected young people on trips around the city. He joined the Concerned Black Men, a national organization dedicated to helping minority youngsters.
Holder received his bachelor's degree in 1973, and immediately was accepted into Columbia Law School. When he graduated from that institution in 1976, he decided to join the Department of Justice. At the time he figured he would work there two or three years and then take a position in a private firm. Holder joined a relatively new division at Justice, the Public Integrity Unit. "It was formed with Watergate still ringing in everyone's ears," he told the Chicago Tribune.
The Public Integrity attorneys were charged with prosecuting high-level corruption cases, often involving respectable public figures. Among those Holder helped to prosecute were former South Carolina congressman John W. Jenrette--in the notorious "Abscam" case in the late 1970s--and a Philadelphia judge who accepted monetary gifts to "fix" cases. The list of people Holder prosecuted while with Public Integrity included Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents, politicians, organized crime figures, and even a fellow Justice Department lawyer. The job Holder thought he would stay in for two years consumed one dozen years of his life.
In 1988, President Ronald Reagan appointed Holder to the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. The rotating judgeship involved deciding every imaginable kind of case, from murders and armed robberies to nonpayment of child support and school truancy. The job proved particularly difficult for a man committed to helping African Americans in the city.
Holder told the Washington Post that he became painfully aware that most of the defendants in his courtroom were "young black guys, 18 to 25." He said: "Conceptually, yeah, I knew that's what it was going to be because it's a city that's 70 per cent black, and black males are disproportionately represented in the criminal justice system. I guess the reality of it struck me after a while. I mean, it's not an easy thing to deal with, if you are a person who's concerned about the black community, to see what ought to be the future standing before you charged with some sort of criminal offense."
In a Washington Post profile of Holder that followed him through several weeks on the Superior Court bench, the beleaguered justice pondered the African American plight. "I'm black, and I suppose that helps, but I led quite a different life from a lot of the people who come before me as defendants," he said. "Yet there's always a certain something that transcends economic barriers. There's almost a sense that being black and middle class means you've got your feet in both worlds.... Racism is alive and well in this country, but that doesn't excuse or justify the acts of the people who come before you. Every person who comes before you as an adult and talks about the deprived life he's had, there are 10, 15, 20 people from that same neighborhood who are just trying to make it, and those are the people who are the victims."
Holder's sentiments as a judge--both sympathetic and pragmatic--helped endear him to the District of Columbia's political leaders. Many of these politicians felt that the district should have a black U.S. attorney, preferably a local citizen who had demonstrated an allegiance to the area. Holder was just that citizen, and he had even worked at the Department of Justice. After the presidential swearing-in of Bill Clinton in 1993, congressional delegate Norton commissioned a panel of Washington, DC lawyers and civic activists to make recommendations for the District's U.S. attorney slot. The panel chose Holder, and Norton passed his name along to the president. Holder was one of three candidates interviewed for the position, and the only qualm expressed about him was his lack of leadership experience.
In 1993 Eric H. Holder, Jr. joined the ranks of top-level federal prosecutors when he was named U.S. attorney for Washington, DC. Holder, who was appointed by President Clinton, is the first black ever to serve as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, a region that is more than 70 percent black. Holder's confirmation by Congress was seen as a positive step toward greater self-determination for the crime-ridden area.
Eleanor Holmes Norton, the district's non-voting Congressional representative, told the Washington Post that under Holder, "I think people will see the criminal justice system, far more than in the past, as working directly for them, because a man who comes from them and has been committed to them has been made U.S. Attorney." For his part, Holder merely stated in the Chicago Tribune: "This is probably the most interesting legal job in Washington, if not the country."
Late in 1993, Clinton announced that he had chosen Holder to be Washington, DC's first black U.S. attorney. In an interview with the Washington Post, Holder responded to the leadership issue that had concerned some of his supporters. "In some ways, I came in as prepared as I could have been because of my 12 years in Public Integrity," he said. "I think potentially I'm a better U.S. attorney now than I was then, from being on the bench for five years." Asked to assess the impact of a highly visible position on his career, he added: "I guess the reality is [that] there is something personally at stake for me. You have to do the investigating and just call it."
Publicity was waiting for Holder almost the very day he began his new job. Even though he was appointed by a Democratic president, he was expected to preside over a complicated Justice Department investigation of fraud involving the post office in the House of Representatives. An influential congressman, Illinois Democrat Dan Rostenkowski, was the subject of the investigation and has since been indicted on charges that he misused official House accounts.
Rostenkowski, as chairman of the congressional Ways and Means Committee, was in a position to help the Clinton administration to implement its agenda for health care reform. Nonetheless, Holder persisted with the investigation and even widened its scope. He told the Washington Post that matters of criminal prosecution must be handled without regard to partisan politics. "The idea that a Democratic U.S. attorney is going to do something different than a Republican U.S. attorney is pretty close to ridiculous," he observed.
He later served as Deputy Attorney General of the United States under U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno. He served in this position until the end of the Clinton presidency. However, he served as acting U.S. Attorney General under President George W. Bush due to the fact that John Ashcroft was not confirmed until a few weeks into the Bush presidency.
He now works as an attorney at Covington & Burling LLP in Washington D.C. However, in late 2007 he joined the Senator Barack Obama's political campaign for the presidency as a senior legal advisor. He is also serving on a vice-presidential selection committee for the Obama campaign, along with Democratic strategist James A. Johnson and Caroline Kennedy.
He is also considered to be a leading candidate for U.S. Attorney General under an Obama Administration along with Former Senator John Edwards, Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, Alabama Congressman Artur Davis, and Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm. If he were appointed to that position he would be the first black U.S. Attorney General in U.S. history.
He is married to his wife Sharon Malone and the couple has a daughter, Maya.
