Our nation, hooked on the 24-hour news cycle, has an insatiable appetite for scandal. But as the distinction between news and entertainment continues to blur, the legal profession must keep in mind that the juiciest tidbits are rarely the most important.
Enter former Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder, President-elect Barack Obama’s announced choice for U.S. attorney general. There has been an overwhelming focus on Holder’s apparent complicity with Bill Clinton’s questionable 11th-hour pardon of fugitive-indictee Marc Rich. Nearly equal attention has been paid to the possibility of Holder being the nation’s first black attorney general. Both threaten to divert the Senate Judiciary Committee from delving into an area far more important in determining the fitness of the next Department of Justice head. Serious students of DOJ will recognize the overriding importance of the “Holder Memorandum.” The seemingly esoteric memo, issued by Holder in 1999, has seen relatively little discussion. But it has likely had more impact on the liberty of Americans and on respect for constitutional values than anything else Holder did during his stint at DOJ, and it may tell us much about his direction, if confirmed.
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