The Eric Holder Story
An alternative history.

Mr. Levin is president of the Landmark Legal Foundation
March 1, 2001 12:10 p.m.

oday's Washington Post wonders whether "Eric Holder's future, once assured, is marred by the case of Marc Rich." When pressed on January 19, 2001 by ex-Clinton White House Counsel Jack Quinn to support the Rich pardon, Deputy Attorney General Holder was most accommodating. He told Quinn he was "neutral, leaning towards favorable" on the Rich case. Holder's remark was used by Quinn, and later Bill Clinton, to, in part, justify the president's pardon of Rich. Holder now says that "If I had focused on this in a way that I could have, should have, the recommendation I would have given him would have been, 'Don't do this Mr. President.'" Poor Eric Holder. He's just another wonderful person who got caught up in the Clinton sleaze machine, or at least that's what the Washington Post wants us to believe.

The fact is that during his three-year tenure as the second highest-ranking official at the Justice Department, Holder was no innocent bystander. He was one of the Clintons' most loyal, partisan, and aggressive defenders.

In his outstanding new book, Absolute Power, David Limbaugh provides a meticulously researched journey through the corruption that was the Clinton-Reno Justice Department. Among other things, he reminds us that just weeks before then-Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr forwarded his impeachment referral to the House of Representatives, it was Holder who pushed for a politically motivated criminal investigation of Starr, philanthropist Richard Mellon Scaife, and The American Spectator magazine. Of course, the probe turned up no wrongdoing, but that wasn't its purpose. The objective was to undermine Starr's credibility during this key period with allegations of prosecutorial misconduct. Holder also intended to besmirch Scaife's reputation and intimidate the investigative reporters at The American Spectator.

Holder was also one of the top architects of the frivolous and now discredited Secret Service protective function privilege claim, which was asserted to undermine and delay Starr's investigation. Limbaugh reports that Holder admitted to one of Starr's deputies that Justice had no more than a 5 percent chance of prevailing on this claim.

Holder's failure to object to Clinton's pardon of Marc Rich is simply the latest in a long list of disgraceful actions he took on behalf of Bill Clinton, to the detriment of the rule of law. The unvarnished truth is that the only highlight of Holder's tenure at the Justice Department was his departure.