Barak Obama already has a lot to be proud of as President of this nation. He has made a lot of significant moves including but not limited to pulling us out of a depression, changing our foreign policy from attack to negotiation, passing health care, getting a nuclear treaty with Iran and pushing for gay marriage but he’s also had a couple of really bad moments and the worst was when he decided that Eric Holder was the right choice for Attorney General.
Holder came from Covington and Burling, a big, “defend the corporate crooks,” firm, where as a partner, he pulled down a seven-figure salary. Why did he give up such significant money to become Attorney General if he was only going to go back to the same job six years later?
Employment projections that lead from a partnership, at a multi million dollar salary, to a government position at a significant pay cut, just don’t lead back to that same job one had before; not unless there is another factor involved. What could that factor possibly be?
In six years as the highest law official in the country, the job tasked with, among other things, keeping our financial services honest. Holder put not one financial officer of any bank or Wall Street firm in jail. That despite the fact that the country had just come out of the greatest financial disaster since the great depression, a collapse caused by banking and Wall Street firms that flouted the law, cheated the public, stole from everyone in sight and generally did everything possible to make that crash happen. And yet, no one paid the price. How is that possible? Following the last big decline in the 1980’s over eight hundred financial officers went to jail but during the latest crash – none!
How many of those that were involved in bank or Wall Street litigation with the government, litigation that ended up in huge fines but no jail time for individuals were represented by Covington and Burling or how many had been their clients?
Is it possible that Holder took a huge step down in pay in order to protect his company’s clients and then after the storm was over, returned to his old firm with an even better deal. These are questions that must be asked. The situation is too overt not to consider something of this nature. With all the stealing and financial manipulation that went on in the crash, with all the trillions of dollars lost by innocent depositors and investors and without one single personal conviction by the Attorney general’s office for any kind of felony fraud or stock manipulation, it is beyond the realm of reality that no one individual was guilty of malfeasance. If that statement is true than the guilty one has to be the Attorney General for not pursuing prosecution of those who stole from and cheated the American public.
Matt Taibbi, in pursuing this line of reasoning in Rolling Stone, points out that Holder returned to an office that had been kept empty for him since he left, obviously with the expectation that he would return and would not look for another step up the legal ladder that could, for an honest lawyer, at least eventually, lead to the Supreme Court. Taibbi claims that: “Holder denied there was anything weird about returning to one of Wall Street’s favorite defense firms after six years of letting one banker after another skate on monstrous cases of fraud, tax evasion, market manipulation, money laundering, bribery and other offenses.”
Of course Holder has ignored all this, talking instead to his desire to emphasize pro bono work. Sure if you’re making six figures plus, you can afford to take on a couple of pro bono clients, especially if the settlements they get can lead to even bigger bucks.
All the time that Holder served as Attorney General, he let off the big banks and Wall Street firms with settlements that amounted to cost of doing business. He jailed none of their felonious officers. He saved those companies trillions as their share prices rose. His service to those companies will possibly make him the best paid lawyer in a profoundly overpaid profession.
Taibbi, in his Rolling Stone story, which if you have an interest in this subject, I suggest you read, goes on to state what he calls the Five Pillars of the Holder Revolution. They are indeed revolting and an almost blanket condemnation of Holder and his useless term as our Nation’s chief prosecuter.
With all the stuff he did right and whatever he did wrong, the appointment of Eric Holder as Attorney General stands out as the most massive blunder of the Obama presidency.