Eric Holder- Complaint Background
Note: Information provided by law enforcement specialists, private investigators and journalists – Update revision 2.6
A handful of Silicon Valley campaign finance billionaires were handed hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars, exclusively, in a kick-back scheme. Who was informed of this crime, in writing, by hundreds of witnesses, and took action to protect from prosecution, those very criminals? ERIC HOLDER
-U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder had personal and business relationships with the suspects.
-U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was nominated for, and lobbied for the job as, U.S. Attorney General by the suspects.
-U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder received written charges of the crimes, by the suspects, from the victims, as early as August, 2015. This has been confirmed by federal documentation services.
-U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder refused to prosecute, or allow any investigations, of, the suspects.
-U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder held business, cash, stock and career holdings in the companies operated by the suspects.
-U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder received orders, requests and directives, from the suspects, directly, and indirectly through close intermediaries.
-U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder used taxpayer resources to damage, stone-wall, harm, and circumvent the civil rights of, U.S. taxpaying citizens, because they were business competitors to his business partners.
-U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder ordered, and implemented, the with-holding, or interdiction of Congressionally requested documents in order to prevent his business from being brought to justice.
-U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, during the largest American financial crisis, based on corruption, failed to arrest any campaign donors who were known to have engaged in that corruption.
-Victims pleaded with Eric Holder’s Department of Justice, filed all proper forms and followed every known “PROPER PROCEDURE”, yet they were attacked, harassed and stone-walled and have yet to receive justice from the DOJ.
-Eric Holder: Crime Boss – Throughout the course of the THE CLEAN TECH CRASH (http://thecleantechcrash.wordpress.com/), one man was in charge of the Justice Department cover-ups; that one man had a financial connection to every perpetrator in the crimes; that one man profited by those crimes and that one man was placed in his job by those who created the scandal. The very man that was supposed to protect us, was running the biggest part of the crime operation. Meet Mr. Eric Holder:
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Eric Holder Archives – Judicial Watch
http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/tag/eric-holder/
Judicial Watch
Sep 8, 2015 – In March 2013, then-U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder launched a criminal … Leadership Summit to Focus Attention on Corruption of Obama …
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Valerie Jarrett Key Player in Fast and Furious Cover-Up After Holder Lied to Congress
President Obama’s trusted senior advisor, Valerie Jarrett, was a key player in the effort to cover up that Attorney General Eric Holder lied to Congress about the Fast and Furious scandal, according to public records obtained by Judicial Watch.The information is part of a Department of Justice (DOJ) “Vaughn index” detailing records about the gun-running operation known as Fast and Furious. JW had to sue the agency for the records after the Obama administration failed to provide them under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). A federal court ordered the DOJ to provide the records over the agency’s objections. Yesterday JW reported on the broad information in the records, including that Obama asserted executive privilege for Holder’s wife as part of the administration’s efforts to cover up the scandal.
Practically lost in the 1,000-plus pages of records is an index that shows Jarrett was brought in to manage the fact that Holder lied to Congress after the story about the disastrous gun-running operation broke in the media. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF) ran the once-secret program that allowed guns from the U.S. to be smuggled into Mexico so they could eventually be traced to drug cartels. Instead, federal law enforcement officers lost track of hundreds of weapons which have been used in an unknown number of crimes, including the murder of a U.S. Border Patrol agent in Arizona.
The files received by JW include three electronic mails between Holder and Jarrett and one from former U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke to Jarrett. The e-mails with Holder are all from October 4, 2011, a significant date because, on the evening of October 3rd, Sheryl Attkisson (then at CBS news) released documents showing that Holder had been sent a briefing paper on Operation Fast and Furious on June 5, 2010. The paper was from the director of the National Drug Intelligence Center, Michael Walther.
This directly contradicted Holder’s May 3, 2011 testimony to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, during which he stated that he, “probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.” The October 4, 2011 date may also be significant because it came shortly after the August 30, 2011 resignation of U.S. Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke and reassignment of acting ATF director Kenneth Melson to the position of “senior forensics advisor” at DOJ.
The description of one of the e-mails, written from Jarrett to Holder, reads, “re: personnel issues.” Another, also from Jarrett, reads, “outlining and discussing preferred course of action for future responses in light of recent development in congressional investigation.” Unfortunately, the index is vague and that’s all the information we have about them. Nevertheless, given the timing and subject of these e-mails, it seems clear that Jarrett quickly became a key player in the Fast and Furious cover-up in the immediate aftermath of the revelation that Holder had lied to Congress.
(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton issued a statement today about the pending retirement of U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder:
It is no coincidence that Holder’s resignation comes on the heels of another court ruling that the Justice Department must finally cough up information about how Holder’s Justice Department lied to Congress and the American people about the Operation Fast and Furious scandal, for which Eric Holder was held in contempt by the House of Representatives. Over the past several months, Judicial Watch also exposed how Holder’s Justice Department was implicated in the IRS scandal and how Justice Department lawyers helped defend the illegal stonewall that kept secret key material related to Benghazi.
The disgraced Holder’s exit is past due accountability for Holder’s Fast and Furious lies, and I hope it brings some solace to the family of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and the hundreds of innocent Mexicans likely killed thanks to the Holder Justice Department’s scheme that armed the murderous Mexican drug cartels.
In 2009, Judicial Watch opposed Holder’s confirmation as Attorney General, noting that “Mr. Holder’s record demonstrates a willingness to bend the law in order to protect his political patrons.” The U.S. Senate, including many Republicans, ignored Holder’s record and confirmed a man who went on to be one of the worst Attorney Generals of the modern era.
Mr. Holder, his appointees, and his agency have lied repeatedly to Congress and the American people. He has damaged the Justice Department by putting politics, ideology, and race above the rule of law. Disturbingly, Mr. Holder refused to enforce the law in a race-neutral manner. And, when it comes to government transparency, Holder’s Justice Department became one of the worst violators of the Freedom of Information Act, manufacturing new legal excuses for government secrecy that would make Richard Nixon blush.
In Eric Holder, President Obama found his John Mitchell – an attorney general who would lie, obstruct investigations, and ignore or simply not enforce the law in order to advance his president’s unbridled will.
As the press is writing his political epitaph, I hope it is also remembered how Holder lied to Congress and how his agency assaulted Freedom of the Press by collecting the private email correspondence of reporters, seizing their phone records and tracking their movements as part of an investigation of perceived leaks.
“Justice” took a holiday during Eric Holder’s reign at the Department of Justice. The man can’t leave office soon enough.
DOJ Admits Fast & Furious Docs Should Be Released Under FOIA After Indefinitely Delaying JW’s Suit
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Can a federal agency trying to cover up wrongdoing lawfully withhold documents under executive privilege—reserved for the president of the United States—when the records don’t even involve the commander-in-chief? That’s the question being argued before a federal court in Washington D.C. and the ruling could have a widespread impact on…
JW Sues DOJ for Records of Holder Contempt Settlement Talks
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Judicial Watch has sued the “most transparent administration” in history for details of Attorney General Eric Holder’s efforts to settle contempt charges filed against him for refusing to give Congress documents related to a scandalous gunrunning experiment that let Mexican drug traffickers obtain U.S.-sold weapons. The goal behind this disastrous…
PRESS RELEASE
JW Sues over Fast and Furious Stonewall: Seeks Docs about DOJ’s Legal Fight over Holder Contempt of Congress Citation
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(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that on September 5, 2013, it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, against the Obama Department of Justice (DOJ) seeking access to all records of communications between DOJ and House Committee…
Judicial Watch Obtains Documents Revealing AG Holder Travel Expenses Exceeded $4 Million in Four Years
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Taxpayer-funded personal travel expenses alone totaled nearly $700,000 from March 2009 to August 2012 (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it has obtained documents from the Department of Justice (DOJ) revealing that between March 27, 2009, and August 24, 2012, Attorney General Eric Holder accrued $4,263,704.01 in total…
CORRUPTION CHRONICLES
Holder Vows Solidarity With Latino Leftists: “Uno Para Todos, Todos Para Uno.”
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On the same week that the U.S. House of Representatives found him in criminal contempt, the nation’s embattled Attorney General professed solidarity with a radical leftist Latino group, proudly celebrating its socialist mission of “uno para todos, todos para uno” (all for one and one for all). It wasn’t enough…
CORRUPTION CHRONICLES
Al Qaeda Defense Atty. No. 3 At Obama DOJ
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In a scary development, a major Obama fundraiser who defended a convicted al Qaeda terrorist will become the third highest ranking official at the Department of Justice (DOJ), which, ironically, is charged with defending the interests of the United States. Northern California lawyer Tony West has been named Assistant Attorney…
CORRUPTION CHRONICLES
Hard Times: DOJ Cuts Conference Spending By $14 Mil
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How considerate of the Justice Department to finally cut back on the extravagant work conferences that stick it to U.S. taxpayers with exorbitant tabs for overpriced food, beverages and fancy party planners.Heads turned a few weeks ago when a Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General probe revealed that the bloated…
CORRUPTION CHRONICLES
Judicial Watch Announces a Special Presentation: “Politics and the Holder Justice Department: Rule of Law at Risk?”
MARCH 29, 2011 | SEE ALL PRESS RELEASES »
Contact Information: Press Office 202-646-5172, ext 305 Washington, DC — March 29, 2011Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced it will host a panel discussion: “Politics and the Holder Justice Department: Rule of Law at Risk?” Panelists include Hans von Spakovsky, senior legal
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Eric Holder – Discover the Networks
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2357
Eric Himpton Holder, Jr. was born on January 21, 1951 in the Bronx, New York …… resigned to protest the “corrupt nature” of DOJ’s dismissal of the case against
Longtime Federal Attorney: Eric Holder Protects Corrupt …
observer.com/…/longtime-federal-attorney-eric-…
The New York Observer
Jun 19, 2014 – Attorney General Eric Holder has systematically consolidated the power and authority of the Department of Justice, opposing calls for reform.
National Politics • Opinion
Longtime Federal Attorney: Eric Holder Protects Corrupt Prosecutors
Four US Attorneys found to have suppressed evidence have been promoted; AG consolidates power
By Sidney Powell •
Attorney General Eric Holder has systematically consolidated the power and authority of the Department of Justice, opposing calls for reform. (Getty Images)
As Attorney General Eric Holder prepares to enter the penultimate year of his tenure leading the Department of Justice, the time to honor his sweeping promise to “clean up” the Department of Justice is rapidly diminishing. For many, the time can’t pass quickly enough—and be sure he will stay until the bitter end. Awaiting his departure from the Department is a subpoena from Congress that he would no longer be able to avoid.
Not only has Mr. Holder failed to make any of the reforms he promised in the wake of his forced dismissal of the indictment against former Senator Ted Stevens, the changes he has made have been for the worse. Absent a dramatic about-face, Holder will leave the Department of Justice littered with corrupted prosecutions and prosecutors, his own contempt of Congress, numerous Supreme Court reversals, and scathing rebukes from federal judges.
Instead of seeking justice, as he is constitutionally and ethically required to do, Holder has politicized the Department beyond recognition. Instead of enforcing the rule of law and following legal precedent, he has ignored and twisted the law to suit his president.
We now have confirmation that Mr. Holder is protecting and retaining prosecutors whose intentional or reckless prosecutorial misconduct has been confirmed. Indeed, he has refused repeated demands to release the names of the law-breaking prosecutors or identify the cases their misconduct infected. No one is holding Holder accountable.
Rightly called Obama’s Enforcer, Eric Holder sets the tone and makes the decisions for the Department. Aside from his own contempt of Congress, the “Fast and Furious” debacle, illegally seizing reporters’ phone records, Mr. Holder is deliberately protecting prosecutors who have violated the law, the constitution, fundamental principles of fairness, and longstanding rules of ethics in hundreds of criminal prosecutions.
A recent report from the non-partisan, non-profit Project on Government Oversight reveals more than 400 instances of intentional or reckless misconduct by Justice Department prosecutors in the last decade. A significant number of those have been confirmed by the Department itself during Mr. Holder’s tenure. Those must be especially egregious. Inquiring minds would certainly like to know.
Six prosecutors were implicated in the corrupt persecution that unseated Senator Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in the United States Senate and a highly-decorated World War II veteran. United States District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan lambasted the misconduct of the Department’s “Public Integrity Section” lawyers in the Stevens prosecution, saying “In nearly 25 years on the bench, I’ve never seen anything approaching the mishandling and misconduct that I’ve seen in this case.” By the time Judge Sullivan uncovered the flagrant misconduct, he was livid.
Only when it became clear that Judge Sullivan was going to dismiss the indictment himself did Attorney General Holder swoop in to deflect Judge Sullivan’s ire. A golden political opportunity fell in his lap. The savvy Holder manipulated this outrageous prosecutorial misconduct to his political advantage. After all, this administration has lived by the creed: “Never let a good crisis go to waste,” and the unjust conviction had already given the Democrats the 60th seat they had targeted.
Attorney General Holder, a Democrat, announced that he was dismissing the indictment against the former Republican Senator “in the interest of justice.” General Holder received bipartisan acclamations, and the press loved it when he vowed to “clean up” the Justice Department. He proclaimed that he wanted all such prosecutorial misconduct brought to his attention. This was “not the way” the Department would conduct business.
Many of us were buoyed by hope and his promises. We didn’t realize the significance of the timing of his announcement—April 1, 2009 (April Fools).
At the dismissal hearing on April 7, 2009, Judge Sullivan applauded Mr. Holder’s decision, but wisely, didn’t buy the Holder Annunciation. Judge Sullivan publicly excoriated the Department at length. Unprecedented but frighteningly justified, Judge Sullivan appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the Stevens’ prosecutors and the Department. The Department was stunned. Holder promised to reform it.
Mr. Holder was compelled to dismiss the Stevens indictment because, among other violations, the Department had concealed the horrible record of its key witness, including his involvement in sex-trafficking of minors and subornation of perjury. That same witness had testified in two previous prosecutions of politicians in Alaska.
Despite the public flogging and the Stevens’ dismissal, Mr. Holder refused even to request a new trial in the Kott and Kohring cases. Mr. Holder’s minions argued that the same evidence withheld in those prosecutions was not “material” to the defense, their trials were just, and their convictions were fair.
On September 26, 2010, one of the young Public Integrity Section prosecutors then under investigation himself for misconduct and for hiding evidence favorable to Senator Stevens’ defense, committed suicide. Again the press exploded with stories about the corrupted prosecution of the former Senator who had recently died in a plane crash in Alaska.
The Alaska district judge in the Kott and Kohring cases was as unimpressed by Judge Sullivan’s actions and admonitions as was Attorney General Holder. But the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals slammed him with reversals in both cases. Ninth Circuit Judge Betty Fletcher wrote separately to express her outrage. She urged outright dismissal of the indictment against Kohring because the “prosecution’s refusal to accept responsibility for its conduct is deeply troubling and indicates that a stronger remedy is necessary to impress upon it the reprehensible nature of its acts and omissions.” She did the same in Kott—vehemently objecting to the Department’s failure “to fully grasp the egregiousness of its misconduct as well as the importance of its constitutionally imposed discovery obligations.” She said a “mere reversal” was “insufficient to deter future illegality.” Sadly, it turns out she was right.
On March 15, 2012, the report of the special investigation ordered by Judge Sullivan was released. Henry Schuelke and his partner William Shields uncovered the “systematic and intentional concealment” of exculpatory or “Brady” evidence— that is, evidence favorable to a criminal defendant and deemed by the Supreme Court as constitutionally required to be given to the defense before trial. The requirement is fundamental to a fair trial and a cornerstone of our democracy.
After all, a prosecutor represents all the citizens. As Alex Kozinski explains in the foreword to my new book Licensed to Lie, the prosecutor has unlimited resources of the Sovereign and controls the investigation. The Supreme Court and prior Attorneys General of great integrity have made plain that a prosecutor’s job is to seek Justice—not convictions. They understood that “with great power comes great responsibility.”
Shocked by the Schuelke Report, the Wall Street Journal published an editorial appropriately named “The Department of Injustice.” The Journal called for “severe sanctions” against the Stevens’ prosecutors. Simultaneously with the issuance of the Report, the non-partisan Constitution Project issued a Call for Discovery Reform. Approximately 200 former federal prosecutors and judges (including this author) signed a letter that was delivered to Congress, supporting Senate Bill 2197—the Fairness in Disclosure of Evidence Act, introduced by Senator Lisa Murkowski and a bi-partisan collection of five co-sponsors. Every major organization of attorneys across the country publicly supported the proposed legislation, including the American Bar Association, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the United States Chamber of Commerce and many others
The only opposition to the legislation came from prosecutors and the Department of Justice.
Kathryn Ruemmler, pictured during the prosecution of Enron executives. Ms. Ruemmler was discovered to have failed to share evidence that she herself considered “key” to the defendants’ case; soon after, she became Counsel to President Obama. (Getty Images)
Meanwhile, back in Texas, I was working as defense counsel for the Merrill Lynch executives being dragged through a second round of criminal prosecution initiated by the Task Force prosecutors that destroyed Arthur Andersen. Unaware of Mr. Holder’s opposition to the new legislation, we were buoyed by the Attorney General’s pronouncements, and the widespread and repeated calls for reform. I represented Merrill exec Jim Brown, and I was certain the prosecutors were hiding evidence. None of the prosecution made any sense—from the indictment forward. No witnesses, including Merrill counsel, would talk with any of the defense lawyers because the prosecutors kept them under threat of indictment.
By then, three teams of Department of Justice lawyers had claimed there was no exculpatory evidence in the government’s huge files from which the original defense trial lawyers had been given only a few page summary by original prosecutors Kathryn Ruemmler, Matthew Friedrich, John Hemann, and Task Force Director Andrew Weissmann.
On top of that, this second prosecution was on the same indictment the Fifth Circuit had already found “fatally flawed” when it reversed 12 of 14 counts of convictions and acquitted one defendant entirely. Four Merrill Lynchers who the federal district judge had noted were “just doing their jobs” had spent up to a year in prison because they had been denied bail pending their appeals—until the Fifth Circuit held that their conduct was not criminal as charged.
Countless lawyers across the country (including this one) hoped and believed that Holder meant what he said. He instituted new training on prosecutors’ duties to provide evidence favorable to the defense (Brady evidence), and publicly, he was saying all the right things. Except one.
The Department of Justice opposed the Fairness in Disclosure of Evidence Act. The bill died. And the Department of Justice continues to hide evidence. We learned that in Holder’s view, only prosecutors can decide what is “material to the defense,” and if they decide it’s not material, they don’t disclose it—even if it is obviously favorable to the defense. Mr. Holder’s Department is even seeking to change the ethical rules in each state to comport with the Department’s view and make it easier for prosecutors to hide evidence. Mr. Holder’s view of the Brady rule puts the prosecutor in total and sole control of the outcome of the case. It licenses him to lie.
Meanwhile, in the Merrill case back in Texas, while still denying there was any Brady evidence, the prosecutors mailed me a disc of documents they did not realize revealed crucial notes of government agents’ interviews of the person that lead prosecutor Kathryn Ruemmler herself had called the “key” to their case. Not only did these long-hidden notes reveal clear, declaratory statements that directly contradicted everything Ruemmler, Friedrich, Hemann and their hearsay-only witnesses had told the court and jury, but the prosecutors had actually yellow-highlighted the notes as Brady information favorable to the defense—and still hid it.
So where, you might ask, are all of these prosecutors now? Holder fired them immediately, right?
Not exactly. The prosecutors on the team who yellow-highlighted the evidence favorable to the Merrill defendants and still “plainly suppressed” it were honored, promoted, and protected.
Andrew Weissmann became General Counsel of the FBI until this past October, when he quietly left to join NYU Law School.
Kathryn Ruemmler, who signed the Brady letter in the Merrill prosecution, which omitted the crucial yellow-highlighted statements of the person she herself said was the “key” to the prosecution, was promoted to Assistant Attorney General, and then became Obama’s longest serving chief White House Counsel. She recently returned to the prestigious firm of Latham & Watkins.
Her co-lead counsel, Matthew Friedrich, who also personally told the jury facts that were directly refuted by the yellow-highlighted evidence, became the head of the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice. Mr. Friedrich rushed the indictment of Senator Stevens and micromanaged that corrupted prosecution, which cost the citizens of Alaska their senior Senator, changed the balance of power in the Senate, and facilitated the enactment of Obamacare. Mr. Friedrich quietly left the Department during the transition to Mr. Holder, just before the Stevens’ prosecution blew up completely and well before the Shuelke Report revealed evidence of his nefarious role (which he denied). He’s now a partner at the prestigious international law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.
Andrew Weissmann (right) followed by Matt Friedrich as they arrive at the federal courts building in Houston, Texas for the Arthur Andersen trial, May 2002. (James Nielsen/AFP/Getty Images)
John Hemann remains an Assistant United States Attorney in San Francisco.
Four of the Stevens’ prosecutors are still with the Department. Two who were assessed brief suspensions have their rulings on appeal and are still Assistant U.S. Attorneys. The others the Department cleared of any wrongdoing; one is back in the Public Integrity Section, the other in the US Attorney’s Office in Massachusetts.
And now, despite demands from POGO, repeated rebukes by various federal judges, his own contempt of Congress, IRS abuses and now missing crucial evidence and emails, and widespread acknowledgment of an “epidemic” of prosecutorial misconduct, Attorney General Holder refuses to release so much as the names of the prosecutors who have committed intentional or reckless acts of misconduct.
How many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn’t see? And how long will Congress and the public allow it?
Sidney Powell worked in the Department of Justice for 10 years and was lead counsel in more than 500 federal appeals. She served nine US Attorneys from both political parties and is the author of Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice.
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Is the Eric Holder Department of Justice the most corrupt? by …
brennerbrief.com › Politics
Apr 14, 2014 – It is widely believed that the Department of Justice under Attorney General Eric Holder is the most political in memory, if not ever. Is it also the …
It is widely believed that the Department of Justice under Attorney General Eric Holder is the most political in memory, if not ever. Is it also the most corrupt? The question begs to be asked.
There is a consistent pattern of actions taken and not taken by this DOJ that are so blatantly political it is unmistakably operating with the number one priority being furthering the liberal agenda.
The first high-profile case taken up by this DOJ was a slam dunk case basically already won by the Bush administration’s DOJ. It was the ironclad case against the New Black Panther Party charged with voter intimidation, a charge undeniable since it was on video that two members stood dressed in combat style clothing brandishing nightsticks outside a Philadelphia polling station. They effectively dissuaded voters from entering the polling place, thereby denying them their most sacred and fundamental right, the right to vote.
Holder’s DOJ inherited it and politically appointed leftist attorneys dropped the charges. When Christian Adams, another attorney in the department, blew the whistle on the outrageously political miscarriage of justice he was fired.
Then there was the department’s refusal to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) though they would eventually work to rid the military of the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” law instilled in the military under President Bill Clinton. The department went on to rewrite rules to acknowledge same-sex marriages within the federal government. They have steadfastly pushed the gay rights agenda.
One cannot forget the horrors of the Fast and Furious debacle, the notorious gun-walking scheme that had agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms encouraging massive gun sales to known drug cartel members on the southern border. It is believed by many this was an effort to incentivize Congress to tighten gun control laws by proving how many of the guns used in violent crimes in Mexico came from the U.S. due to our supposedly lax gun laws. Hundreds, if not thousands, died at the wrong end of those guns including our own Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.
Holder’s DOJ was so obstructionist in the Congressional investigation of this abominable program that Holder himself was found in contempt (many believe he committed perjury also). Not that the contempt charges will do any good. He will no more prosecute himself for contempt than he will Lois Lerner of the IRS targeting scandal. He still withholds documents requested by Congress and those that do come through are so heavily redacted they are nearly a solid wall of black. Holder even got President Obama to cite Executive Privilege to protect him.
The DOJ sues over voter I.D. laws legally enacted by states to protect the integrity of the vote. Holder insists they amount to voter disenfranchisement of minorities and the poor, effectively saying that they are too stupid to get free or nearly free photo I.D.s, when he clearly knows they are legally required to buy alcohol, board a plane or even attend a presidential event. This practice of doing all the DOJ can to block such laws only protects the vote of the dead, illegals, felons, and frauds, nearly all of whom seem to vote Democrat.
Meanwhile the DOJ refuses to ensure systems to protect the overseas military votes and make certain they are cast and counted in time for elections, most of which seem to vote Republican.
Holder’s Justice Department selectively enforces our immigration laws based on what’s politically convenient for Obama and Democrats. He’s sued over every attempt made by states to enforce the immigration laws that the federal government refuses to enforce. He’s sued Maricopa County to stop infamous Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s department from asking for green cards when they make an arrest, even though by law immigrants are required to carry them at all times.
This DOJ has engaged in bullying tactics commonly used by race-baiters in the grievance industry as evidenced by its actions regarding the Treyvon Martin case. It even went so far as to threaten federal charges against George Zimmerman after his acquittal.
It has illegally spied on reporters who have disagreed with the administration including those at the Associated Press and FNC’s James Rosen, even hacking into his parents’ email accounts.
The department under Holder has sought to move the trials of the terrorists in Gitmo, including Kaleid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind behind 9-11, from military to criminal court in New York City. They have an inordinate amount of attorneys on staff who fought the U.S. on behalf of the terrorists… pro bono.
Of 106 career posts they have filled, every one of them was filled with an indisputably committed leftist, even though they are supposed to be non-political. Christian Adams also asserted that extremely qualified candidates for those positions were dismissed because they did not have that left-leaning activist history. These are career positions basically ensuring the politicized department will continue to further that progressive agenda for a generation.
Then there’s the disgraceful handling of the clearly illegal IRS scandal. The DOJ has not only engaged in the most anemic and unserious investigation of those crimes committed against the enemies of the Obama administration, it has slow walked and stonewalled the investigation at every turn. They even went so far as to appoint an Obama maximum donor as the lead on it. They further leaked to the Wall Street Journal that no criminal charges would be filed long before the investigation has concluded.
Holder’s DOJ is unabashedly political in ways that are so blatant it would be laughable if it wasn’t so serious. They reek of impropriety at best, corruption at worst. The bias and motivation for their actions are clear. The adherence to the Constitution is not. Contrary to the attitude displayed there the Constitution is the foundation of our nation, not some antiquated collection of loose guidelines.
Our courts are systematically being packed with liberal judges. Our government agencies are run by and filled with big government liberals whose jobs depend on the liberal agenda continuing. Our mainstream media refuses to investigate and expose the abuses of power exercised by this administration. So who is protecting the people and the Constitution?
While it’s clear the Holder DOJ is the most political, one has to wonder if it is not also the most corrupt. We likely will never know with certainty, but many have already formed their opinion based on the evidence presented throughout its history.
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Victoria O’Kane
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Eric Holder and JPMorgan Chase: Corruption So Brazen and So Common …
http://www.smirkingchimp.com › blogs › Jaime O’Neill’s blog
Apr 29, 2015 – As hobbies for old liberals go, there doesn’t seem to be much percentage in expending energies kvetching about what a sorry bunch of …
Eric Holder and JPMorgan Chase: Corruption So Brazen and So Common That It’s Now Routine
by Jaime O’Neill |
As hobbies for old liberals go, there doesn’t seem to be much percentage in expending energies kvetching about what a sorry bunch of corporatist warmongering assholes the Democrats are. Sure, that case can be made, and there is nothing progressives seem to love more than finding evidence for that case, then making sure that they share their shocking findings with other progressives who might actually be tempted to waste their time pushing back against those even worse corporatist warmongers known as Republicans. For the progressives who love to spread a wet blanket on what little hope we have for keeping things from getting worse, there’s just no better or more rewarding hobby than bitching about Obama, or Hillary, until or unless another name arises that will first make them swoon, and then, inevitably, disappoint them.
Personally, I tend to spend more of my energies arguing with right wingers who think people like Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, or even Jeb Bush would make good White House tenants. Like a lot of us old veterans of earlier political fights, I try to keep my eyes on the prize. And I try to keep some fairly obvious distinctions clear in my mind before I set off burning down the house I’m living in because I’ve failed to remember that living in a house with a leaky roof is still better than seeking shelter under a pile of charred two-by-fours.
For those and other reasons, I tend to be a bit more reserved in my criticism of Democrats, keeping my myriad complaints mostly to myself lest I lend aid and comfort to an enemy I find to be far more troubling than the political party that is, alas, the only game in town for people who would rather not have a bunch of ignorant yahoos, misogynists, corporate crooks, religious fundamentalists, and racists running things.
So I held my tongue when Nancy Pelosi announced at the dawn of the Obama administration’s first term that prosecution of Bush & Co. for war crimes was “off the table.” And I held my tongue when the bailout money allotted to patch up the economy trashed by greedy Wall Streeters mostly went to greedy Wall Streeters. Recognizing Obama’s obvious intelligence and grace under pressure, I deferred to his judgment when he kept guys like Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke in their posts, and I mostly kept quiet about how disappointed I was when Eric Holder sat on his hands when it came to prosecuting some of the financial sector’s more egregious criminals whose pillaging had wiped out the equity in my house.
But now I see that Bernanke has shuttled over from his government post to cash in quite handsomely by taking a job with Citadel, a New York City hedge fund, at a rate of pay so high that neither Bernanke nor his new employer will say the number. Not to be outdone, Eric Holder, the former top law enforcement official in the land, has just sold his talents to JP Morgan Chase for $77 million a year, plus bonuses (that’s called “incentivizing, I think, since a mere $77 million base salary isn’t enough to really light a fire under a guy).
This is systemic corruption on a very grand scale, a pay-to-play scheme that ensures cynicism among those of us who would like to believe that at least one of the two political parties has the sort of principles that would at least recognize how unseemly it is for a man like Holder to take such a post at such a price.
There is something so profoundly wrong with this that even I can’t remain silent. The revolving door that took Dick Cheney from his post as Secretary of Defense to the top slot at Halliburton had been the most egregious example to that date of institutionalized corruption by politicians who no longer felt they even had to be subtle about ball’s out influence peddling. Forget that Boy Scout bullshit about serving your country; Cheney made plain just who was being served first in a system in which quid pro quo had become so entirely routine. Serve a couple of years in a government slot paying a paltry few hundred thousand a year, plus the kind of benefits working people never see, then resign in time to take one of the plum jobs offered in the financial sector or on K St. Become a “consultant” to outfits willing to pay big bucks to pick your brain for all the insider info you’d picked up about who might be malleable, and how to best get by those rules that applied to less well connected folks who can’t pay big consulting fees to handsomely retired civil “servants.” Who but a chump would do otherwise?
It’s a system that sucks big time, and one of the suckier things about it is how it fuels spirit-killing cynicism, contributes to the argument that we can’t fight city hall, convinces people that the game is wired, and that there is no essential difference between Republican crooks and Democratic Party crooks. It is corruption baked into the cake, a putrid pastry that feeds the “why bother?” zeitgeist underlying so much of what is wrong, and why so much of what is wrong can’t get fixed.
“Optics” is one of the tiresome clichés of our time, but the idea that it matters how things look remains important even when that idea gets eroded by lazy media overuse. Eric Holder’s decision not to prosecute any JP Morgan Chase malcreants while he was Attorney General may not have been influenced by the prospect of an obscene pay off when he left office, but that $77 million he’s pocketing not only doesn’t look good, it also stinks to high heaven. The harm done is incalculable, and it makes it damn near impossible for those of us who defend the Democratic Party to be very persuasive.
And that, alas, does at least as much as the Koch brothers do to make creeps, cretins, and crooks like Ted Cruz or Scott Walker look like viable presidential candidates. Nor does it help matters when the Democratic Party standard bearer is almost certain to be Hillary Clinton, a woman who has taken such enormous speaking fees from the same well-heeled people and corporations now wrapping Eric Holder up in a big bag of bucks as an expensive present to themselves. And though he didn’t come cheap, there’s no doubt that the people who Mr. Holder did the math, and they know he’ll pay off for them like a defective slot machine.
I’ll be voting for Hillary Clinton, most probably, because the alternatives are so bleak and unacceptable. And I’ll catch a ration of shit from “progressives” for supporting her because they will argue that guys like me are part of the problem even as they choose to sit out the election, or make the kind of symbolic protest vote that helped elect George W. Bush in 2000, with all the attendant miseries we’re still enduring.
But these sons of bitches like Holder sure aren’t making it easy for those of us who expect better from politicians who claim membership in a party that is the only voice for working people, the poor, the disenfranchised, and the under represented. Eric Holder should be ashamed of himself. Hillary, too. Whatever idealism might have initially led them to the Democratic Party appears to have been washed away in a flood of cash.
We, the people, need to demand that the door that leads from high government offices to automatic membership in the 1% be nailed shut. The bribes are now so huge that even people who may have started out with high ideals and principles can’t resist being corrupted.
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Matt Taibbi: Eric Holder Back to Wall Street-Tied Law Firm After Years of Refusing to Jail Bankers
Matt Taibbi
award-winning journalist with Rolling Stone magazine. His most recent book, The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap, is now out in paperback.
In the latest sign of the revolving door between Wall Street and Washington, recently retired U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is returning home — to the corporate law firm Covington & Burling, where he worked for eight years before becoming head of the Justice Department. During his time at Covington, Holder’s clients included UBS and the fruit giant Chiquita. The law firm’s client list has included many of the big banks Holder failed to criminally prosecute as attorney general for their role in the financial crisis, including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Citigroup. We speak with Matt Taibbi, award-winning journalist with Rolling Stone magazine. “I think this is probably the single biggest example of the revolving door that we’ve ever had,” Taibbi says.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We turn now to the latest sign of the revolving door between Wall Street and Washington. Recently retired U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is returning home—to the corporate law firm Covington & Burling, where he worked for eight years before becoming head of the Justice Department. During his time at Covington, Holder’s clients included UBS and the fruit giant Chiquita. The law firm’s client list has included many of the big banks that the Justice Department under Holder’s leadership failed to criminally prosecute for their role in the financial crisis, including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Citigroup.
AMY GOODMAN: In a new interview with The National Law Journal, Eric Holder said his, quote, “appropriately aggressive,” unquote, challenges to financial and corporate fraud could mean certain institutions “might not want to work with me,” he said, “and … that’s fine,” unquote. However, in 2013, Holder testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee and suggested some banks are too big to jail.
ATTORNEY GENERAL ERIC HOLDER: I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy. And I think that is a function of the fact that some of these institutions have become too large. Again, I’m not talking about HSBC; this is just a more general comment. I think it has an inhibiting influence—impact on our ability to bring resolutions that I think would be more appropriate.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, for more, we’re joined by Matt Taibbi, award-winning journalist with Rolling Stone magazine, who writes about Eric Holder’s time at Covington & Burling and much more in his book, The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap, which is now out in paperback.
It’s great to have you back, Matt.
MATT TAIBBI: Good morning.
AMY GOODMAN: So you were tweeting up a storm yesterday as this news came of the former attorney general, Eric Holder, going back to Covington & Burling. Talk about the significance of this.
MATT TAIBBI: Yeah, I mean, I think this is probably the single biggest example of the revolving door that we’ve ever had. And we’ve had some whoppers in our past. I think previously the worst one was probably Louisiana Congressman Billy Tauzin leaving Congress and taking a $2-million-a-year job with PhRMA, right after he helped pass the prescription drug benefit bill. But what Holder just did just blows Tauzin away. I mean, he spent six years essentially guiding all of these Wall Street firms, which many of them are clients of this company that he’s now working for—he guided them all back to profitability. He allowed bankers to escape prosecution. And now he’s going right back to that firm, where he’s going to enjoy a very lucrative partnership, whether he ever works again, you know, for the rest of his life.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Holder also sort of became a point person for these, quote, “extrajudicial settlements.”
MATT TAIBBI: Right.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Could you explain what those are and how they worked?
MATT TAIBBI: Yeah, Holder, in general, pioneered a number of different ways that essentially a lot of these too-big-to-fail companies were allowed to buy their way out of trouble. And one of the most notorious, I think, was that he concluded a number of the biggest settlement deals with banks like JPMorgan Chase in ways that were not reviewed by a judge. Because we did have some instances during this time period where pesky judges—I think one of the most infamous, in the eyes of Wall Street, was Jed Rakoff, who threw out a settlement with Citigroup because he thought it wasn’t harsh enough—well, to fix that problem, Holder just started striking deals and not submitting them for judicial review. So he did a $13 billion settlement with JPMorgan Chase where no judge signed off on the deal. The whole thing was done in secret. He essentially institutionalized the back room. This was just a deal where a bunch of bankers got together with a bunch of Justice Department officials, money changed hands, and that was it. The whole—all of their criminal problems went away. This is a very different way of doing business than what we’ve ever seen before, and it’s very dangerous, I think.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And he also took the term “collateral damage” into the financial world out of the military world, didn’t he, as well?
MATT TAIBBI: Right, yeah. He actually predated the collateral damage idea back when he was a lawyer in the Clinton Justice Department. He wrote a memo that—you know, it’s now known as the Holder Memo, where he outlined a policy that is called “collateral consequences,” and basically all this says is that if you’re a prosecutor and you’re worried about prosecuting a company that employs a lot of people and you’re concerned that innocent people might suffer as the result of a prosecution, you may pursue noncriminal remedies when you go after this company.
The problem was that when—by the time he became attorney general, the economic landscape was dotted all over with these enormous, too-big-to-fail companies, and there was a real threat that if you prosecuted these firms, that it might cause serious damage to the overall economy. Obviously we saw what happened with Lehman Brothers, for instance. So this became sort of the unofficial policy of the United States. We started taking companies that had done very bad things—you know, HSBC is probably the biggest example, laundering money for drug dealers—and instead of throwing people in jail and extracting huge individual penalties from the guilty parties, we just got the banks to pony up a big fine that shareholders paid, and they got to stay in business.
AMY GOODMAN: As you were tweeting your criticism yesterday, a lot of Obama supporters were also on social media pushing the line that Holder did not send anyone to jail because there were no laws broken.
MATT TAIBBI: Right, yeah, and this is—this comes, I think, directly from something that Barack Obama himself said on 60 Minutes once. He said some of the worst behavior on Wall Street was not illegal, some of the least ethical behavior was not illegal. But he crafted that phrase very carefully. He didn’t say all of it was not illegal. He said some of the worst behavior, and that’s true. But some of it was very illegal.
And again, just to go back to some of the worst cases, HSBC admitted to laundering $880 million for a pair of Central and South American drug cartels, including the Sinaloa drug cartel, which is infamous all over the world for these torture videos. So, we have HSBC, Europe’s largest bank, is washing hundreds of millions of dollars for people who chop people’s heads off with chainsaws. That’s a crime. I mean, there’s no—that’s the worst crime that a bank can possibly commit. And anybody who thinks that Holder didn’t send people to jail because they didn’t commit crimes is not really paying attention to what went on during this time.
AMY GOODMAN: Also at Covington & Burling, Eric Holder will be reunited with Lanny Breuer. Explain who he was and the significance of them together.
MATT TAIBBI: Well, Lanny Breuer worked at Covington & Burling along with Eric Holder. He went to Holder to become his deputy for the early part of his tenure as attorney general. He was the head of the Criminal Division. Lanny, from the sources that I spoke to while I was researching all this material, was terrified of going to court when he didn’t have an absolute, guaranteed, sure victory. And so, what happened very early in their tenure together was that they did take one case to trial. They went to trial against a pair of guys from Bear Stearns who were accused of defrauding their clients. And they lost. It ended in an acquittal, even though they had very solid documentary evidence. From that point forward, they didn’t take anybody to court. And all of these cases involving all of these banks, they went the settlement route instead, presumably because they were afraid of going into a courtroom. They were worried that juries didn’t understand this material. They were worried that it was too complicated. And so, rather than risk losing and getting a bad headline, they let off all of these people who had done very, very bad things, and so we have this legacy of cash instead of punishment.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Can you talk also about how the Justice Department and other regulatory groups have changed the composition of the staffing, the high-level staffing, of these agencies during this period when Holder has been there?
MATT TAIBBI: Yeah. This is something that I heard over and over again over the years, which is that a certain kind of person who used to work in the regulatory agencies, you know, who was a kind of a career civil servant, particularly the law enforcement types, the people who grew up through the ranks, you know, just trying to get the criminal at all costs—they’re primarily motivated by trying to extract justice from wrongdoers—that kind of person is gradually disappearing from the ranks of the regulatory bodies, and they are being replaced, increasingly, particularly at the higher levels, by people from the corporate defense community. And Holder was very profoundly a symbol of that kind of person.
And the difference was, when you have people who come from the corporate defense world, like Holder, like Lanny Breuer, they tend to approach these settlements not to get a pound of flesh out of the wrongdoers, but instead they want to emerge with a settlement that leaves everybody happy when they walk out of the room. But that’s really not a good approach to fighting crime. That’s not the kind of attitude you want in your top crime fighter in the country. And as a result, that’s how we got so many of these settlements, which, again, were concluded in secret, in the back room. And people like Jamie Dimon were walking out of these settlements, saying, “Well, this wasn’t so bad.” And their share price would go up the day after these settlements were concluded. That’s really not what we want from the top cop in the country.
AMY GOODMAN: And this goes to the central theme of your book, Matt Taibbi, The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap. I mean, Attorney General Eric Holder was hailed as a great civil rights hero. After Ferguson, he actually went to Ferguson. I was in the Selma church on the 50th anniversary of the Selma march just a few months ago, when he gave a powerful speech about young black men—his own son, Eric Holder III, in the front row—being killed, and kept repeating that. It reminds me of Reverend Barber in North Carolina, head of the NAACP, who, after Dylann Roof was arrested, the alleged shooter in the Charleston church, said, “The perpetrator has been arrested, but the killer is still at large.” And he was talking, overall, about the system, beyond the Confederate flag, what it represents—for example, mass incarceration—and how these things have to change.
MATT TAIBBI: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: So talk about what this means—on the one hand, a civil rights crusader, but when it comes to issues of who gets put in prison and who remains free, where Eric Holder has stood.
MATT TAIBBI: Yeah, I mean, to be fair, Eric Holder, you know, has talked a lot about reform of prison sentencing, and according to their statistics, incarceration has actually declined under the Obama administration for the first time in I don’t know how many years—forever. But still we have these enormous problems, like the story that you reported on in the beginning of this show. You have people who are in jail for not just for months, but years at a time, awaiting trial because they can’t afford bail. We have millions of people behind bars for crimes that are far less serious than what HSBC, for instance, was doing. And there’s this enormous dichotomy.
I think, you know, this is the—the chief problem with what Holder did is that there are all of these people who are in jail for crimes because it’s easy to put away people who don’t have enough money to defend themselves, who can’t pay enormous fines. Those are the people who end up going behind bars for crimes like money laundering or drug dealing or whatever it is. But we have this rationale for companies like HSBC or JPMorgan Chase or Credit Suisse or BNP Paribas, that are caught with doing tax evasion or money laundering or fraud or whatever it is, that somehow this class of defendants, we can allow them to pay their way out of trouble, while this other group of people has to go behind bars. And we just can’t have that. I mean, that system is totally inappropriate. And as much as Holder wants to hold himself out as a civil rights leader, and has done some good things, this dichotomy is really his legacy, and that’s an enormous problem.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And the issue of him returning to Covington & Burling, could you talk about that particular law firm, its role in the Washington scene? And also, what are the limitations on appointed officials, in terms of once they leave office what they can or can’t do, or did the Obama administration institute particular restrictions on their appointees?
MATT TAIBBI: They did. There is a two-year cooling-off period, they call it, where, you know, someone who leaves the Justice Department has to wait for two years before they can interact with the Justice Department again. This means that even though Eric Holder has gone back to work, he has to sit for 19 months during this cooling-off period and do I don’t know what. I’m sure he’s going to be compensated very handsomely during that time.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: But he can advise the lawyers that do the direct interaction.
MATT TAIBBI: Exactly, yeah. They’ll figure out some way to do it so that it’s, you know, superficially legal. But there is this cooling-off period. Covington & Burling, what its significance is, it’s one of the biggest white-collar defense firms in America. It is notable because it has such a lengthy list of too-big-to-fail banks among its clientele. It also, very interestingly, played a very important role in helping to create the subprime mortgage crisis, because it represented a company called MERS, which was the electronic mortgage registry system, which helped create a lot of the confusion and chaos in the paperwork area of the mortgage system. All these people who were trying to find out who owns their home and can’t find the note, a lot of that is chalked up to the work that MERS did to eliminate paper mortgages. So they had an enormous role in helping create this subprime mortgage market. And then, of course, Eric Holder goes, and he’s the regulator for all that activity, you know, as the attorney general. It was a little weird, to say the least.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about Keir Gumbs?
MATT TAIBBI: Keir Gumbs? I’m sorry.
AMY GOODMAN: Keir Gumbs—
MATT TAIBBI: Oh, who has just become the—
AMY GOODMAN: —the man that Senator Warren has been protesting, would be put—
MATT TAIBBI: Right, who’s