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 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
| “He
was one of the Clintons' most loyal, partisan, and aggressive
defenders.” |
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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.
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