DOWNSIDE LEGACY AT TWO DEGREES OF PRESIDENT CLINTON
SECTION: THE CAST
SUBSECTION: ERIC HOLDER
Revised 8/19/99

 

Deputy Attorney General Holder was born on January 21, 1951, in New York City. He attended public schools there, graduating in 1969 from Stuyvesant High School where he earned a Regents Scholarship. He attended Columbia College, majored in American History, and was graduated in 1973. Mr. Holder then attended Columbia Law School from which he was graduated in 1976. While in Law School he clerked at the N.A.A.C.P. Legal Defense Fund and the Department of Justice's Criminal Division.

Upon graduating from Columbia Law School, Deputy Attorney General Holder moved to Washington and joined the Department of Justice as part of the Attorney General's Honors Program. He was assigned to the newly formed Public Integrity Section in 1976 and was tasked to investigate and prosecute official corruption on the local, state and federal levels. While at the Public Integrity Section, Mr. Holder participated in a number of prosecutions and appeals involving such defendants as the Treasurer of the state of Florida, the Ambassador to the Dominican Republic, a local judge in Philadelphia, an Assistant United States Attorney in New York City, agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and a "capo" in an organized crime family.

In 1988, Mr. Holder was nominated by the President to become an Associate Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. His investiture occurred in October of that year. Over the next five years, Judge Holder presided over hundreds of criminal trials, many of which involved homicides and other crimes of violence.

In 1993, President Clinton nominated Mr. Holder to become the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia. Mr. Holder was confirmed in October of that year and served as the head of the largest U.S. Attorney's Office in the nation for nearly four years. As U.S. Attorney, Mr. Holder created a new Domestic Violence Unit to more effectively handle those types of tragic cases, implemented a community prosecution pilot project to work hand-in-hand with residents and local government agencies in order to make neighborhoods safer, supported a renewed enforcement emphasis on hate crimes so that criminal acts of intolerance will be severely punished, developed a comprehensive strategy to improve the manner in which agencies handle cases involving the abuse of children, launched a new community outreach program to reconnect the U.S. Attorney's Office with the citizens it serves, revitalized the Victim/Witness Assistance Program to better serve those individuals who are directly affected by crime, and developed "Operation Ceasefire," an initiative designed to reduce violent crime by getting guns out of the hands of criminals.

On April 14, 1997, President Clinton nominated Mr. Holder to be the Deputy Attorney General. He was confirmed by a Senate vote of 100 to 0 and was sworn in as Deputy Attorney General on July 18, 1997. The Honorable Eric H. Holder, Jr., was sworn in as the Deputy Attorney General of the United States on July 18, 1997, in a private ceremony. A public ceremony attended by Attorney General Janet Reno and other dignitaries was held on September 5, 1997. As Deputy Attorney General, Mr. Holder is responsible for the supervision of the day-to-day operation of the Department of Justice. He is now the highest ranking black person in law enforcement in the history of the United States.

Deputy Attorney General Holder has been active in the organization Concerned Black Men. This group seeks to help the youth of the District of Columbia with many of the problems they face, ranging from teenage pregnancy to sub-par academic achievement. Mr. Holder lives in Northwest Washington with his wife, Sharon Malone, who is a doctor in obstetrics and gynecology, and his children, Maya, Brooke and Eric.

 

Downside Legacy Excerpts/Timeline:

October 1993 Eric Holder confirmed as the United States Attorney for the District of Colombia.

The U.S. Attorney's office for three and a half years, under the leadership of Eric Holder, never found a single instance of high level corruption in the District of Columbia government that was worth bringing to indictment, much less to trial.

3/28/94 USA Today pp 04 Dennis Cauchon; Adam Nagourney, New complaints of interference latest ripple // Stephanopoulos conversation with Treasury official at issue "...The White House is fighting new complaints of interference in the Whitewater probe, undercutting President Clinton's news conference and the release of his tax records. The new complaints center on a Feb. 25 conversation between senior Clinton adviser George Stephanopoulos and Treasury Department chief of staff Joshua Steiner. Stephanopoulos was angry that federal regulators had hired Republican former U.S. attorney Jay Stephens to conduct its civil investigation into Madison Savings & Loan. Clinton had fired Stephens from his job as chief federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C., in part of a nationwide removal of Republican appointees from their jobs. Stephens said at the time the firing may have been connected to an attempt to thwart a probe of Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, D-Ill...."

Rostenkowski plea bargain leaked.

5/21/94 NPR Weekend Edition Foreign Policy Topping Clinton's Agenda "...NEAL CONAN, Host: NPR and DANIEL SCHORR, Reporter:

CONAN: Well, speaking on the legal front for a moment, there are some interesting negotiations apparently underway between federal prosecutors and Dan Rostenkowski, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, that's normally the powerful chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. They're trying to find, apparently, some action short of an indictment that would require his removal as chairman. And this is raising, I would think, very difficult decisions for the federal prosecutor.

SCHORR: Well you say `They're trying to find.' I think that, so far as I know, it is so far only Rostenkowski and his lawyers who are trying to find. The U.S. attorney in this case, Eric Holder, Clinton appointee now dealing with Rostenkowski's lawyer, Bob Bennett, who is always President Clinton's lawyer in the Paula Jones case - you following all that?

CONAN: Yes.

SCHORR: Well, Mr. Holder has an agonizing problem. It isn't only that going for a felony indictment, that would carry a potential sentence to prison of two years or more, would mean that under House Democratic caucus rules Rostenkowski would then automatically be removed, as when indicted, not when convicted. As chairman of Ways and Means, that will be a serious setback for the president's health insurance plans. It's also that Holder has to figure out how it would look here in the District of Columbia to be- he was- be locking up a lot of black drug offenders and letting this white big-shot off with a misdemeanor charge. I suspect that the leaking of the plea bargain negotiation came from somebody who wanted to torpedo those negotiations and that does not look good for a plea bargain for Cong. Rostenkowski...."

6/2/94 Newsday pp A05 Charles V. Zehren, Probe Pressure '91 tape claims threats in House P.O. investigation "... During the two years since the scandal broke, federal prosecutors have obtained nine indictments - including that of Rostenkowski, the only member of Congress indicted - and a number of convictions. The Democratic portion of the House administration report, meanwhile, concluded that elements of the affair should be reviewed by the ethics committee. House Democrats, however, still refuse to conduct an investigation, arguing that such an action would jeopardize Justice Department prosecutions. The minority portion of the report says that in the process of reviewing Post Office operations, congressional investigators discovered that no fewer than 13 current and former House members from both parties may have committed improper activities in violation of House rules and/or criminal codes. "There are a lot of others involved in the Post Office scandal," said Rep. John E. Boehner (R-Ohio), who also has called repeatedly for an ethics probe. "Employees, other members, and former members." U.S. Attorney Eric H. Holder, who is prosecuting Rostenkowski and other matters associated with the Post Office, wrote to ethics committee chairman Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) warning against a parallel House investigation. Such an action would "interfere directly with the federal grand jury's final consideration of possible criminal charges," Holder wrote...."

Eric Holder warns against a parallel House Investigation into Post Office operations because it would interfere with the federal grand jury…

6/24/94 USA Today pp 08 Charmagne Helton; Leslie Phillips; Richard Benedetto, Whitewater papers to be turned over. "...POSTAL INQUIRY: A House ethics committee wants to investigate the House post office but U.S. Attorney Eric Holder said it may interfere with another criminal investigation. Republicans have requested the investigation for months but were halted by Democrats honoring Holder's request. The 17-count indictment of Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, D-Ill., on charges including embezzlement through the post office, has prompted the call for action......"

12/29/94 The Wall Street Journal Page A10 Spent Force "...It's been two years since Hillary Clinton assembled 1,000 volunteers into a "task force" to brainstorm a total redesign of 14% of the nation's economy. The resulting proposal collapsed, of course, but the now-familiar subject of the Clinton folks' way of conducting public business … remains as a legal controversy. Last week, a federal judge called on the Justice Department to investigate whether health czar Ira Magaziner deliberately lied to the court in an effort to derail a lawsuit challenging the task force's right to meet secretly. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth doesn't mince words. After identifying a pattern of White House misconduct related to the task force, he asked Eric Holder, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, to establish if Mr. Magaziner "did commit the criminal offense of contempt of court - as well as possible perjury and/or making a false statement." Judge Lamberth concluded that Mr. Magaziner had indeed made false statements about the task force, but said prosecutors must decide if they were made knowingly. ..."

12/29/94 The Wall Street Journal Page A10 Spent Force "...The judge's ruling closes out a lawsuit filed 21 months ago by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons and two other health care groups that successfully sought public disclosure of the task force's records. The 1972 Federal Advisory Committee Act requires that all meetings of advisory committees must be open to the public unless wholly made up of federal officers or employees. In response, Mr. Magaziner filed a sworn declaration to Judge Lamberth in March 1993 stating that everyone working for the task force was a government employee or consultant, and so the group could shield documents and meetings from the public. Judge Lamberth now says Mr. Magaziner's declaration led the court "to initially dismiss the claim for records." But he says it's now clear that Mr. Magaziner was "misleading, at best" in his statements, and Judge Lamberth intends to impose unspecified sanctions against the White House at a final hearing January 9...."

12/29/94 The Wall Street Journal Page A10 Spent Force "...Back when debate raged over the details of the proposal itself, the Clinton Administration resisted requests for the records for 18 months, finally releasing 500,000 documents last August. However, last month Judge Lamberth found that scores of documents had been removed from the records prior to their release on the grounds that they were dated after the task force disbanded in May 1993. But after Judge Lamberth ordered the missing files released, it was discovered that many were either dated before the task force shut down or indicated that its members continued to work on the health care plan. Dr. Jane Orient, the physician who led the suit over the task force, feels the government's record in the case is strewn with bad faith and duplicity. The Justice Department itself was involved with helping Mr. Magaziner prepare his disputed declaration and Clinton crony Webb Hubbell was actively involved in the government's defense of the task force while he was the No. 3 official at Justice…Having at last handed off the remains of the health care task force to Prosecutor Holder, Judge Lamberth is now free to read this latest set of explanations at his leisure. ..."

Eric Holder, US Attorney for District of Colombia decides NOT to prosecute Ira Magaziner

8/5/95 The Phoenix Gazette Prosecutor Saturday Pg A16, Takes Health Panel To Task "...Though he decided not to prosecute White House aide Ira Magaziner, a federal prosecutor has criticized government lawyers' handling of a legal battle over the White House health reform task force that Magaziner supervised. Eric Holder, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, has concluded there is no evidence Magaziner should be prosecuted over allegations he lied under oath during the litigation by medical groups over the task force. Holder explained his decision in an 18-page letter to U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, who released it Friday...."

8/9/95 Wall Street Journal Section A; Page 8, Column 1 IRA BEATS THE RAP Abstract "...Editorial comments on US Attorney Eric Holder's decision not to prosecute Ira Magaziner on perjury charges related to his claims about the Clinton health-care task force...."

USA Today 4/9/96 pp04A William M. Welch, Rostenkowski expected to make plea bargain Would be jailed 17 months, fined $100,000, under deal. "...At the same time Rostenkowski's lawyer, Dan Webb, was challenging the charges against Rostenkowski, he was also negotiating with U.S. Attorney Eric Holder toward a plea bargain. Rostenkowski rejected just such a deal when he was represented by President Clinton's lawyer, Robert Bennett. He got a new lawyer rather than take the deal Bennett had won for him -- pleading to a single count in exchange for a six-month sentence -- about one-third the jail time he is now facing -- and a $38,000 payment to the government....."

Then U.S. Attorney Eric Holder - now deputy attorney general - wrote an internal memo, indicating that any charges in the officers' case would have to originate from the Department of Justice.

April 14, 1997, President Clinton nominated Mr. Holder to be the Deputy Attorney General

5/17/97 pp PG Washington Afro-American Investigation of tax fraud delays Holder's confirmation By Desiree Allen Graves Washington AFRO Staff "....U.S. Attorney Eric Holder Jr. was nominated as Deputy Attorney General (DAG) of the United States, the second highest position at the Justice Department, in March by President Clinton. However, the day before Mr. Holder's Senate confirmation hearing was to take place, the Federal Judiciary Committee announced that the hearing would be delayed due to an investigation of tax fraud. The Senate wants more information from Mr. Holder's office about its role in asking the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) not to audit the tax returns of D.C. police officers who were clients of a D.C. tax preparer, Mohinder Singh........According to prosecutor William Block, Mr. Singh is being charged with fabricating deductions so taxpayers could get larger refunds. This investigation is currently taking place in the U.S. District Court. According to the IRS and the U.S. Attorney's Office, the November 1995 "no-audit" request was initiated for D.C. police officers who were Mr. Singh's clients. The "no-audit" ban was lifted in May 1995 and many police officers have been audited since that time. Although Mr. Singh had approximately 500 D.C. police officers as clients, the investigation focused on about 70 officers at first, then 50 officers, and is now focused on approximately 20 police officers....."

Judge Lambert declared a mistrial in the tax-fraud case citing "prosecutorial misconduct" on the part of lawyers from Mr. Holder’s office.

6/12/97 Wall Street Journal Holder Hearing "... Most specifically, we remain very concerned whether Mr. Holder is going to recuse himself from investigations touching on the affairs of the late Commerce Secretary Ron Brown. These will all be matters of judgment, and as such Mr. Holder's tenure as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia is relevant. Mr. Holder's confirmation hearing was delayed last month to give him time to respond to concerns about a request from his office that the IRS not investigate the tax returns of 600 District police officers involved in a tax fraud case. Then last week, the controversy escalated when U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth declared a mistrial in the tax-fraud case citing "prosecutorial misconduct" on the part of lawyers from Mr. Holder's office. Judge Lamberth said that prosecutors had prepared a key witness contrary to his instructions. We trust that some or all of this will be aired during Friday's confirmation hearing. We're less certain that there will be much discussion of Mr. Holder's increasingly curious role in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit over Ron Brown's Commerce Department records, where lawyers from Mr. Holder's office have been repeatedly rebuked by Judge Lamberth. The FOIA lawsuit was filed in January 1995 by Larry Klayman, head of the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch. Mr. Klayman believes that seats on Commerce Department trade missions were offered in exchange for campaign contributions by the office of Secretary Brown. Mr. Klayman so far has received 27,000 pages of documents from Commerce, but he continues to turn up evidence that the most crucial documents have been kept from him. Last August, Judge Lamberth granted a motion for sanctions against Bruce Hegyi, a deputy to Mr. Holder who is representing Commerce in the Klayman lawsuit, "for discovery abuse" and for walking out of a deposition. In February, Judge Lamberth responded to Mr. Hegyi's arguments that Mr. Klayman's questions were too searching by saying: "Every time he turns up a rock, he finds something, so why are you telling me I can't let him turn up another rock?"

6/12/97 Wall Street Journal Holder Hearing "...Mr. Klayman has turned up some new rocks recently. For example, Graham Whatley, a Commerce deputy assistant secretary, revealed that Commerce kept a list of "minority donors" to the DNC, despite earlier denials such a list existed. The list of 139 names was broken into categories such as "DNC Friends" and "Chairman's Circle." Five of those on the list joined Mr. Brown on a single trade mission to South Africa in 1993 When Mr. Klayman demanded a copy of the DNC donor list, it was finally turned over to him over two years after a court order by Judge Lamberth ordering a full FOIA search of all Commerce files. A department spokesman explained that the list was considered a "personal document, not a Commerce document." The list's discovery energized Mr. Holder, who wrote Judge Lamberth that the Whatley "testimony was a surprise" and that he was referring the matter to the Inspector General of the Commerce Department "for an appropriate investigation." Mr. Klayman has asked Judge Lamberth to grant an immediate status conference on his case. Mr. Holder responded by writing Judge Lamberth that an early hearing would be "problematic" because several of his lawyers with "an interest in attending the hearing" are on vacation during June. Separately, Mr. Holder has noted that Commerce employee Beth Bergere, who was responsible for searching a key office for FOIA documents, is unavailable for a deposition due to "a unique vacation opportunity." Mr. Holder asked that her deposition be rescheduled. At a minimum, this temporizing sounds like a stretch. Or an attempt to push off any revelations from the status hearing to beyond Mr. Holder's confirmation hearing before the Hatch committee.

6/12/97 Wall Street Journal Holder Hearing "...Against this backdrop, we think it is very important for the committee to raise the Brown recusal matter with Mr. Holder. Ron Brown was Mr. Holder's friend and mentor, and his activities are currently bound up in the campaign funding controversies. The Hatch committee needs to hear Mr. Holder's direct views on what we could expect to be his relationship to these matters as deputy attorney general..."

Judicial Watch investigations, blocked by Holder for two years turn up the Huang spy scandal

http://federal.com/jun16-97/Cash "...Equally shocking is it that the Huang spy scandal was not uncovered by the U.S. media. It was uncovered by the private watchdog group Judicial Watch during its investigation of the corrupt dealings of the late Commerce Secretary Ron Brown. Those investigations were blocked in court for almost two years by the office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. The leader of that office, Eric Holder, was recently nominated by Bill Clinton to Deputy Attorney General and sailed through a superficial confirmation hearing in the Senate last week. Both the mainstream media and the Senators on the Committee completely failed to point out Holder's involvement in the cover-up of the John Huang spy scandal..."

July 18, 1997 Eric Holder sworn in as Deputy Attorney General

Washington Weekly 7/20/97 ".It all started with the "D.A. Massacre" at the U.S. Justice Department. The Clinton administration in 1993 fired all U.S. Attorneys and replaced them with loyal cronies. That almost ended accountability for the Clinton administration, because indictment for crimes would have to be brought by U.S. Attorneys. An example is U.S. Attorney Eric Holder, conveniently placed at the District of Columbia-the actual crime scene for most of the misdeeds of the Clinton Administration. He has repeatedly refused prosecution of Clinton administration employees despite referrals with clear evidence of wrongdoing.. The Inspectors General of the different government agencies are the ethics and crime watchdogs. During the Clinton administration, they, as well as the respective general counsels, were replaced with loyal cronies answering no longer to the people of the United States but to the White House Counsel's office, the central intelligence office of the operation as we shall see later..Political intelligence gathered by Inspector Generals and other covert operatives of the White House Counsel's office has limited value if it cannot be turned into action. This is where political blackmail enters the picture. A truly corrupt administration can only survive if it can control public opinion, the judicial system, and the political system. Public opinion is controlled by the Clinton-friendly media. The judicial system has been taken care of as described above. That leaves the political system, which can still hold hearings and vote to impeach. The only effective way to deal with politicians is by blackmail. To blackmail a politician, you need dirt. To collect dirt, you need a private investigator or FBI agents. The White House has and uses both.. The replacement of the FBI director and the appointment of an Attorney General, both of whom are loyal cronies of the Clinton administration is an important part of the plan. Take as an example the current campaign financing scandal."

The U.S. Attorney's Office gave up on the botched tax- fraud case and dropped all charges against Mr. Singh, whose accounting business had prepared returns for hundreds of D.C. police officers

8/20/97 – [Chinese Espionage] DOJ and DOE officials met at the Justice Department to discuss security issues at DOE. Officials present included Attorney General Reno, Deputy Attorney General Holder, and DOE's intelligence chief, Notra Trulock. After this meeting, the head of FBI's National Security Division, John Lewis, mentioned to the Attorney General that the FBI had sought a FISA warrant in the Wen-Ho Lee case, but that "we've been turned down by OIPR.

12/10/97 Testimony before Congress Cox questioning Reno http://www.conservativenet.com/HotTopics.main/HotMike/document-12.10.1997.3.html

"RENO: Don't say it's like finished with me. It sounds like you're giving me a hard time. I think you're -- you're -- I appreciate the chairman's thoughtfulness in terms of just pursuing it. But I hope you're not finished with me, because I hope that you will continue your oversight function.

COX: I mean to do so.

You told the chairman that you discussed your decision not to go forward with an independent counsel with political as well as career people at the Department of Justice. But you declined to answer his question when he asked you specifically whether you discussed this matter with Eric Holder or Mr. Hogan, your chief of staff.

And I'd like to ask you those questions once again. Did you -- I don't want to ask you what you discussed with them. And I think I can understand the basis of your...

RENO: I discussed my discussion with senior staff at the Department of Justice. I discussed it with Director Freeh. I discussed it with lawyers in the department.

COX: Does that include Eric Holder and Mr. Hogan?

RENO: Again, I don't think that I should talk about what people advised me when it is my decision.

COX: I think we may have a disagreement about whether you have to answer this question. Is it your view you do not have to answer this question?

RENO: My hope is that this committee would understand how important it is to have full and frank discussion, and that they would honor that.

COX: And for that reason, I do not wish to ask you anything about the content of your conversation with these people, but I do wish to know whether or not you discussed this question with them. Those two people. Either one of them. Did you discuss this matter with them?

RENO: Discuss what question with them?

COX: Your decision whether to proceed with an independent counsel in this matter.

RENO: I think if I tell you who I discussed it with, then your next question is going to be, what did you discuss, and I am trying my level best to answer...

COX: What is your basis for declining to answer the question?

RENO: ... the question.

COX: I mean, apart from discretion? Do you believe that we cannot properly as members of Congress know the answer to this question?

RENO: I just would hope that you'd realize that you made me responsible and that you'd ask me the questions about why I did something or why I didn't.

COX: Well, Mr. Chairman, it is my understanding that absent a claim of executive privilege, it is perfectly within the province of this committee to know the answer to the question that you earlier put and the question that I just put again. Since the witness is obviously uninterested in answering the question that we have fairly put to her, I would request of the attorney general and ask the chairman to, or to make the same request, that we get a valid claim of privilege in writing from the Department of Justice following the hearing.

RENO: Here's the answer. This is in my letter to Senator Hatch of April the 14th, 1997.

`Fourth, even this discretionary provision is not available unless I find a conflict of interest of the sort contemplated by the act. The Congress has made it very clear that this provision should be invoked only in certain narrow circumstances. \

``Under the act I must conclude that there is a potential for an actual conflict of interest, rather than merely an appearance of a conflict of interest. The Congress expressly adopted this higher standard to ensure that the provision would not be invoked unnecessarily. See 1/28, Congressional Record H.9507, Daily Edition December 13th, 1982, statement of Representative Hall.

``Moreover, I must find that there is the potential for such an actual conflict with respect to the investigation of a particular person, not with respect to the overall matter. Indeed, when the act was reauthorized in 1994, Congress considered a proposal for a more flexible standard for invoking the discretionary clause which would have permitted it to use its use to refer any matter to an independent counsel when the purposes of the act would be served. Congress rejected this suggestion, explaining that such a standard would substantially lower the threshold for use of the general discretionary provision. H.R. Conference Report number 511, 103rd Congress, 2nd Session, 9, 1994.''

COX: Mr. Chairman, I see that my time has expired. With all respect to the attorney general, I'm a lawyer. The statue trumps your memo. The statute says may. It's clearly potential. And with respect to...

RENO: I'd be happy to get any memorandum that you have and consider it.

COX: With respect to the questions that are still pending that attorney general has refused to answer, I would reiterate my request of the attorney general that she provide us with a written statement of her claim of privilege and her refusal to answer those questions.

BURTON: We will make that request and we'll pursue this further. Mr. Lantos...."

12/12/97 DC Watch DC WATCH...CITIZENS MUST HAVE A ROLE "...What did the City Council do about this testimony? Nothing, so long as Lieutenant Duckett, Commander Boggs, and Chief Soulsby remained on the force. But, on December 5, 1997, after these three officers had safely retired, Sergeants Hill and Sanders were called back again to testify before the Council. Councilmembers were shocked - shocked - to hear that there was gambling going on in the back room at Rick's - and expressed their dismay that Lieutenant Duckett, Commander Boggs, and Chief Soulsby couldn't be called to testify, since they had retired from the MPD. Avoidance of tough, hard-hitting, effective oversight is what citizens have come to expect from the Council, and we have no reason to expect anything different from it in the future.

12/12/97 DC Watch DC WATCH...CITIZENS MUST HAVE A ROLE "...The third separate proposal to investigate corruption that has been made in the past three days came from Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton. Delegate Norton has asked Acting U.S. Attorney Wilma Lewis to initiate and lead an investigation of corruption in the Metropolitan Police Department. This is the same U.S. Attorney's office that for three and a half years, under the leadership of Eric Holder, never found a single instance of high level corruption in the District of Columbia government that was worth bringing to indictment, much less to trial. .... "

12/19/97 Wall Street Journal Editorial, Officials "Run Amok" "... The following is the concluding section of an opinion issued yesterday by Federal District Judge Royce Lamberth in Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, Inc, et al. v. Hillary Rodham Clinton, et al. The case concerned whether federal open meeting laws applied to the First Lady's Health Care task force, and a declaration by "Health Czar" Ira Magaziner that it was exempt because only federal employees were members of the task force. Judge Lamberth referred Mr. Magaziner for a perjury investigation; U.S. Attorney Eric Holder criticized the government but declined to prosecute. Mr. Holder is now Deputy Attorney General. We note that there is growing concern about the standing of the Justice Department in light of Attorney General Janet Reno's decision not to seek an independent counsel in the campaign finance investigation…..The court agrees with plaintiffs that these were not reckless and inept errors taken by bewildered counsel. The Executive Branch of the government, working in tandem, was dishonest with this court. . . .The Department of Justice has a long tradition of setting the highest standards of conduct for all lawyers, and it is a sad day when this court must conclude, as did the United States Attorney in his investigation, that the Department of Justice succumbed to pressure from White House attorneys and others to provide this court with "strained interpretations" that were "ultimately unconvincing." *** "

12/19/97 Wall Street Journal Editorial, Officials "Run Amok" "... This court goes further than the United States Attorney, however, because this court cannot agree that the Department of Justice never relied on the "all employee" exemption for the working group. Having been presented the "all-employee" facts in the Magaziner declaration, the Court of Appeals specifically found that the defendants had made that argument. Neither the briefs on appeal, nor any transcript of the oral argument on appeal, was before this court. Yet the Department of Justice sat back and never told this court that it was not making, and had not made, such an argument, and never corrected any of the factual inaccuracies in the Magaziner declaration. The United States Attorney reported that this was a conscious decision because attorneys in the White House refused to allow any supplemental information to be provided to the court. It seems that some government officials never learn that the coverup can be worse than the underlying conduct...."

12/19/97 Wall Street Journal Editorial, Officials "Run Amok" "... Most shocking to this court, and deeply disappointing, is that the Department of Justice would participate in such conduct. This was not an issue of good faith word games being played with the Court. The United States Attorney found that the most controversial sentence of the Magaziner declaration--"Only federal government employees serve as members of the interdepartmental working group"--could not be prosecuted under the perjury statute because the issue of "membership" within the working group was a fuzzy one, and no generally agreed upon "membership" criteria were ever written down. Therefore, the Magaziner declaration was actually false because of the implication of the declaration that "membership" was a meaningful concept and that one could determine who was and was not a "member" of the working group. This whole dishonest explanation was provided to this court in the Magaziner declaration on March 3, 1993, and this court holds that such dishonesty is sanctionable and was not good faith dealing with the court or plaintiff's counsel. It was not timely corrected or supplemented, and this type of conduct is reprehensible, and the government must be held accountable for it. ***... The court adheres to its view, expressed at the August 11, 1995, hearing, that "it is remarkable that any United States Attorney would make comments to a court that are so sharply critical, frankly, of the government conduct of this litigation . . . ." The court adds that it is beyond remarkable, it is commendable, and it demonstrates adherence to the traditional role of the Department of Justice that justice be done rather than that a case be won at any cost. The elevation of United States Attorney Holder to be Deputy Attorney General is an encouraging and hopeful sign that this case was a rare aberration--never to be repeated in this court...."

Judge Lamberth states "The United States Attorney found that the most controversial sentence of the Magaziner declaration--"Only federal government employees serve as members of the interdepartmental working group"--could not be prosecuted under the perjury statute because the issue of "membership" within the working group was a fuzzy one, and no generally agreed upon "membership" criteria were ever written down…"

12/19-25/97 Washington's City Paper D.C.'S GOVERNMENT OF THE ABSURD "........Harlan's foremost concerns seem to be territorial-he clearly doesn't want to deal with another entity that could compete against the board for control of MPD. During his swearing-in as the city's newly elected at-large member of the D.C. Council this past Monday, Republican David Catania said the control board now seems more interested "in the accumulation of power" than in fulfilling its original mission to reform District government…… Evans, chair of the council's judiciary committee, concurred with Harlan's decision. He blasted the U.S. Attorney's office for failing to pursue allegations of police corruption. Turning a blind eye to MPD's follies, however, certainly didn't hurt former U.S. Attorney Eric Holder, who got promoted to the No. 2 job at the Justice Department this year and is now on the U.S. Attorney General track...."

12/27/97 Judicial Watch CLINTON'S REFUSAL TO FIRE MAGAZINER CONFIRMS THAT LIES WERE GENERATED AT THE TOP "...President Clinton was ironically correct not to fire Ira Magaziner, for not only is this punishment insufficient, he and the First Lady must themselves accept the responsibility for the perjury which was committed. This conduct was part of a pattern of lies, deceit and criminality in The White House, for which Clinton must now be impeached and prosecuted criminally. The mere firing of Magaziner would send the wrong signal; that the buck no longer stops at the President's desk." Those, such as The Washington Post editorial page, which seek to diminish the importance of not lying, by claiming that Magaziner was 'let off the hook' by Eric Holder -- himself a political Clinton appointee who aspires to the Supreme Court and whose lawyers at the U.S. Attorney's Office were sanctioned in Judicial Watch's cases against the Clinton Administration -- are doing a grave disservice to the country. For unless there is ethics and honesty in The White House, a bad example will continue to be set for the rest of the country, including the nation's youth which, with each successive generation, slips more and more into moral decline...."

Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder said investigators have no credible evidence under the Independent Counsel Act against the Clinton administration in its decision to allow Loral to export a communications satellite to China.

The Washington Weekly 4/6/98 Editorial "…THE SILENT COUP It would seem that the Clinton administration has won a silent coup by short-circuiting the judicial system. It can no longer be prosecuted or removed. Only two people in positions of power have not been intimidated or corrupted: Lawyer Larry Klayman of Judicial Watch and Judge Royce Lamberth who sits on the federal bench. Together, these two have performed miracles in the Chinagate, Filegate, and HealthCareGate scandals. But their hands are tied. All they can do is to force testimony. Whenever criminal acts have been uncovered during Klayman's investigations or Lamberth's civil trials, those criminal acts have been referred to a U.S. Attorney. One of Clinton's first acts in office was to replace all U.S. Attorneys with loyal and corrupt cronies. Not only have all these U.S. Attorneys failed to initiate any criminal prosecution of Clinton administration employees on their own, they have also interfered with prosecutions by other jurisdictions (D.A. Robert Morgenthau of Manhattan and his money laundering investigation, for example) and they have failed to prosecute any of the referrals they have received from Judge Lamberth and from Congress. The crucial office of U.S. Attorney in the District of Columbia, where by their very nature most Clinton administration crimes have been committed, was given to the corrupt Ron Brown protege Eric Holder. Holder was last year rewarded for years of obstruction of justice with an appointment to Deputy Attorney General…."

5/27/98 FLORIDA TODAY Space Online China-Loral questions and answers (May 27, 1998) "...Justice has begun an investigation into the Clinton administration decision in February to allow Loral to export a communications satellite to China for launch on a Chinese-built rocket. The grand jury probe could encompass whether the decision to allow the export despite the pending criminal investigation of Loral was improperly influenced by the generous political contributions to the Democratic Party of Loral chief Bernard Schwartz, according to a Justice Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity. Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder said investigators have no credible evidence in this matter against President Clinton or any other top official covered by the Independent Counsel Act. Attorney General Janet Reno has rejected an early suggestion that the probe be turned over to an independent counsel, but Holder said that could change if new evidence arises. The White House says it approved this year's Loral satellite export strictly on substantive grounds after concluding that no sensitive technology would go to the Chinese. Schwartz says he is a lifelong Democratic contributor and sought no special favors from Clinton...."

Justice Department memo still showing as "ongoing" long-dormant cases that could embarrass Clinton. Eric Holder desperately trying to retrieve all copies of the memo…

CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 8/20/98 Robert Novak "...As it downsizes and gets ready to go out of business, the Justice Department's task force on campaign finance is acting strangely. It lists as "ongoing" long-dormant cases that could embarrass President Clinton. It has classified as "inactive" the probe of an inquiry into a major fixer of illegal Chinese campaign contributions. And it still lists as "active" an inquiry that appeared to surely be dead: targeting former Republican National Chairman Haley Barbour. This is the kind of information that closed-mouth Attorney General Janet Reno would not reveal to Congress, much less to the public, even under excruciating torture. The status of the task force's investigation is disclosed in a three-page memo dated June 4, which was not leaked by the zippered-up Justice Department but was inadvertently released. In the intervening two months, Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder has been desperately trying to retrieve all copies. No wonder. The cryptic document tends to confirm suspected politicization at Justice. That is the interpretation of Reno's most severe congressional critic: Rep. Dan Burton, chairman of the House Government Reform Committee. Shown a copy of the task force document, Burton told me: "The attorney general was blocking for the president, to keep us from holding hearings."

Vol 6 page 2649 10/11/98 Kenneth Starr Freeper reports ".Dear Deputy Attorney General Holder: Rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure binds all attorneys for the government, including those employed by the Department of Justice who are privy to information regarding "matters occurring before the grand jury." And, as Chief Judge Johnson has recently written, Rule 6(e) protects against the disclosure not merely of the actual testimony of grand jury witnesses before the grand jury but also of the substance of their testimony as conveyed to government attorneys and agents in anticipation of their grand jury appearance. The enclosed article from Newsweek magazine recounts in detail what Officers Muskett and Byrne told "Secret Service and Justice Department lawyers." The article identifies its source as these "government lawyers" and makes out a potential & facie case that attorneys for the Department of Justice (and possibly Secret Service) involved in the litigation have violated Rule 6(e). Please advise me at your earliest convenience of the steps you are taking to identify the source of these disclosures and prevent future violations of Rule 6(e) so that 1. may take appropriate action.."

Rule6(e) leaks from "government lawyers" regarding Kenneth Starr’s investigation

10/21/98 Pete Yost AP "...Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr told a federal appeals court Wednesday there is evidence that Clinton friend Webster Hubbell engaged in obstruction of justice and that a tax evasion case against him should be reinstated. Suggesting that Starr may have exceeded his authority in bringing the tax charges, Judge David Tatel, a Clinton appointee, observed that there was no obstruction "charged at all'' in a dismissed indictment against Hubbell, his wife, accountant and tax lawyer. It details an alleged scheme to evade taxes on hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments to Hubbell arranged by friends of the president and first lady. ...Reno removed herself from considering Starr's request and Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder is reviewing the letter, Justice Department lawyer Douglas Wilson told the appeals court. Hubbell served as the third-highest ranking official at the Justice Department and Reno worked closely with him, said department spokesman Bert Brandenberg....The tax evasion case resulted, but it was thrown out July 1 because Starr didn't first get approval for it from Reno. The judge also dismissed it because Starr built the case from Hubbell's own financial records. The judge said Hubbell had been "turned into the primary informant against himself.'' ..."

Eric Holder reviewed letter from Starr that Hubbell engaged in obstruction of justice and a tax evasion case should be reinstated.

AMERICAN SPECTATOR 11/98 Byron York ". As La Bella wrote, the sources say, he regularly discussed the investigation with senior department officials. Some, like Reno and top deputy Eric Holder, did not signal what course they might ultimately take (although Reno had resisted all earlier calls for a counsel). Others, like Public Integrity chief Lee Radek, his assistant Jo Ann Farrington, and Deputy Attorney General Robert Litt, seemed dead set against a campaign finance independent counsel. The differences in opinion led to heated arguments that left the participants' nerves on edge. Prosecutors on La Bella's side believed Radek, Farrington, and Litt were simply set in stone on the issue; arguing with them, the sources say, was like arguing with a brick wall. La Bella even wrote a letter to Reno telling her the issue had become so overheated that rational debate was no longer possible. "It is clear to me that emotions run high whenever we begin a discussion of the Independent Counsel Act," he wrote. "I do not think we are capable of the type of collegial exchange which would be beneficial." By mid-July, La Bella finished his memo and gave it to the attorney general. He made just three copies: one for himself, one for Reno, and one for FBI Director Louis Freeh, who also favored the appointment of a counsel. Sources say La Bella apparently intended to keep the memo a closely held secret--vainly hoping to shield it not only from the press but from the in-house critics. Perhaps Reno would read it on her own a few times before giving it to the people who were going to rip it apart. But that's not what happened. Instead, once the report hit Reno's desk, several copies were made and distributed to the attorney general's circle of advisers. And it wasn't just insiders who got a look; within a few days, the New York Times published a front-page account of La Bella's central conclusion headlined "Reno Aide's Report Urges Counsel on Fund-Raising." Now everyone knew La Bella disagreed with his boss's stance against an independent counsel.."

Eric Holder involved in discussions of LaBella investigations. Holder played a "pivotal role" in advising Reno to reject the recommendation for an independent counsel

Insight Magazine 12/26/98 Jamie Dettmer and Paul M. Rodriguez ".It comes as no secret that Republicans and, truth be told, even some Democrats, are madder than hell about Attorney General Janet Reno's decision not to seek an independent counsel to probe allegations of fund-raising abuses by Vice President Al Gore. . . But many FBI agents and officials at Justice are equally upset with Reno's deputy, Eric Holder. The reason for their frustration with Reno is evident -- she has rejected the fruits of their investigative labor several times over. What's surprising, however, is the level of disillusionment with Holder, the former U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia who on corruption charges successfully prosecuted onetime Democratic Rep. Dan Rostenkowski of Illinois. . . . According to Justice and bureau sources, Holder has not been idle, even though he has portrayed himself as the hapless deputy who has tried to support the Justice Department fund-raising task force against all odds. As news alert! disclosed once before, Holder has played a pivotal role in advising Reno to reject the Justice/FBI task-force recommendation for an independent counsel. And he's done this while holding out public olive branches to FBI Director Louis Freeh and former Justice task-force leader Charles LaBella, who resigned rather than continue beating his head against Reno's granite walls. "He's as political as she is," says one senior FBI official. "Holder tells us one thing and then whispers to Reno something else and then pretends it's all her wrongheaded doing," complains another law-enforcement official.."

The Progressive Review’s Politics Archives 1997-1998 "…Eric Holder gets good national press, but some of those who know something about his activities in DC know better. As a lackluster local US Attorney, he not only sat on information concerning police and water department corruption, his staff regularly signed off on excessive police overtime to keep cops friendly to the prosecutors. Holder was also instrumental in getting law changes that made jury trials more difficult for certain defendants…."

Judicial Watch 2/10/99 ".While Judicial Watch has two lawsuits against the Department of Justice for its failure to produce documents concerning Janet Reno's refusal to appoint an independent counsel in the Chinagate scandal, as well as its malfeasance concerning Waco, Ruby Ridge and the Olympic bombing fiascos, it intends to increase its efforts to "bring justice to the Clinton Justice Department." "A number of legal actions and ethics complaints are in progress or in the works to address the rampant politicization of the Justice Department under Janet Reno and Eric Holder, which has resulted in the widespread failure of the agency to do its job as the nation's top law enforcement agency. As a once proud alumnus, I am appalled and sickened by the misconduct of the Justice Department during the Clinton Administration," stated Judicial Watch Chairman Larry Klayman. Among the illegal or unethical actions of Janet Reno, Eric Holder and their staff during their reign at the Clinton Justice Department, are: 1. The attempt to silence a key witness in the Chinagate scandal, Nolanda Hill, by various retaliatory and unethical actions. 2. The repeated failure to appoint an independent counsel in the Chinagate scandal. 3. The threatened use of criminal process to settle civil litigation in the Chinagate scandal. 4. Litigation misconduct by Reno's and Holders' hand-picked attorneys by coaching witnesses to not tell the full truth, as well as the use of speaking objections to tip them off when important questions are pending in civil litigation detrimental to the Clinton Administration. 5. The suppression of evidence in civil litigation detrimental to the Clinton Administration."

Additional misconduct alleged: attempt to silence a witness, threats to use criminal process to settle civil litigation, coaching and tipping off witnesses, suppression of evidence

CNN Pierre Thomas 2/11/99 ".Sen. Orrin Hatch is calling for an investigation into whether Justice Department officials leaked word to the press about a potential probe of Independent Counsel Ken Starr's office. Hatch, who has a meeting scheduled for Friday with Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder, put the Justice Department's second-ranking official on notice to be prepared to discuss Starr. "Needless to say, I am very concerned," Hatch wrote Holder. "These press accounts once again call into question the Department's integrity and support the impression many people have that this is a partisan Justice Department." ."

Leak to the press about a potential probe of Ken Starr’s office.

AP 2/18/99 Michael Sniffen ".Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder, who is supervising the Justice Department's review of the Independent Counsel Act, advocated some changes Thursday to fix problems with the Watergate-inspired law. ``It is a statute that has some problems and needs some work, I think at a minimum,'' Holder told a news conference. Because the law expires this summer, ``we have an opportunity ... at a minimum, to tinker with it,'' he added... Some Democrats in Congress, angered over the conduct of counsel Kenneth Starr's investigation of Clinton, have urged limiting or even killing the act. The American Bar Association, long a supporter of the law, voted recently to recommend its demise. The Justice Department has informed Starr that it intends to open an investigation of his dealings with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky, officials have said..."

Reuters 3/11/99 "...A top U.S. Justice Department official Thursday dismissed accusations that his department turned up the heat on Kenneth Starr when Starr's investigation began to close in on President Clinton. "That's a bunch of crap - c-r-a-p,'' Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder said in responding to the accusations by Robert Bittman, one of the special prosecutor's former top deputies who was in charge of the investigation of Clinton and former White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Holder's unusually blunt comment escalated a war of words with Bittman as the Justice Department considers moving forward with an investigation into alleged misconduct by Starr's prosecutors - an investigation that could lead to Starr's dismissal...."

Washington Times 3/12/99 Bill Gertz "...The Pentagon said Thursday that disclosures about Chinese spying at a U.S. nuclear laboratory will not alter plans to bring a group of People's Liberation Army officers to a similar laboratory in New Mexico this year. "At this point, I know of no plan to cut back on our military-to-military contacts," said Pentagon spokesman Capt. Michael Doubleday. In Antigua, Guatemala, President Clinton Thursday denied charges by congressional Republicans that his administration ignored Chinese espionage at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where U.S. nuclear-warhead secrets leaked to Beijing's agents in the 1980s. "We did not ignore evidence," Mr. Clinton said during the last day of a visit to Central America. "Quite the contrary, we acted on it. I think the record is that we acted aggressively."..."I believe the record is clear that we did respond in an appropriate way," Mr. Clinton said. The president also rejected calls for Mr. Berger to resign....At the Justice Department, Deputy Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said Thursday the administration was not slow in responding to the spying accusations and that the inquiry was given the "highest priority." He also denied that political considerations delayed the probe....Mr. Rohrabacher first uncovered the Pentagon's program of expanded military contacts with China last month. He asked Mr. Cohen in a recent letter why the Pentagon has agreed to help Chinese military officials learn about U.S. military logistics and support and weapons-acquisition programs...."

Houston Chronicle 4/29/99 William Safire "...Suspecting Lee at Los Alamos to be a spy for China, FBI agents in 1997 alerted the White House and went to the Department of Justice's Office of Intelligence Policy Review to request application to a special court for a wiretap under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. But Acting Director Gerald Schroeder and his aide Alan Kornblum decided the evidence was insufficient and refused to apply. The FBI then went over Schroeder's head to the office of Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder, and was turned down again. The FBI never returned with new evidence to Schroeder. Did Freeh appeal to Janet Reno about "overlawyering" in a national security case, or was he too browbeaten to try? The bureau learned that when it comes to China, Reno's Justice Department assigns only its most incompetent operatives and penalizes prosecutors who target Asian financing of the 1996 election. Consider: Justice makes some 700 court applications a year for taps under that surveillance law. Maybe once or twice a year, says a Justice intelligence official, it finally refuses the FBI's request that it apply. This case, involving an embarrassment to China when Clinton was proclaiming "strategic partnership," was the one..."

Washington Times 4/30/99 Unsigned "...The latest Chinese nuclear-espionage bombshell has just exploded, sending shrapnel throughout Janet Reno's Justice Department. It involves the downloading of millions of lines of computer code detailing the history of U.S. nuclear-weapons development from highly classified computer systems to a widely accessible computer network. The downloading, most of which occurred during 1994 and 1995, was done by Energy Department scientist Wen Ho Lee. The FBI has uncovered evidence suggesting that someone accessed these supersecret files after Mr. Lee placed them in the unclassified network. For several years, the Justice Department obstructed the FBI's efforts to detect Mr. Lee's downloading activities.....Senior managers at the Los Alamos nuclear-weapons laboratory, which is run by the Energy Department, will soon be disciplined for their failure to monitor Mr. Lee's activities while he was under suspicion of espionage. But Attorney General Reno's Justice Department is far more culpable for this catastrophic national-security debacle. Time and again, the New York Times reports, the Justice Department declined to pursue FBI requests for wiretaps. Under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the Justice Department's Office of Intelligence Policy Review would have been required to petition a special court to obtain either a wiretap of Mr. Lee's phone or to gain surreptitious access to his office computer. Despite Mr. Lee's role as the principal espionage suspect, Miss Reno's Justice Department declined a 1997 FBI request for a wiretap and surreptitious access to Mr. Lee's office computer. Justice's Office of Intelligence Policy Review maintained there was insufficient evidence for it to seek the necessary court permission The FBI appealed that decision to Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder, the second-highest Justice Department official. Mr. Holder also denied the request to pursue the wiretaps. It's worth recalling that in 1997, while President Clinton was pursuing his "strategic partnership" with China, not only was the FBI investigating Chinese nuclear espionage but congressional committees and an incompetent Justice Department task force were investigating Mr. Clinton's 1996 re-election campaign and the Democratic Party for receiving laundered money from the Chinese Communist government. Miss Reno repeatedly refused to seek an independent counsel, despite a 1997 recommendation to do so by FBI Director Louis Freeh. Meanwhile, her deputy and other Justice officials were refusing to act on FBI requests to obtain wiretaps that would have uncovered Mr. Lee's unauthorized downloading of the secrets of 50 years of U.S. nuclear-weapons development. Normally, the Justice Department favorably responds to FBI requests for such wiretaps in 99.9 percent of the 700 or so requests it receives each year. Why the issue of Chinese nuclear espionage was given a free pass by Justice wiretap gatekeepers is worth knowing...."

5/3/99 Washington Times Joyce Howard Price Clinton takes heat on spying by China; Reaction derided as slow and inept "...Mr. Holder, who appeared on ABC's "This Week," denied any responsibility. "Our office did not refuse . . . our office is generally not in the loop. The office that handles those things did turn it down. A request was made of the Deputy Attorney General's Office in an informal way, from what I understand, to one of the lawyers in my office. It's not even clear that I was the deputy attorney general at that time. We're in the process of trying to re-create all that happened there, " he said. "The determination that was made by the people who are professionals in this regard was that there was not probable cause at that point to proceed in the way in which the FBI wanted to,"

THE WASHINGTON TIMES 5/3/99 Joyce Howard Price "... Mr. Shelby said he believes charges will be brought against the suspect. But he doesn't know when that will occur. But he did not have anything favorable to say about the government's investigation of Mr. Lee. "It looks to me like this is a botched investigation by the FBI, and there seems to be some culpability in the Justice Department," said Mr. Shelby. Asked whether he believes the administration's delayed response to warnings of Chinese spying might have been related to contributions the Chinese made to President Clinton's 1996 re-election campaign, Mr. Shelby said, "It makes us wonder. I hope not. I hope and pray there was never a connection between the two." But he noted that a request made to the office of Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder for a warrant to monitor the computer and phones of Mr. Lee was denied. "It was turned down during the historical context of all the investigation by Congress of the fund raising at the White House," Mr. Shelby said on Fox. Mr. Holder, who appeared on ABC's "This Week," denied any responsibility. "Our office did not refuse . . . our office is generally not in the loop. The office that handles those things did turn it down. A request was made of the Deputy Attorney General's Office in an informal way, from what I understand, to one of the lawyers in my office. It's not even clear that I was the deputy attorney general at that time. We're in the process of trying to re-create all that happened there," he said. "The determination that was made by the people who are professionals in this regard was that there was not probable cause at that point to proceed in the way in which the FBI wanted to," Mr. Holder said...."

The Washington Times 5/6/99 Bill Gertz and Jerry Seper "...The Justice Department is setting up a special task force to investigate the FBI's probe of a Los Alamos computer scientist suspected of passing nuclear weapons secrets to China. A senior Justice Department official told The Washington Times that Attorney General Janet Reno and Deputy Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. will soon appoint a panel headed by a federal prosecutor and supported by FBI agents...."

The State (Columbia, SC) 5/11/99 WILLIAM SAFIRE "...I called three friends in the departments of Energy, Defense and Justice and asked them to turn on their office computers and read to me the first banner that came on their screens. "Anyone using this system expressly consents to monitoring" is the message. Government employees using government equipment on government time thus waive privacy claims. Wen Ho Lee, the scientist who downloaded millions of lines of the nation's most secret codes to a computer easy to penetrate, also signed a waiver consenting to a search of his computer without his knowledge. And yet the Reno Justice Department denied the FBI's request for permission to search Lee's government computer. Eric Holder, Janet Reno's deputy, decided that a court search warrant was necessary -- but then refused to apply to the special foreign-surveillance court to get it. Of more than 700 such FBI requests a year, a surveillance official admits that a flat turndown is extremely rare. Why this one? Ms. Reno, who never met an investigation of Chinese penetration she didn't try to undermine, is suckering us with a claim that the denial of surveillance was to protect a criminal investigation. That is foo-foo dust. This was counterespionage, and the Criminal Division was kept in the dark...."

New York Post 5/11/99 Dick Morris "...THE Justice Department's efforts to block the FBI investigation of the worst episode of espionage in 50 years raises the most important issues of obstruction of justice by Attorney General Janet Reno and her deputy, Eric Holder. Incredibly, unbelievably, it now appears that Reno's department did more to protect atomic spy Won Ho Lee than was even suspected before. Not only did Justice deny the FBI access to Lee's computer; it denied it even though Lee had signed a waiver specifically allowing access to his computer files.... Well, how did Janet Reno come to stay on as attorney general in Clinton's second term? The president had planned to get rid of Reno once he won re-election. Having once complained to me that she was his ''worst mistake,'' he was determined to rid himself of this nuisance. He was sick and tired of her refusal to endorse tough administration initiatives on crime. In addition, as George Stephanopoulos has speculated, he might have been angry that she had intervened gratuitously and backed Kenneth Starr's assertion of criminal jurisdiction over Clinton ally and Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker. ....But then, shortly before the inauguration, Clinton met with Reno. He called me after their chat to report that he had told her that few attornies general had ever served for eight years and that he had indicated that he did not think it was a good idea for her to do so. He said she had ''pleaded to be allowed to stay on for one more year'' and that he had grudgingly agreed, with the understanding that she would then resign..... After winning that one-year reprieve, Janet Reno changed, suddenly metamorphosizing into a loyal administration advocate. She has stayed on the job ever since. Apparently, her service to the president in refraining from the appointment of independent counsels to investigate campaign fund-raising earned her a reprieve from her scheduled year-end departure. ...Her decision that the independent-counsel law did not mandate a special probe of campaign finance is a matter of interpretation and subject to reasonable disagreement. But Justice's refusal to let the FBI act on massive suspicion of espionage of the most vital sort is a breech of national security of the first magnitude. If politics entered into this decision, the issue becomes one of malfeasance in office..... Remember the political environment in early 1997. Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) had just launched his heralded probe of campaign finances and predicted that he would find a deliberate plot by the Chinese government to influence the American election. What remained obscure was China's motive. The Democrats loudly derided Thompson for his suspicions of a Chinese plot. If Thompson had been aware of major and systematic Chinese spying and theft of our most vital secrets while he was conducting his hearings, there would have been hell to pay. Reno did a great political service to the president and disservice to America in not allowing the FBI to proceed. Between the time of her rejection of the FBI request for access and the actual inspection of Lee's computer last month, reports indicate that upwards of 300 files have been transferred and deleted...."

Washington Post 5/17/99 David Segal "...Georgetown University Law School will offer a semester-long course called "Clinton" starting in August....Among the many questions to be asked: Can a sitting president be sued in a civil lawsuit? Can a lame-duck Congress impeach the commander-in-chief? What is a high crime? ....The class was conceived and will be taught by 30-year-old Neal Katyal, who works for Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder in the Justice Department..."

New York Times 5/20/99 DAVID JOHNSTON "...Senators at a closed-door hearing of the Intelligence Committee Wednesday lashed out at Attorney General Janet Reno for what they said was her failure to aggressively manage the case of a suspected spy for China at the Los Alamos nuclear weapons, government officials said. "You are responsible," one senator angrily told Reno in what the officials described as a hearing punctuated with acidic exchanges with the witnesses, who included FBI Director Louis Freeh and Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder. Several senators repeated their conclusion that the Justice Department and the FBI botched the security inquiry into Wen Ho Lee, a nuclear scientist who worked for more than two decades at Los Alamos..... At the hearing, senators reviewed the Justice Department's decisions in 1997 to twice reject a request by FBI counterintelligence officials to seek a search warrant authorizing more aggressive investigative techniques from a special court established by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. ....At the Justice Department, officials said the FBI managers did not aggressively present the case for a warrant as a top counterintelligence priority and were unwilling to deploy the large number of agents that would have been required for full-time surveillance that might have produced evidence to justify a FISA warrant. But FBI officials said the Justice Department took the case casually and failed to understand the difficulties in obtaining concrete evidence in a case in which the suspected espionage may have begun years earlier, before any investigation started...."

Chicago Tribune 5/27/99 Robert Novak "... Something only hinted at in the 908 pages of the Cox committee report released Tuesday suggests that the strange, always shaky tenure of Janet Reno as attorney general could be coming to an end. Closed-door testimony to the Senate a week ago revealed that the Justice Department rejected two FBI requests in 1997 to wiretap suspected Chinese spy Wen Ho Lee, a scientist at the Los Alamos Nuclear Weapons Laboratory. Reno signed off on those refusals, renewing Republican demands for her resignation and evoking harsh words from a very important Democrat: Sen. Robert Torricelli of New Jersey..... Furthermore, in closed-door testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on May 19, Justice Department and FBI officials blamed each other for this 1997 course of events: FBI counterintelligence asked Justice, under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, for wiretaps and other listening devices to gather evidence on Lee. Justice said no, claiming no "probable cause." The FBI tried again, and the answer was still no...... But the more sophisticated appraisal in GOP circles was that while the president might seem to be a typically ungrateful politician, he would not sack the attorney general who for more than two years has protected him from an independent counsel on campaign-finance irregularities. Indeed, White House aides privately have said the decision against wiretaps was made not by Reno but by Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder, with the attorney general merely signing off..... Indeed, her Republican critics on Capitol Hill say the issue is less a matter of the attorney general making a wrong decision than of Reno being out of the decision loop, which would be the greater evil. "I don't think we have had an attorney general for some time," said one GOP senator who has worked closely with Reno....."

Garrison Expose 6/1/99 reports Freeper madmomma "...Caller from reno pointing out how many people in Clinton administration DOJ are from New York - judging from his accent, I'd say he knows. Watched Burton hearings - Janet Reno demanded confidential info from FBI (Freeh) on Chinese connections. Freeh denied it, note proves it did happen. Reno brow beating FBI and Freeh denying. Eric Holder involved in wiretap, gave legally convicted chinese com murder repieve Paul Lie (when Holder was NYC City Attorney) WOW! Triplett - Justice a real interesting place. ..."

New York Times 6/12/99 Neil Lewis "...Kenneth W. Starr, the Whitewater prosecutor, will not seek indictments of President Clinton or Hillary Rodham Clinton but has tentatively decided to issue a final report about their behavior, several associates of Mr. Starr said this week. The report, which could land in the middle of Mrs. Clinton's Senate campaign, might be "blistering" in its descriptions of her actions, one Starr associate said. Mr. Starr, the associates said, decided that he would not seek criminal indictments after discussions in his office about that possibility. But as Mr. Starr winds down his operation, those associates said, he was leaning toward issuing a report that would discuss the Clintons' behavior in some detail.... In addition to issuing any report, Mr. Starr's office still has two trials to prosecute, both involving Webster L. Hubbell, the former Associate Attorney General and longtime friend of the Clintons. It would be difficult to turn over the Hubbell trials to the Justice Department for several reasons, said associates of Mr. Starr as well as department officials. The principal problem is that it would present too great a conflict of interest for the department to prosecute its former third-ranking official. Eric H. Holder Jr., the Deputy Attorney General, in an April letter to Representative George W. Gekas, Republican of Pennsylvania, suggested that the department could appoint a special counsel to handle cases like that of Mr. Hubbell. But another impediment to such a transfer is that Mr. Starr is said to believe that the department has little appetite for the prosecutions. In one case, in which Mr. Hubbell is charged with tax evasion, department officials had argued that the case should not have been brought. The second trial itself could prove a problem for Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Hubbell is charged with concealing information from the Federal authorities about the role he and Mrs. Clinton played as lawyers in a complicated Arkansas land transaction that helped lead to the collapse of a savings and loan institution....."

Starr says the [Justice] department has little appetite for prosecutions. . In one case, in which Mr. Hubbell is charged with tax evasion, department officials had argued that the case should not have been brought

Associated Press 7/1/99 Laurie Asseo "...The Justice Department announced new rules today that give Attorney General Janet Reno the authority to appoint special counsels to investigate the president and other top government officials. The rules in effect will replace the independent counsel law that expired Wednesday following years of controversy. Even Kenneth Starr, who has investigated President Clinton's administration for more than four years, has told Congress he favored its abolition. Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder said at a news conference the new rules were intended to "strike the proper balance between accountability and independence.'' ....The rules give Reno the sole authority to appoint a special counsel if she determines the Justice Department would have a conflict of interest in investigating allegations of wrongdoing, and if she decides that naming an outside prosecutor would be in the public interest....."

7/13/99 The Washington Times pp A1 Clarence Williams Time is running out on prosecution of cops; Hundreds linked to cheating on taxes. "...With the six-year statute of limitations ticking away, dozens of high- ranking D.C. police officers suspected in 1997 of cheating on their tax returns have not been charged with tax evasion. Two years ago, because prosecutors botched the case, a federal judge dismissed criminal charges against Mohinder I. Singh, 57, a Southeast accountant accused of doctoring tax returns for at least 600 officers. The officers have been treated just as gently so far. Even though the case began as a public-corruption matter, not one officer has gone to jail. The D.C. police said they disciplined some officers but would not say how many or what punishment was doled out. In response to questions by U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth, who presided over the jury trial, the IRS reported that it had audited 68 officers by the end of May 1997 and concluded they owed back taxes and penalties totaling $320,087....."

7/13/99 The Washington Times pp A1 Clarence Williams Time is running out on prosecution of cops; Hundreds linked to cheating on taxes. "...The trial of Mr. Singh ended abruptly with Judge Lamberth declaring a mistrial for "prosecutorial misconduct." The government improperly withheld documents from the defense and tried to elicit expert testimony from an IRS agent unqualified to offer his opinion, he said. When the charges against Mr. Singh were dropped, Thomas J. Motley, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office, promised tax-fraud cases related to the Singh investigation would be pursued "vigorously." No vigorous probe has begun, though. The U.S. Attorney's Office, the Department of Justice tax division and the Internal Revenue Service refuse to answer questions on the case, apart from saying it is not the job of their agency to prosecute the officers...."

7/13/99 The Washington Times pp A1 Clarence Williams Time is running out on prosecution of cops; Hundreds linked to cheating on taxes. "..."We cannot bring the tax prosecutions cases without [Justice's tax division's] involvement," said Channing Phillips spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office. "There have been no criminal charges and we don't comment on potential criminal or civil actions," said Department of Justice spokeswoman Obern Rainey, who would not elaborate about whether an investigation is ongoing. Mr. Phillips said the case has not been referred back to the U.S. Attorney's Office. In July 1997, the U.S. Attorney's Office gave up on the botched tax- fraud case and dropped all charges against Mr. Singh, whose accounting business had prepared returns for hundreds of D.C. police officers. In spring 1997 then U.S. Attorney Eric Holder - now deputy attorney general - wrote an internal memo, indicating that any charges in the officers' case would have to originate from the Department of Justice. Mr. Holder sent the case to the tax division of Justice to investigate. Officials at Justice said that tax investigation cases must be approved by the IRS, thus passing along a potentially volatile and embarrassing case. Mr. Holder and his aides did not return calls for comment. The IRS will neither confirm nor deny any formal inquiries, saying privacy laws prohibit commenting to maintain the "confidentiality of individuals," said IRS spokesman Dom LaPonzina. At the time, prosecutors said 35 officers with the rank of sergeant or higher still could face charges for filing false returns, but time is running out for the opportunity to prosecute. Mr. Phillips said there is a six-year statute of limitations to file criminal tax-fraud charges...."

Judicial Watch 7/16/99 "...Johnny Chung, a Clinton fundraiser who admitted to funneling money from the China's military to the Democratic National Committee to help Bill Clinton, testified to Judicial Watch last week that the Reno Justice Department didn't want to hear all the information and evidence he had on Clinton Administration illegal fundraising and that he was abandoned by the Reno Justice Department despite repeated threats to his life from Chinese operatives. The complete text of Chung's testimony is now available on the Judicial Watch Internet site at www.judicialwatch.org. Mr. Chung also implicated an unnamed top official of the Justice Department, head of the Civil Division, in an effort to keep him quiet by fixing the case against him on campaign fundraising. In fact, Mr. Chung received no jail time. But Judicial Watch believes that the Eric Holder, the number two at the Justice Department, is the likely culprit here. Another star witness in this case, Nolanda Hill, implicated Holder in similar activity -- accusing him of wanting to keep her quiet about what she knows about the illegal fundraising of her former confidante Ron Brown, the Clintons, and Al Gore. Chung also implicated President Clinton directly in a scheme to keep Chung quiet. Chung testified that he was told by a Chinese operative that President Clinton had a deal with the Chinese that Chung would be pardoned as long as he kept quiet. Chung also gave testimony indicating that Clinton and the Chinese President had agreed together on a cover story to explain away the Chinagate scandal....Chung also testified about threats to his life from at least two squads of Chinese operatives sent to the United States to harm him and his family. Despite these and other threats, Chung was recently told by the U.S. Attorney (appointed by Reno) overseeing his case that he should "call 911" if any future threats occurred... His latest testimony puts him at significant personal risk and is an act of patriotism. The fact that Reno, with Chung's testimony and other evidence, hasn't indicted one high-level official is absolute proof of a massive cover-up, one that Judicial Watch is committed to unraveling..."

Eric Holder accused of efforts to keep Nolanda Hill and Johnnie Chung quiet.

http://www.senate.gov/~thompson/wen-ho.html 8/6/99 Senator Fred Thompson and Joseph Lieberman "...It is also evident that after not hearing back from the FBI for some time, OIPR effectively also concluded that the matter was over, for when Ryan's file cabinet and the computer diskette upon which he had stored his draft Wen-Ho Lee FISA applications both became full, he destroyed these records in order to make space for new materials. (At the time, OIPR had no record-keeping policy regarding cases that were not sent to the FISA court for approval; the only documents that remain from this process were kept by the FBI.) That the FBI viewed OIPR's assessment as a refusal is also apparent from the Bureau's subsequent -- and unprecedented -- decision to appeal the matter to the Attorney General. On August 20, DOJ and DOE officials met at the Justice Department to discuss security issues at DOE. Officials present included Attorney General Reno, Deputy Attorney General Holder, and DOE's intelligence chief, Notra Trulock. After this meeting, the head of FBI's National Security Division, John Lewis, mentioned to the Attorney General that the FBI had sought a FISA warrant in the Wen-Ho Lee case, but that "we've been turned down by OIPR. (Attorney General Reno has said that she does not recall the conversation, but does not deny that it occurred.)

http://www.senate.gov/~thompson/wen-ho.html 8/6/99 Senator Fred Thompson and Joseph Lieberman "...According to Lewis, she told Kornblum to "[r]evisit it, and I'm going to have either [Daniel] Seikaly [of DOJ's Executive Office for National Security (EONS) within the Deputy Attorney General's office] or the Deputy [Attorney General Eric Holder] review it" The FBI's Stephen Dillard, who also attended the August 20 meeting, thereupon discussed the FISA denial with OIPR Acting Counsel Schroeder and Deputy Counsel Allan Kornblum. At or after the August 20 meeting, Seikaly was asked to review the Wen-Ho Lee FISA matter. Seikaly told the Committee that he does not recall who asked him to do this, but when reviewing this Statement prior to its declassification, OIPR's Allan Kornblum "recalled that * * * Mr. Seikaly [told him] that the Attorney General had asked Mr. Seikaly to review the matter." Seikaly met with Kornblum to discuss the FBI's evidence of probable cause; they talked about this matter at least once

Inside the Beltway (Washington Times) 8/13/99 McCaslin "…Convened in Miss Reno's absence Wednesday by Deputy Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., it was noted that Mr. Gore's office asked the Justice Department, and perhaps other Cabinet agencies, to provide the vice president with regular reports on various department activities, says one Justice Department official. "So that the campaign would be able to respond to all these things," or so one might assume, the official fears. There was discussion "on whether or not to do this," the official says, and the point was made if such reports were prepared for Mr. Gore, they should similarly be made available to other presidential candidates….. "

Holder Delays Release Of Justice, CIA Reports On Crack Terry Frieden/CNN WASHINGTON (Dec. 18) -- Attorney General "…Janet Reno's deputy said Thursday that he had ordered a delay in this week's scheduled release of CIA and Justice Department reports on the racially sensitive subject of alleged CIA involvement in the introduction of crack cocaine into black neighborhoods of southern California. Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder told reporters he stopped the release of a report by the CIA, and another by Justice Inspector General Michael Bromwich because of "law enforcement concerns," but he refused to elaborate….. Waters and many African-American leaders in South-Central Los Angeles publicly accused the CIA of helping introduce crack cocaine into their community. They cited an investigation by The San Jose Mercury News which claimed CIA involvement. The report, however, was contradicted by several other news organizations…."