Attorney General Eric Holder Challenged by the US Media

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder thought he could reassure the journalists. He was mistaken. By refusing to give journalists access to a meeting with the press barons on the media industry leaks scandal, the attorney general just made things worse. Far from appeasing, that decision sparked renewed criticisms against the secrecy of the Obama administration.

Following a request from the U.S. president, who described himself as “concerned” by a series of revelations on the way in which his Department of Justice sues journalists who have published confidential information, Eric Holder decided to touch base with the media. He must submit a report by July 12 on how to revamp the procedures authorizing lawsuits against journalists.

On Thursday, May 30, and Friday, May 31, the attorney general invited leaders of news organizations to come to a meeting with him at the Department of Justice . But he set some conditions: The meeting should be “off the record.” Newspapers could therefore neither relay the meeting nor quote the attorney general’s words directly. This measure sparked calls to rebel against the “off the record” condition and the head of the Department of Justice. The National Journal made a list of the “seven reasons why the media should not keep Eric Holder’s secrets.” The list was frantically sent over and over again on Twitter.

These Torquemadas Who Dream of Silencing the Media

Some media organizations (the AP, CNN, CBS, NBC, Fox News) refused to attend the meeting and offered to send in their lawyers if the attorney general wanted to have a discussion about procedure. “If the government wants to justify its prosecution of journalists, it should do it publicly,” commented James Asher from the McClatchy group. The New York Times, which published two articles that led to an investigation under the terms of the law on espionage in 1917, also declined the invitation. “It isn’t appropriate for us to attend an off the record meeting with the attorney general. Our Washington bureau is aggressively covering the department’s handling of leak investigations at this time,” said Jill Abramson, executive editor of the newspaper.

The Washington Post made the opposite choice, as well as Politico, The New Yorker and The Wall Street Journal. “Journalists routinely participate in off-the-record sessions, whether they prefer those conditions or not and then continue to report on events,” explained Martin Baron, the executive editor of The Washington Post. In order to cover the meeting, journalists had to resort to questioning their bosses. Eventually, the “off the record” requirement was somewhat waived; the Department of Justice authorized the press to “describe in general terms how the meeting went.”

According to the descriptions, Eric Holder has shown “a certain remorse” for the aggressiveness of the prosecution, but he has not announced any specific changes. His advisers — anonymously — assured that he was not “one of these Torquemadas who dream of silencing the media.”

First Black To Climb So High So Fast

The spectacle of the left-wing media criticizing Barack Obama’s attorney general was, at any rate, followed with jubilation by Republicans, who have gone after Eric Holder since his arrival at the Department of Justice.

A former judge and personal friend of President Obama, Eric Holder, 62, was the first black individual to climb so high so fast. He went from being the attorney general of Washington, D.C. to becoming assistant attorney general and then attorney general in 2009. Born in New York to parents from Barbados, he was selected in elementary school to be part of the gifted program. Part of his career took place at the U.S. Department of Justice, a place where law, politics and sensitive investigations converge, which led him to be in the spotlight in a number of scandals. Under Bill Clinton, he was the one who issued the last-minute presidential pardon of tax evader and fugitive Mark Rich, a financier who made a significant donation to Bill Clinton as he was running for president.

President Obama Has Reiterated His Confidence in His Attorney General

During Barack Obama’s first term, Republicans relentlessly put pressure on him for the scandal known as “the Fast and Furious” operation debacle. It was the name of an operation conducted in 2009 by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to trace guns over the Mexican border as part of an investigation of Mexican drug gangs. The agents allowed the sale of over 2,000 guns to suspected criminals in Mexico. They had not expected they would fail to track the contraband firearms. The scandal came to light after one of the guns turned up at the scene of a shootout in which a U.S. police officer was killed.

This time, as in the previous controversies, Barack Obama repeated he had a complete trust in his attorney general, who is a basketball player and a Columbia University graduate, like the president. However, Eric Holder publicly announced that he would resign his position before the end of Barack Obama’s second term. “The attorney general is the human shield of the president,” scoffed the libertarian politician Nick Gillespie.