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In August 2014, on a hot Saturday afternoon in Missouri, Officer Darren Wilson of the Ferguson Police Department shot and killed Michael Brown. America was transfixed for months by the protests, the riots, the never-ending news cycle. What was considered a noble, even heroic callingpolice workcame to be perceived as the source of Americas woes practically overnight. The name of Ferguson became shorthand for institutional racism and police brutality.

I was the chief of police for Ferguson. The incident that resulted in the death of Michael Brown, and the terrible aftermath that all but destroyed the town, happened on my watch.

I spent months on the hot seat, the primary focus of a nations outrage. It was probably more important to me than to anyone else to understand where that anger came from, to realistically assess how much of it was justified, and how much resulted from people jumping to conclusions based on a dangerous cocktail of provocative media reports and inflammatory pronouncements by politicians and activists, amplifying misperceptions that had spread on the internet faster than any investigation could possibly proceed.

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Since resigning my post, in the wake of the U.S. Department of Justices scathing report, Ive had the time and motivation to examine all the things said about Ferguson. Even if there werent lawsuits that required me to be clear about the facts, I needed to know for my own peace of mind where people came up with the claims they made about my force and our town. As a professional, I wanted to know what we were doing wrong and how to fix what could be fixed, even if my days as chief in Ferguson were over. This book is a product of that examination.

I cannot begin without first addressing two things: the Department of Justice report on Ferguson and the fact that there was so much coverage of events in Ferguson that people say, I know what I saw. You cant deny it.

You know what you saw. Theres a difference between, I know what I saw, and I know what I was shown. Even if you came to Ferguson to see with your own eyes, there were places you couldnt have gone, meetings you couldnt have attended. All I ask is that you give me a chance to show you what wasnt shown, to take you where you couldnt have gone.

Related: The fallout from the Michael Brown shooting

Ferguson Police Sergeant Dominica Fuller listens to protesters yelling at her outside the police station on August 8. Rick Wilking/Reuters

The DOJ report, though, needs to be discussed right here. Attorney General Eric Holder of the Department of Justice first arrived in Ferguson eleven days after the shooting. He spoke with Michael Browns mother. He talked of his own experiences with prejudice. He stated publicly that his pledge included, as opposed to simple justice, robust action, and he stated that long after the events of August 9 have receded from the headlines, the Justice Department will continue to stand with this community. The things he said and did added up to a tacit confirmation of the public fear that wrong had been done, the shooting had been bad, and that prejudice was a factor. And it was all broadcast live. It not only cemented the Department of Justices biased stance in the upcoming investigation but also turned up the heat of public anger. He made the job of law enforcement even harder than it already was, putting the public and police both at greater risk.

Attorney General Holder did all of this more than three months before the investigation into the shooting concluded. Three months before the facts were in. His mind was made up before he arrived in town. Following his August 20 pledge and his September resignation, Holder appeared at the Washington Ideas Forum on October 29, where he declared, I think its pretty clear that the need for wholesale change in that department [Ferguson] is appropriate. The Los Angeles Times later quoted sources in the Justice Department saying, The more he gets out in front publicly, the more he will be expected to deliver criminal charges...the situation could reach a tipping point where federal criminal charges would be the only way to vindicate Holders public comments.

Then the investigations into the shooting concluded and the forensics showed that the narrative that had gained such traction with the public didnt fit the evidence. The officers version of events did. To those who right here would immediately jump to thinking staged scene, cover-up, I have included in my new book, Policing Ferguson, Policing America, an appendix so you can read the findings yourself.

Mind you, what Ive included is not from an internal police investigationits from a federal investigation, because the FBI (a division of the DOJ) was sent to look into this at the same time that Holder was. The FBI came, stayed off camera, and did their jobs. They actually investigated before reaching their conclusions. They brought in the evidence, and it supported the police officer whom Holder had tacitly condemned.

Its one thing for a shopkeeper to say, I might have made an unfair rush to judgment here, and quite another for the attorney general of the United States to say, Oops. What are the odds of a fair and unbiased investigation if the person directing it is thoroughly invested in finding something that will vindicate him rather than in finding the truth? The DOJ investigation started with the premise that Ferguson was a swamp of injustice, then sought out and published anything that looked like it supported that position.

I dont want to imply the department I led was immaculate, that no Ferguson officer ever engaged in questionable behavior, and I dont deny that there are systemic problems or that the criminal justice system is in need of lasting reform. But the Ferguson portrayed in that report was an invention, a backwards, angry place that the Justice Department created to make a show of tearing it down.

Seven months after the shooting and three months after the grand jury had ruled that there were no grounds to indict the officer involved, I was summoned to meet with representatives of the DOJ prior to the reports release. As the citys manager, attorney, mayor, and I went into the meeting, we were required to surrender our cell phones and recording devices, as if they didnt want anybody to know what they were about to say.

We listened in horror as the DOJ lead investigator outlined the essential findings in the report. A stunned Stephanie Karr, our city attorney, protested, You cant say those things. Thats not true. It wont hold up in litigation.

The DOJ investigator replied coldly, Well, we arent litigating, are we?

In the court of public opinion, there is no standard of proof, much less a defense team. We knew their report was a distorted misrepresentation, but they counted on the public not to question it. By the time sources like The Wall Street Journal condemned them for the meaningless way they used statistics, for example, it was too late. The damage was done.

I still shake my head over how easily they could publish a report filled with so much that met no evidentiary standards simply by playing to what everybody knew.

Everybody knew. How quickly a few social media reports grew into everybody knows.

It was like a chain reaction that got out of control. Social media sources and traditional media sources were feeding off each other. The crowds were responding to what the police were doing. The more it escalated, the more people showed up, and the more people showed up, the more it escalated. It was a toxic feedback loop.

My grim observation in Ferguson was that media representatives and politicians lost objectivity. They did not wait for the facts. True justice stands upon the facts, no matter how much they fly in the face of popular perception. True justice is impartial, and for everyone.

Thomas Jackson is the former police chief of Ferguson, Missouri. This story has been adapted from his new book "Policing Ferguson, Policing America." Skyhorse Publishing, Inc

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Book Excerpt: Ex-Ferguson Police Chief Defends Michael Brown Shooting, Calls Justice Department Report An ... - Newsweek

The redistricting group backed by former President Barack Obama has raised nearly $11 million. | Getty

The National Democratic Redistricting Committee, the group backed by former President Barack Obama and chaired by former Attorney General Eric Holder to make Democrats competitive in redistricting fights, will finish July reporting $10.8 million, according to its financial filings.

That money is split between its various entities: a federal PAC, plus 501c3 and 501c4 entities that house much of its structural work. Most of the money comes from high dollar donors, though the NDRC says that there was a total of 10,000 people who gave overall, with a rush of small donors after the election when the group was officially formed.

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Mega-donors were key: Chicagos Fred Eychaner and Floridas Donald Sussman gave $500,000 each, while Jon Stryker gave $200,000. Director J.J. Abrams and his wife, actress Katie McGrath, gave $125,000 each.

Much of the fundraising was through five briefings for donors conducted by Holder, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston and Washington, but an event that Obama headlined in Washington earlier this month gave the efforts a significant boost.

Democrats are hoping that the group will be able to coordinate efforts between activists and interest groups in prioritized state legislative and governors races for the next round of redistricting after the 2020 census, as well as being the home of legal challenges on the state level and at the Supreme Court. Thats an enormous array of ambitious activities, in which theyll be going up against well-funded interests across the country. In most states, it is expected to be a major uphill battle to change the balance of power that could change the maps.

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But people involved say their start has them feeling confident.

"The NDRC's significant fundraising in its first six months will allow us to take on gerrymandering and reform our electoral system, Holder said. This will be done through our courts, at the ballot box, and through support of ballot initiatives that create non-partisan commissions and other electoral reforms.

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Dem redistricting group clocks $10.8 million in first 6 months - Politico - Politico

LOS ANGELES More than two years after leaving the Obama administration, former Attorney General Eric Holder is reentering the political fray.

His goal: to lead the legal resistance to Donald Trumps agenda and perhaps even run against the president in 2020.

Seized by a sense of urgency to oppose Trump and restore what he regards as Americas best self, Holder is mulling a White House bid of his own, according to three sources who have spoken to him and are familiar with his thinking.

Up to now, I have been more behind-the-scenes, Holder told Yahoo News in an exclusive interview about his plans. But thats about to change. I have a certain status as the former attorney general. A certain familiarity as the first African-American attorney general. Theres a justified perception that Im close to President Obama. So I want to use whatever skills I have, whatever notoriety I have, to be effective in opposing things that are, at the end of the day, just bad for the country.

Now is the time to be more visible, Holder added. Now is the time to be heard.

On Monday morning, Holder launched this new phase of his career by traveling to California to speak out.

Nearly all of the officials who stepped to the podium in the lobby of Los Angeless Ronald Reagan State Building Monday were Californians. They showed up, and summoned the local press corps, in order to promote a piece of legislation called SB 54 (aka. the California Values Act), which is designed to prevent the Trump administration from forcing local police departments to assist in the deportation of undocumented immigrants. Critics and even some supporters have said it would transform the whole of California into a so-called sanctuary state.

The lineup included outspoken anti-Trump Democrat Kevin de Leon, president pro tempore of the California state Senate, who introduced SB 54 last December and is now working to push it through the legislature; Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck, who finally endorsed the controversial measure; other top cops from Long Beach and Sacramento; and Linda Lopez, head of immigrant affairs for L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti.

The only outsider was Holder the lanky lawyer with the short gray hair and the thick black mustache.

One of Barack Obamas closest friends and most prominent appointees, Holder isnt from California. (He lives in the Washington, D.C., area, where hes a partner at Covington & Burling.) He no longer works in law enforcement. And he isnt an immigration activist.

For the last few months, however, Holder has quietly been serving as outside counsel to the California legislature, working with de Leon and other Democrats to craft an aggressive legal response to what they consider President Trumps most threatening policies.

Holders presence at Mondays press conference was meant to emphasize that relationship to dramatize the issue, to raise the consciousness of people, to help the legislation along, he told Yahoo News.

And so, in the Reagan building lobby, Holder explained why he thinks SB 54 is constitutional (the federal government does not have the ability to force states to do things that are inherently federal in nature) and why, in his view, the Trump administrations threats to withhold federal funding in response arent (the federal government cant coerce states into doing something states dont want to do by threatening to withhold support). Meanwhile, Holders team at Covington released a lengthy memorandum backing him up.

But Mondays event was also something bigger: a coming-out party of sorts for a figure who sees his work in California as a springboard to a new role as the key legal architect and one of the major public faces of the nationwide progressive pushback against President Trump.

Rarely mentioned as a 2020 contender and controversial while in office, Holder would enter any Democratic primary contest as a long shot. Even his engagement with the resistance is something of a surprise. For most of his career, Holder was seen as a conventional, mild-mannered figure. But he grew more pugnacious as attorney general, in part because Republicans never stopped attacking him, and he wound up pursuing a sharply progressive agenda during Obamas second term.

Even so, Holder insists that he never envisioned himself as an anti-Trump crusader.

I thought, frankly, along with everybody else, that after the election, with Hillary Clinton as president, I could walk off the field, he said. So when she didnt win, I thought, Well have to see how this plays out. But it became clear relatively soon and certainly sooner than I expected that I had to get back on the field and be in effective opposition.

California state Senate President pro tempore Kevin de Leon, left, and Holder on June 19, 2017, in Los Angeles. (Photo: Andrew Romano/Yahoo News)

In the months ahead, Holder plans to expand the scope of his opposition to Trump. Part of that expansion will center on the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, a new, Obama-backed group thats working to prepare Democrats for 2020, when states will redraw the boundaries of their legislative and congressional districts for the first time in a decade.

Up until my now our efforts have been largely organizational raising funds, generating support, Holder told Yahoo News. But now were moving into an operational phase where well be filing lawsuits and Ill be more visible talking about those issues.

Another part of Holders campaign will involve explicitly political appearances. On Saturday, for instance, the former attorney general waded into Virginias marquee 2017 gubernatorial race with a keynote address at the state Democratic Partys annual Jefferson-Jackson dinner, in which he excoriated Trump and embraced the resistance the first of a series of such speeches, with North Carolina next on the calendar.

We have come too far as a nation, sacrificed too much, made too much progress, to allow the state of our nation to be undermined by the extreme part of a divided minority administration, Holder said, describing Trumpism as the worst of us. If opposition is to be the course and it must be we must recognize and remember that the power of the American people has been too often underestimated. Once roused we are a mighty force.

But the most intriguing and perhaps most consequential aspect of Holders ambitious new effort is a scheme, still in its early stages, to create a national, privately funded, PAC-like organization that would develop and coordinate legal resistance strategies among various states and localities that are determined to stymie Trump.

California is in so many ways a trendsetter, whether it is in pop culture or in politics, Holder told Yahoo News. Thats why it was such an attractive possibility for me to go to California and work with the legislators there in crafting their response to the Trump administration because I think what California does gives courage to other states and other public officials in other parts of the country who might be thinking about principled opposition. It shows how that opposition can take shape.

So far, the legal resistance has been largely improvised, with young liberal lawyers spontaneously descending upon airports in the wake of Trumps Muslim travel ban and state attorneys general individually butting heads with Jeff Sessions, their federal counterpart.

Holder wants to change that.

You look at this as kind of a continuum, where you oppose the policy as it is proposed, you hope that it doesnt become law, but then, to the extent that it does, you use the courts to try to overturn it, he explained. As the different states and different public officials start to stand for the same things and take the same positions as they start to use the same tactics the opposition becomes that much more effective.

For now, Holder will continue to set the stage in California. (Earlier this month, the state Assembly decided not to renew his $25,000-a-month contract; the state Senate, however, plans to retain his services indefinitely.) And while immigration isnt the only hot-button topic on Holders to-do list de Leon is also soliciting his advice on climate change and health care its the one thats front-and-center right now, as Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents ramp up noncriminal deportations and the courts consider whether Trumps executive order on sanctuary cities is constitutional.

Were here with a very clear purpose: to underscore the undeniable truth that preserving and enhancing trust, real and genuine trust between law enforcement and the diverse communities they serve, is essential for the safety and well-being of all residents of this great state indeed, this great nation, Holder said at Mondays event, alluding to the argument that undocumented immigrants will stop reporting crimes to the local cops if those same officers are also tasked with deporting them.

California is leading, Holder concluded. California is doing the right thing. This is something that needs to be done nationwide.

If Holder gets his way, he will spend the months and years ahead ensuring thats exactly what happens.

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Eric Holder joins the anti-Trump resistance and mulls a ...

"The creation of this new federal commission on election integrity by this administration is another frightening attempt to suppress the votes of certain Americans," Holder told attendees of the NAACP National Convention in Baltimore. "Make no mistake, this commission, led by a fact-challenged zealot, will come up with bogus reasons why further restrictions should be placed on the right to vote."

While Holder did not name him directly, the commission is led by Kris Kobach, the Kansas Secretary of State who is an advocate for tougher voting restrictions. Four Democratic lawmakers last week wrote to Vice President Mike Pence requesting that Kobach be removed from the commission.

Since its creation in May, Trump's commission investigating voter fraud has been met by charges from Democrats and voting rights advocates that it could lead to voter suppression. The commission's request that state election officials turn over data and personal information on the nation's 200 million voters also sparked bipartisan outrage with many states saying they would not comply.

Trump has defended the mission of the commission, however, telling the group at its first meeting Wednesday, "we want to make America great again. We have to protect the integrity of the vote and our voters."

Holder said that the right to vote in the United States is "under siege" and must be protected.

"At a time when we should be expanding opportunities to cast a ballot, there is a movement in America that attempts to make it more difficult, to suppress the vote," Holder said.

He also pushed back at the President's oft-repeated claim that 3 million to 5 million people may have voted illegally in the 2016 election, suggesting that it is more likely that a person would be struck by lightening than that they would impersonate another person at the polls.

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Eric Holder: Trump voter fraud commission led by 'fact-challenged zealot' - CNN International

Former Attorney General Eric Holder recently weighed in on reports that President Donald Trump has considered firing Robert Mueller as the FBIs special counsel.

Trump cannot define or constrain Mueller investigation. If he tries to do so this creates issues of constitutional and criminal dimension, Holder wrote on Twitter.

Holders comments come after the Washington Post reported earlier this week that Trumps team of attorneys are exploring ways to limit and undercut Muellers investigation. Mueller has been tasked by the Department of Justice to lead the bureaus investigation into Russian interference and allegations that Trumps campaign may have colluded with Russian operatives.

Many Republicans and top Trump supporters are unhappy with Muellers investigation and especially unhappy with the team of lawyers Mueller has hired to assist him in the investigation, many of which have ties to Democrats.

Critics say that because of this and other factors, Muellers probe will not be objective.

Technically speaking, however, Holders tweet isnt exactly correct. According to Business Insider, who spoke with former acting solicitor general Neal Katyal, Trump has several legal maneuvers that would help take Muellers heat off of him.

Trump could either instruct deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein to fire or limit Mueller, or Trump could repeal a set of special counsel regulations adopted in 1999 to fire Mueller himself. Neither of these options are favorable, however, and an attempt to remove Mueller could get the ball rolling on impeachment proceedings as they are what began former President Richard Nixons fall, Katyal said.

Trumps other option would be to work out a deal with Rosenstein to rein in Muellers power. This option is least likely to carry political ramifications.

However, many found Holders attempt to lecture Trump about the law pretty rich. After all, Holder was deemed responsible for Operation Fast and Furious, a gun-running operation that led to a Border Patrol being shot by an American firearm.

Holder was even held in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over documents related to the case during the course of a congressional investigation into the operation.

People were quick to remind Holder of his hypocritical past:

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Eric Holder lectures Trump about Constitution instantly gets fact checked over 'Fast & Furious' past - TheBlaze.com