Archive for the ‘Eric Holder’ Category

Sessions, Holder and mass Black incarceration – Florida Courier

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the deep-fried racist from Alabama, would like to turn the clock back to pre-Emancipation, but will settle for a return to the good old days of Bill Clinton, the mega-incarcerating con man from Hope, Arkansas.

It is important to maintain an historical perspective on the actual policies that are being pushed by Republican and Democratic political actors, given the corporate medias practice of revising history daily.

Sessionsnew instructionsdemand that his U.S. attorneys charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offense, rather than adjust criminal charges and sentencing recommendations based on the defendants individual history and circumstances. Sessions insists that federal prosecutors push all the legal buttons necessary to activate mandatory minimum sentences, with no judicial discretion.

Sessions policy is not tough on crime. It is dumb on crime,saidhis predecessor, Eric Holder, who executed Barack Obamas so-called Smart on Crime initiative in response to a growing wave of Black protest during Obamas second term.

Timid leadership In typical fashion, Obama led from behind on criminal justice issues, positioning himself on the cautious side of the emerging establishment consensus that the U.S. prison population must be shrunk. Thus, the Obama administration gave ample lip service to rolling back patently racist crack cocaine penalties, but once legislation to that effect was passed, fought successfully in the courts to prevent early release of inmates convicted under the law.

Instead, prisoners were forced to undergo individual review. The lucky ones, who fit Eric Holders strict release eligibility guidelines, weredribbled out of prisonas public relations exhibits of Obamas kindness.

Obama and Holder did tolerate, and even encourage, a degree of prosecutorial discretion in framing charges and recommending sentences although they proposed no fundamental reforms to the system.

The truth is, prosecutorial discretion is an arbitrary tool of the state, a matter of convenience and budget-adjusting that has nothing to do with justice and leaves the repressive architecture of mass Black incarceration totally intact as should be obvious, since all it took was a memo from Jeff Sessions to undo the phony reform.

Defending Holders policies What Sessions is actually defending are the racist policies championed by Eric Holder himself, when he was US attorney for the District of Columbia in the mid-90s. Sessions needs only to drive his time machine back two decades to be in total synch with the Eric Holder who made his political bones by imposing systemic racial profiling on the streets of Black Washington, D.C.

Holder kicked off his Operation Ceasefire campaign on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.s birthday in 1995, framing his anti-crime strategy in civil rights terms the right of Black people to be safe. On his watch, Driving While Young and Black became sufficient cause for a police stop and search and all the consequences that follow.

The people who will be stopped will be young Black males, overwhelmingly, Holder conceded. However, the greater good must be served. Young Black males make up 1 percent of the national population but account for 18 percent of the nations homicides, he said.

Holders contribution Holders policy of targeting suspicious vehicles for stops with the aim of conducting searches is detailed inJames Forman Jr.snew book,Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America, an indispensable resource for understanding the roots of modern mass incarceration and the role the Black political (misleadership) class played in creating the monster.

The man who would later declare that some banks are too big to prosecute (Hows that for discretion?) helped establish a national precedent for stripping constitutional protections from the suspicious demographics of society. James Forman reports that Holders signature pretext stops are responsible for most of the racial disparity in traffic stops, nationwide.

Thus, Eric Holder has contributed mightily to the misery endured by, literally, millions in the U.S. prison gulag over the last several decades, while his feeble discretionary criminal justice reforms under Obama have no lasting institutional impact.

Worse, Eric Holders past is a model for Attorney General Jeff Sessions future.

Glen Ford is executive editor of BlackAgendaReport.com. E-mail him at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

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Sessions, Holder and mass Black incarceration - Florida Courier

Obama Attorney General Wants to ‘Channel The Resistance’ Against House Republicans on President Trump’s … – PEOPLE.com


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Obama Attorney General Wants to 'Channel The Resistance' Against House Republicans on President Trump's ...
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She packs her own lunch, and he still isn't allowed to drive. Subscribe now for all about Michelle and Barack Obama's lives after moving out of the White House only in PEOPLE. Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is doing his part with the ...

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Obama Attorney General Wants to 'Channel The Resistance' Against House Republicans on President Trump's ... - PEOPLE.com

Obama AG Eric Holder: FBI’s Comey ‘Broke’ Fundamental Principles, Hurt ‘Public Trust’ in FBI – CNSNews.com


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Obama AG Eric Holder: FBI's Comey 'Broke' Fundamental Principles, Hurt 'Public Trust' in FBI
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(CNSNews.com) -- In the May 9 Department of Justice (DOJ) memo detailing the major reasons for recommending the removal of FBI Director James Comey, Obama administration Attorney General Eric Holder is quoted as saying that Comey's actions ...

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Obama AG Eric Holder: FBI's Comey 'Broke' Fundamental Principles, Hurt 'Public Trust' in FBI - CNSNews.com

Eric Holder: Jeff Sessions’ policy ‘dumb on crime’ – Washington Times


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Eric Holder: Jeff Sessions' policy 'dumb on crime'
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In this May 15, 2013, file photo, President Barack Obama sits with Attorney General Eric Holder during the 32nd annual the National Peace Officers Memorial Service on Capitol Hill in Washington. Obama has announced plans to improve Democrats ...
Former Attorney General Eric Holder blasts Sessions memo as 'dumb on crime'Washington Examiner
'Dumb on Crime': Fmr AG Eric Holder Slams Jeff Sessions' New Prosecution PolicyLawNewz
Former Attorney General Eric Holder calls new drug prosecutions policy 'dumb on crime'The Week Magazine
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Eric Holder: Jeff Sessions' policy 'dumb on crime' - Washington Times

Eric Holder: Comey ‘Violated Long-Standing Justice Department Policies and Traditions’ – Washington Free Beacon

Former Attorney General Eric Holder / AP

BY: Jack Heretik May 11, 2017 11:09 am

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein cited Eric Holder, who served as attorney general under former President Barack Obama, in the letter he sent Tuesday to Attorney General Jeff Sessions in which he recommended firing then-FBI Director James Comey.

Rosenstein's letter, which Sessions referenced when he recommended that President Trump fire Comey, criticized the former FBI director's handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation.

"I cannot defend the director's handling of the conclusion of the investigation of Secretary Clinton's emails, and I do not understand his refusal to accept the nearly universal judgment that he was mistaken," Rosenstein's memo stated.

Rosenstein cited multiple former Justice Department heads from both Republican and Democratic administrations, including Holder, who made critical comments about Comey's conduct during the email probe.

In his letter, Rosenstein quoted Holder criticizing Comey's actions for negatively affecting "public trust" in the Justice Department and the FBI, CNS News noted.

"Eric Holder said that the director's decision was incorrect,'" Rosenstein wrote,referencing Comey's actions as the Clinton email probe was conducted. "It violated long-standingJustice Department policies and traditions. And it ran counter to guidance that I put in place four years ago laying out the proper way to conduct investigations during an election season.'"

"Holder concluded that the director broke with these fundamental principles' and negatively affected public trust in both the Justice Department and the FBI,'" Rosenstein added.

Democrats were critical of Comey's handling of the Clinton email investigation even though she was not prosecuted. The FBI launched the probe to determine whether Clinton mishandled classified material over her private email server while serving as secretary of state.

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Eric Holder: Comey 'Violated Long-Standing Justice Department Policies and Traditions' - Washington Free Beacon