Republicans Point to Attorney General Candidate Holder's Role in Clinton Pardons

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Eric Holder Is Top Pick for Attorney General

Eric H. Holder Jr., a former Justice Department official who served as President-elect Barack Obama's campaign co-chairman, is the leading candidate to serve as the next U.S. attorney general, according to Democratic sources.

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Over 25 years of public service, Holder supported federal grants for state and local police initiatives. Among the projects he backed were campaigns to prevent domestic violence, hate crimes and child abuse, according to Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum. The bulk of those funds have been cut since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks made national security the Justice Department's top priority.

"He's an individual who has a lot of relationships in the heart of the criminal justice system, and that can't help but be helpful, particularly when local forces are dealing with violent crime and homeland security," Bratton said in an interview. "He's somebody who would begin with a very big head start about the issues."

Holder's tenure in the Clinton administration has also made him a fresh target of GOP operatives, who questioned yesterday whether Obama's naming of so many Washington veterans with ties to the former first couple would truly bring, as an RNC statement put it, "the bipartisan 'change' to Washington that [Obama] promised voters."

RNC spokeswoman Amber Wilkerson said in the statement, "Barack Obama is rewarding yet another one of his political loyalists in Eric Holder."

But Barbara R. Arnwine, head of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, drew the opposite conclusion. In an e-mail interview, she said that Holder "has the experience, the integrity and the vision to restore the program and reputation of the Department of Justice which has been undermined by a number of his predecessors."

Research editor Alice Crites contributed to this report.