On a day when President Barack Obama dismissed as a `mistake,` the failure to pay taxes by his nominee for secretary of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Senate confirmed the first Caribbean American in the post of attorney general.
The Senate last evening voted 75-21, to confirm the son of a Barbadian immigrant, Eric Holder,Jr., as the 82nd attorney general of the United States. Newly-sworn in junior senators, Roland Burris and Kristen Gillibrand and even Republican Kit Bond were among those voting `yea` for the Queens, NY-born Holder but 21 Republicans voted against him while Senator Mel Martinez of Florida did not vote.
Bond had a testy exchange with Holder during his nomination hearing, but on Monday, Bond said on the Senate floor that after some meetings with Holder, he is hopeful the former deputy attorney general `learned important lessons` from his past actions, including the controversial Marc Rich pardon under his former boss, President Bill Clinton.
Added Bond, `I look forward to working with Mr. Holder closely on the PATRIOT Act sunset issues and other important national security matters during this Congress for the benefit of our nation.`
Holder, 58, previously served as a judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, United States Attorney, as an attorney at Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C., representing clients such as Merck and the National Football League and as a senior legal advisor to then-Senator Barack Obama during Obama’s presidential campaign. He was one of three members of Obama’s vice-presidential selection committee.
Holder’s father, Eric Himpton Holder, Sr., was born in Saint Joseph, Barbados and arrived in the United States at the age of 11.
He later became a real estate broker. His mother, Miriam, was born in New Jersey, while his maternal grandparents were immigrants from Saint Philip, Barbados. Holder grew up in East Elmhurst, Queens, and attended public school until the age of 10. When entering the 4th grade he was selected to participate in a program for intellectually-gifted students.
He went on to attend Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan and attended Columbia University, where he played freshman basketball and was co-captain of his team and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in American history in 1973. Holder received his Juris Doctor (J.D.) from Columbia Law School, graduating in 1976. He worked for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund during his first summer and the United States Attorney during his second summer.
After graduating from law school, Holder joined the U.S. Justice Department’s new Public Integrity Section during an interval lasting from 1976 to 1988. During his time there, he assisted in the prosecution of Democratic Congressman John Jenrette for bribery discovered in the Abscam sting operation. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan appointed Holder to serve on the Bench as a Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.
Holder stepped down from the bench in 1993 to accept an appointment for U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia from President Bill Clinton. He was the first African-American U.S. Attorney in that office. At the beginning of his tenure, he oversaw the conclusion of the corruption case against Dan Rostenkowski, part of the Congressional Post Office Scandal. He was a U.S. Attorney until his elevation to Deputy Attorney General in 1997.
Holder`s confirmation brings to three, the number of members of the Obama team, who trace their roots to the Caribbean. The others are new U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Susan Rice, whose grandparents were from Jamaica and Patrick Gaspard, a Haitian American who is the White House political director.
Source: Caribworldnews.com
