As Eric Holder announced stepping down from his post as the the first African American AG's in US history. He faced enormous racist and other personal attacks during his tenure. He faced this with tact and at times fought back gloriously.
He, admittedly had many victories and made much progress on race issues, civil rights, and many other fields. He flew to Ferguson, MO, recently and personally supported and comforted the people and protestors there and has begun Federal cases in that obvious miscarriage of justice. And, acknowledge his civil rights record and other amazing (considering the current political climate), victories, e.g. refusing to prosecute DOMA.
On the other hand, his greatest criticisms, included will be his lack of Indicting any Major CEO's of Bush's era, Wall street, for the many criminals that brought us to the worst Economic downturn since the Great Depression, leading to millions losing their homes, savings, and in many ways, their lives. I, myself, lost over $25,000 of my own Teacher's retirement during that area. He essentially has supported the concept that some financial institutions are TOO LARGE TO FAIL.
A Huffington Post article just today, "This Is What Eric Holder's Legacy Will Be, " says,
"In striking contrast with these past prosecutions, not a single high-level executive has been successfully prosecuted in connection with the recent financial crisis, and given the fact that most of the relevant criminal provisions are governed by a five-year statute of limitations, it appears likely that none will be."
Judge Jed Rakoff of the U.S. District Court in Manhattan wrote earlier this year in the New York Review of Books. "The lack of public evidence that Holder's Justice Department thoroughly investigated crisis-era wrongdoing has contributed to the perception -- one eagerly promoted by the defense bar -- that perhaps few crimes were even committed in the run up to the financial crisis."
"But if, by contrast, the Great Recession was in material part the product of intentional fraud," Rakoff wrote, "the failure to prosecute those responsible must be judged one of the more egregious failures of the criminal justice system in many years."
Did he close Guantanamo Bay, or attempt to do it. Constitutionalists find his legacy troubling.
(CCRJustice.org, Public Citizen). He also, failed to get in front of the 'torture' that our government has been doing since 9/11 as the article says, "He released the so-called "torture memos," but didn't go after their authors "
But, as the article says, "He oversaw a crackdown on leaks and disappointed civil liberties advocates " and 8 'government leakers' prosecuted under the Draconian Espionage Act of 1917 (Unconstitutional indeed). These included Eric Snowden, and Pvt. Chelsea Manning.
Recently just making a simple negative comment on Facebook, about Eric Holder, I guess I was being held as a 'troll' of sorts and accused of being some conservative, right-wing, radical, which was surprising, especially the vindictiveness of the attack. Be that as it may.
I leave it to others to comment further on his legacy.