U.S. President-elect Barack Obama has conditionally offered Eric Holder the job as attorney general and the former top Clinton administration official has accepted. Before the offer becomes official, Obama's team wants to determine if Holder could win Senate confirmation with broad bipartisan support and clean up a Justice Department wracked by scandals.
Eric Holder, the deputy attorney general under President Bill Clinton, has emerged as the top candidate for the job as the nation's top law enforcement and legal officer. As attorney general, Holder would play a key role in setting policy on prosecuting terrorism and crime cases while protecting civil liberties.
Justice Department officials said Holder, who served as a former prosecutor who handled corruption cases, a local judge and then the U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., was generally respected, admired and well regarded by career employees. Along with Caroline Kennedy and Jim Johnson, he served on Obama's vice presidential selection committee and has been a senior legal adviser for Obama's presidential campaign.
Holder was born in 1951 in The Bronx, New York, to parents who emigrated from Barbados. He grew up in Queens and was educated at Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan and attended Columbia University, where he earned a B.A. in 1973 and a J.D. in 1976. He was then appointed by President Ronald Reagan to serve as an Associate Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. Holder served as Acting Attorney General under President George W. Bush for several weeks until the Senate confirmed Bush's nominee, John Ashcroft.
If his nomination is approved by the U.S. Senate, he will be the first Black person to head the Justice Department. Holder is married to Sharon Malone, an obstetrician; the couple has three children.
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