OPINION:
Eric Holder, who served as attorney general under Barack Obama, announced his intent to announce his decision on running for the presidency in 2020.
Run, Eric, run.
Americans are still waiting for answers to certain Justice Department issues from the Obama years — and what better way to get them finally answered than during a presidential campaign vetting?
“Eric Holder Sure Sounds Like He’s Running for President,” one Mother Jones headline just ran.
“Eric Holder says he’ll decide on 2020 run in March,” another headline from NBC News read.
And Holder himself said during Iowa’s Drake University: “I’m going to sit down with my family very soon and decide whether or not this is something we’re going to seek,” The Hill reported.
Do it. Run.
Holder, remember, was held in civil contempt in Congress for refusing to turn over subpoenaed documents tied to Operation Fast and Furious, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives gun-walking operation that led to the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. The triggerman in that case, Heraclio Osorio-Arellanes was just convicted; there’s the fresh angle to bring the matter to light once again.
It’d be interesting to see how President Donald Trump, likely running for re-election, and the Republicans remind how two rifles found at the scene of Terry’s death were traced to Fast and Furious.
It’d be interesting for Trump and the GOP to mention, amid a Holder campaign, how one firearm was found in one cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s home.
It’d be interesting for Holder to stand tall on his reputation on a national scale once more — a reputation that was described this way in the New York Post in 2014: “Holder’s stormy legacy includes being the only attorney general in American history to have been held in criminal contempt in Congress.”
It took until March of 2018 for the Justice Department to release at least some of the Fast and Furious documents held under Holder’s attorney general tenure — much to the chagrin, no doubt, of the Terry family. Much to the chagrin of us all, grieved as we all were by the secret shenanigans of an Obama administration that led to the senseless and brutal killing of a fine border agent.
So Holder for president?
Run. Terry will be the 2020 equivalent of Kate Steinle, the innocent Californian woman who was shot and killed by an illegal alien with a felony record and several previous deportations, as she walked the Democrat-controlled sanctuary city streets with her father.
Holder, as a Democratic candidate in 2020, would fizzle fast — fast and furiously, one might say. But he would, in the meantime, give Republicans an easy story to tell about the need for border security. He’d serve as a good example of what not to do.
And on that count, Holder could very well be the GOP’s best campaign friend.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley.
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