Obama: Attorney General Not "the President's Consigliere"

But Did Obama "Wingman" Eric Holder Get That Memo?

Watching Barack Obama’s insufferably sanctimonious interview with Stephen Colbert, I had to wonder whether Obama was purposely deceiving his audience or mindlessly deceiving himself.

I think the latter. Obama has been so bubble wrapped in his own mythology for so long he seems to have lost the ability to distinguish fact from fiction, history from wish fulfillment. No one ever contradicts him. His audience still adores him. Until the moment he is cross examined in a witness box, he will remain as clueless as his fans.

Obama and “wingman” Eric Holder

The ultimate ‘gag me’ moment in the Colbert interview came when Obama accused some unmentionable person—beneath his dignity to name that person—of “the politicization of the criminal justice system.” Books have been written about how Obama weaponized the DOJ and the intel community to sabotage President Trump in 2016 and beyond, so I will leave the unraveling of that plot to future historians and the Florida grand jury.

What has escaped attention is Obama’s well rehearsed jibe, “The idea is that the attorney general is the people’s lawyer. It’s not the president’s consigliere.” In a rare moment of self-awareness, Steven Colbert popped Obama’s bubble, jesting, “Even when it’s Bobby Kennedy?” Obama laughed uncomfortably, “Even when it’s Bobby Kennedy.”

Even Colbert knew the role AG Bobby Kennedy played for brother Jack

The audience applauded upon hearing this exchange. Most knew that “consigliere” was mob-speak for personal counsel, but few, I suspect, knew that as attorney general for his brother, President John Kennedy, Bobby was a more ruthless and political consigliere than any AG in American history.

Obama Attorney General Eric Holder was a close second. In fact, he said of his own role four years into his AG gig, “I’m still the President’s wingman, so I’m there with my boy.” According to Google AI, a wingman is “a trusted friend or associate who provides support, protection, and assistance.” In other words, he is not “the people’s lawyer.”

Don Corleone and his “wingman” Tom Hagen

Holder was deeply indebted to Obama. When Holder’s name first surfaced as an attorney general candidate in November 2008, Obama knew the appointment would face resistance.

As deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration, Holder secured a pardon for financier Marc Rich. Rich had famously fled the country upon being indicted for tax evasion, wire fraud, and racketeering. Rich and his wife Denise, however, had greased the wheels of injustice with ample donations to the Democratic Party. To get Holder nominated, Obama had to use his political juice to quiet Republicans.

Denise Rich, Marc’s wife, may have given Clinton more than money

When speaking to Colbert, however, Obama banked on the audience not knowing his attorney general had green lit the most notorious play-for-pay pardon in American history. When asked about which powers presidents should refrain from exercising, Obama said, “Maybe don’t pardon people who’ve given you a bunch of campaign contributions.” The audience laughed, assuming he was talking about Trump.

In 2009, Obama and Holder hit the ground running. They had a case to fix. On Election Day 2008, two New Black Panthers in paramilitary gear intimidated would-be voters at a Philadelphia polling place. One carried a nightstick. Both were abusive. “You are about to be ruled by the black man, cracker!” one of them yelled at a white voter. This was all captured on video.

Back in 2008 when CNN still reported the news

In January 2009, the DOJ filed a civil lawsuit against the New Black Panther Party for violating the 1965 Voting Rights Act J. Christian Adams, one of the six career attorneys involved, called the Panther actions, “the simplest and most obvious violation of federal law I saw in my Justice Department career.”

None of the accused filed any response, and it appeared that the Justice Department would prevail by default. But then Holder and Obama took over. In May, the DOJ overruled the six attorneys and let the Panthers walk. If Holder was indebted to Obama, Obama was indebted to the black dons who got him elected.

In 2012, when the lethally stupid gun-running scandal known as “Fast and Furious,” threatened to jeopardize Obama’s hopes for reelection, wingman Holder took the bullet. When subpoenaed, Holder refused to hand over the critically damning documents Republicans demanded.

Brian Terry was killed with a gun the “Fast and Furious” operators let walk

In June 2012, just as a House Committee was about to cite Holder for contempt of Congress, Obama asserted executive privilege. The House was not impressed. A week later, its members voted to cite Holder for contempt anyhow, the first cabinet member ever cited. Obama shrugged.

I could cite a dozen cases where Obama and Holder used the DOJ to subvert justice, but one stands out for its ruthlessness. This, too, had to do with getting Obama reelected. Knowing his base, Obama went looking for a reliably clueless audience to hear his take on the September 2012 fiasco in Benghazi and found one on the David Letterman Show.

Obama yuks it up with David Letterman

“Here’s what happened,” Obama told his wide-eyed host a week after the assault. “You had a video that was released by somebody who lives here, sort of a shadowy character who − who made an extremely offensive video directed at Mohammed and Islam.” Letterman reeled back in disbelief. “Making fun of the Prophet Mohammed!” he said solemnly. “Making fun of the Prophet Mohammed,” confirmed Obama.

What Obama did not share with the audience was how the DOJ kept the “shadowy character” from telling the truth about the video. It was ugly. Nakoula Bassesly Nakoula, an American citizen, was on parole for his involvement in a check-kiting scheme. Even more worrisome, he had quietly cooperated with the feds and fingered the scheme’s ringleader. Less than 48 hours after Hillary Clinton first alluded to Nakoula’s video, the DOJ gratuitously unsealed the indictment and exposed Nakoula to retaliation.

One obvious reason for exposing Nakoula was to prod him into accepting federal protection. Holder’s DOJ then devised a devilish strategy for revoking Nakoula’s parole and leaked that strategy to the media.

Nakoula was dispatched to a Texas prison to keep his secrets safe

Just three days after the smoke cleared in Benghazi, the Times’s Ian Lovett reported that the feds were inquiring into whether Nakoula “had been the person who uploaded the video to YouTube.” If Nakoula had uploaded the video, Lovett continued much too knowingly, he would have violated parole restrictions “against his using the Internet without permission from a probation officer.”

The DOJ promptly had Nakoula arrested on that specious charge. That a filmmaker was about to spend a year in federal custody for producing a perfectly legal satire inspired not a single major media journalist to ask why. They should have. If anyone knew the dangers of what Obama called “the politicization of the criminal justice system, the awesome power of the state,” it was Nakoula Bassely Nakoula.