Eric Holder's Trials and Tribulations

In January, when most of Attorney General Eric Holder's friends and enemies turned against his plan to try 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a federal courthouse in lower Manhattan, one man stood by him. And he was a good friend to have. At a Situation Room session on Jan. 29, Holder was virtually alone in arguing for sticking with a civilian trial for KSM. A Manhattan jury, he said, would produce a quick conviction — and that image would help restore America's reputation in the world. When others in the room argued in favor of military tribunals with special rules favoring the government, it was Barack Obama who took Holder's side, saying that shifting to tribunals would damage the probity of the American justice system.

But even with the President's affirmation, Holder was fighting a losing battle. The public backlash against a civilian KSM trial had already cost the White House the support of many Democratic leaders in New York. Republicans, meanwhile, were busy turning Holder into the poster child for White House weakness on terrorism, and some polls showed that most Americans agreed with them. "The only two people who still believe in civilian trials," says one of the meeting's attendees, "are Holder and the President."(See the top 10 unfortunate political one-liners.)

For the past year, Holder and Obama have been navigating one of the more difficult constitutional relationships in American government. On the one hand, the Attorney General is appointed by the President; on the other, he must remain politically independent of the White House. Holder, who as Deputy Attorney General a decade ago approved both the expansion of Ken Starr's investigation of Bill Clinton and Clinton's disastrous pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich, needs no lesson on the pitfalls of his position. But Holder enjoys a personal relationship with Obama that he never had with Clinton — and that makes the job harder, not easier. It may also help him keep it.

A Reasonable Plan Gone Awry
Obama and Holder met after Obama was elected to the Senate in 2004; three years later, when Obama launched his bid for the presidency, he tapped Holder to be co-chair of his campaign. Holder co-headed Obama's vice-presidential search in the summer of 2008, and the two have remained close and socialize often. "It's an asset to be close to the President," says Jamie Gorelick, an old friend of Holder's and a former Justice Department official, "and to have a sense of how your actions will align with his judgments." Holder and his wife were invited to the private dinner at the chic organic restaurant near Dupont Circle where Obama feted his wife Michelle on her birthday early this year. "It's interesting," Holder says, sitting in his conference room in the Justice Department. "It's like you have this bifurcated relationship — the professional, where there is this distance, and the personal, where we let our guards down."

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