Cliven Bundy Challenges Eric Holder
Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy together with congressional candidate Kamau Bakari (IAP) challenge U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to come to Nevada and have the conversation about race that...
By: Kamau Bakari
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Cliven Bundy Challenges Eric Holder - Video
Attorney General Eric Holder Speaks at the Operation Stolen Dreams Press Conference
Attorney General Eric Holder Speaks at the Operation Stolen Dreams Press Conference.
By: TheJusticeDepartment
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Attorney General Eric Holder Speaks at the Operation Stolen Dreams Press Conference - Video
Cliven Bundy Releases New Campaign Ad
Originally published on Oct 16, 2014 on Bakari #39;s Youtube page. Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy together with congressional candidate Kamau Bakari (IAP) challenge U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder...
By: JJ MacNab
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Cliven Bundy Releases New Campaign Ad - Video
After news broke of the attorney generals resignation, journalists got ahead of themselves
Justice Attorney General Eric Holder is set to resign from his post after six years in the Obama administration (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Hours before Attorney General Eric Holder announced his resignation Thursday afternoon, speculation among reporters about his replacement had already hit a fever pitch. A number of news outlets simply listed the possibilities, while still more began ranking them in earnest, all with little or no sourcing.
NPRbroke news of Holders announcement at 10:40 am, citing two anonymous sources saying that a leading candidate [to replace him] is Solicitor General Don Verrilli, the administrations top representative to the Supreme Court. The forward-looking detail was a natural fit in the story and, to be sure, speculation isnt inherently bad. But amid the Beltways hypercompetitive media market, such details quickly mutate into rampant, often empty conjecture that finds its way into written pieces.
In news stories following NPRs report, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, and Reuters listed possible candidates without naming a favorite. But analyses published soon after instead gravitated toward NPRs Verrilli claim, including The Los Angeles Times, which prefaced its speculation with particularly lax sourcing: Some observers believe WSJ.com devoted a short post to Verrilli being back in the spotlight. And within a few hours, Yahoo News and The Daily Beast labeled the solicitor general the leading candidate emphasis added while analyses at the Post and Vox called him the frontrunner. All of these stories either cited NPRs reporting or referenced anonymous sources.
But it didnt end there, as evident by the Washington Examiners piece: On Wednesday, two names surfaced as possible replacements: Solicitor General Donald Verrilli and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick. While Patrick served as an assistant attorney general under President Bill Clinton, its unclear from the Examiner piece whether it was administration officials or simply other journalists who had floated his name in todays discussion. On WSJ.com, meanwhile, a blog post stated, without sourcing, that Patrick was instantly anointed as the favorite to succeed Mr. Holder. Politico called him one much talked-about contender while NBC reported that the Massachusetts governor was the top name always mentioned to possibly replace Holder. Readers cant help but wonder whether the sources referenced in such stories are simply other stories.
Perhaps the emptiest speculation came from a BuzzFeed post, Team Kamala Harris Sees Path to D.C. After Holder Resignation. The piece, suggesting Californias attorney general as a Holder replacement, quotes a Harris backer who heads a nonprofit advocacy group and a press release from Harris herself.
Of course, any of the names mentioned above could very well head the Justice Department one day. And its a reporters job to analyze the administrations thought process, especially when it comes to filling cabinet positions. But until speculation is backed up with real insightand named sourcesspeculation is merely a shot in the dark.
Correction: An earlier version of this story referred to NPR as National Public Radio. The latter changed its name to NPR in 2010.
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Reporters jump the gun on Eric Holder replacement speculation
WASHINGTON Eric Holder, who served as the public face of the Obama administration's legal fight against terrorism and weighed in on issues of racial fairness, is resigning after six years on the job. He is the nation's first black attorney general.
The White House said that President Barack Obama would announce Holder's departure later Thursday and that Holder planned to remain at the Justice Department until his successor was in place. White House officials said Obama had not made a final decision on a replacement for Holder, who was one of the most progressive voices in his Cabinet.
Advisers to Obama and Holder said the attorney general had been planning his departure with the president for some time. Some possible candidates who have been discussed among administration officials include Solicitor General Don Verrilli, California Attorney General Kamala Harris, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, Deputy U.S. Attorney General James Cole and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a former Rhode Island attorney general.
Holder, a 63-year-old former judge and prosecutor, took office in early 2009 as the U.S. government grappled with the worst financial crisis in decades and with divisive questions on the handling of captured terrorism suspects, issues that helped shape his tenure as the country's top law enforcement official. He is the fourth-longest serving attorney general in U.S. history.
He also took on questions of racial fairness, working to improve police relations with minorities, enforce civil rights laws and remove disparities in sentencing. Most recently he became the Obama administration's point man in the federal response to the police shooting last month of Michael Brown, an unarmed black 18-year-old in Ferguson, Missouri. In the shooting's aftermath, he enlisted a team of criminal justice researchers to study possible racial bias in law enforcement.
The news of Holder's resignation came as civil rights leaders and the families of Brown and Eric Garner, who died in a New York City police chokehold this summer, were appearing at a news conference in Washington calling on the Justice Department to take over investigations into the deaths.
The Rev. Al Sharpton urged the White House to meet with civil rights representatives before appointing a replacement. "There has not been an attorney general with a civil rights record equal to Attorney General Eric Holder," Sharpton said.
In his first few years on the job, Holder endured a succession of controversies over, among other things, an ultimately abandoned plan to try terrorism suspects in New York City, a botched gun-running probe along the Southwest border that prompted Republican calls for his resignation, and what was seen as failure to hold banks accountable for the economic near-meltdown.
But he stayed on after Obama won re-election, turning in his final stretch to issues that he said were personally important to him. He promoted voting rights and legal benefits for same-sex couples and pushed for changes to a criminal justice system that he said meted out punishment disproportionately to minorities.
Stung by criticism that the department hadn't been aggressive enough in targeting financial misconduct, Holder in the past year and a half secured criminal guilty pleas from two foreign banks and multibillion-dollar civil settlements with American banks arising from the sale of toxic mortgage-backed securities. Even then, critics noted that no individuals were held accountable.
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