Perhaps Holder's instinct was to boost morale among prosecutors who might have been demoralized by his public admission that Justice Department attorneys behaved unethically during the Stevens prosecution. Perhaps when he ranked the Public Integrity Unit lawyers "among the finest lawyers in the entire government," he was speaking of better days -- like the period from 1976 to 1988 when Holder worked in the unit. Surely he wasn't referring to the lawyers who worked on torture memos or who based their decisions to prosecute public officials on the political needs of the White House.
The linked article offers evidence that the Bush administration began meddling with the Public Integrity Unit in 2001, when it removed the unit's longtime chief -- a career prosecutor who had resisted Republican pressure to recommend the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate allegations of illegal campaign fund-raising by Al Gore. The unit went downhill from there, as experienced prosecutors quit or transferred out of the unit. Three quarters of the lawyers in the unit at the start of the Bush administration had departed by its end. That left newbies recruited by the Bush administration running the show.
If Public Integrity Unit prosecutors were "among the finest lawyers in the entire government" when Holder was there, the Bush administration put an end to that. Law Professor David Sklansky calls the unit's deterioration "a kind of organizational failure."
Mr. Sklansky said the pressure to bring cases coupled with the erosion of “the institutional memory of the unit and the availability of prosecutors with seasoned, detached judgment” had created an ideal environment for mistakes like the disclosure violations.
If Holder does his job well, "I've got your back" means "I'll support your future ethical decisions to bring meritorious charges that are politically unpopular," not "I'll cover your mistakes." His actions so far reflect a commitment to restore the Justice Department's integrity.
Last month, he ordered all prosecutors to undergo retraining and established a working group to review where they needed additional resources to fulfill their obligations to provide material to the defense. He has also made several other moves, including changing the leadership of the department’s internal ethics unit, the Office of Professional Responsibility, which the judge in the Stevens case criticized for moving slowly.
That's a good start. The real challenge lies in weeding out the prosecutors who have internalized the Bush administration's elevation of politics over justice, of results over rules. For some, retraining just won't be enough. Those are the Justice Department lawyers who need to be reassigned to prosecute traffic tickets issued in national parks or to handle student loan collections.
