Famed Liberal Legal Analyst Jonathon Turley Says Eric Holder Is A ‘Sin Eater’ Who Has Shielded Obama From His Treasonous Actions

Nearly forty years ago now, Republicans proved that they could rise above partisan political self-interests as they turned on Richard Nixon and ended the cancer of his presidency.

I don’t believe Democrats have that ability in their shriveled souls.  I think Democrats would burn this nation to the ground before they would prove that they can rise above politics to do what is right for the country.  But facts are beginning to shape up that may prove me wrong yet.  Democrats are now openly calling for Attorney General Eric Holder to be fired.  And this column by famous liberal legal analyst Jonathon Turley is simply powerful:

Fire Eric Holder: Column
by Jonathan Turley, USATODAY

Recently, Attorney General Eric Holder appeared before the House Judiciary Committee to answer questions about the administration’s sweeping surveillance of journalists with the Associated Press. In the greatest attack on the free press in decades, the Justice Department seized phone records for reporters and editors in at least three AP offices as well as its office in the House of Representatives. Holder, however, proceeded to claim absolute and blissful ignorance of the investigation, even failing to recall when or how he recused himself.

Yet, this was only the latest attack on the news media under Holder’s leadership. Despite his record, he expressed surprise at the hearing that the head of the Republican National Committee had called for his resignation. After all, Holder pointed out, he did nothing. That is, of course, precisely the point. Unlike the head of the RNC, I am neither a Republican nor conservative, and I believe Holder should be fired.

The ‘sin eater’

Holder’s refusal to accept responsibility for the AP investigation was something of a change for the political insider. His value to President Obama has been his absolute loyalty. Holder is what we call a “sin eater” inside the Beltway — high-ranking associates who shield presidents from responsibility for their actions. Richard Nixon had H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman. Ronald Reagan had Oliver North and Robert “Bud” McFarlane. George W. Bush had the ultimate sin eater: Dick Cheney, who seemed to have an insatiable appetite for sins to eat.

This role can be traced to 18th century Europe, when families would use a sin eater to clean the moral record of a dying person by eating bread from the person’s chest and drinking ale passed over his body. Back then, the ritual’s power was confined to removing minor sins.

For Obama, there has been no better sin eater than Holder. When the president promised CIA employees early in his first term that they would not be investigated for torture, it was the attorney general who shielded officials from prosecution. When the Obama administration decided it would expand secret and warrantless surveillance, it was Holder who justified it. When the president wanted the authority to kill any American he deemed a threat without charge or trial, it was Holder who went public to announce the “kill list” policy.

Last week, the Justice Department confirmed that it was Holder who personally approved the equally abusive search of Fox News correspondent James Rosen’s e-mail and phone records in another story involving leaked classified information. In the 2010 application for a secret warrant, the Obama administration named Rosen as “an aider and abettor and/or co-conspirator” to the leaking of classified materials. The Justice Department even investigated Rosen’s parents’ telephone number, and Holder was there to justify every attack on the news media.

Ignoble legacy

Yet, at this month’s hearing, the attorney general had had his fill. Accordingly, Holder adopted an embarrassing mantra of “I have no knowledge” and “I had no involvement” throughout the questioning. When he was not reciting the equivalent to his name, rank and serial number, he was implicating his aide, Deputy Attorney General James Cole. Cole, it appears, is Holder’s sin eater. Holder was so busy denying responsibility for today’s scandals, he began denying known facts about older scandals, such as the “Fast and Furious” gun operation.

In the end, Holder was the best witness against his continuing in office. His insistence that he did nothing was a telling moment. The attorney general has done little in his tenure to protect civil liberties or the free press. Rather, Holder has supervised a comprehensive erosion of privacy rights, press freedom and due process. This ignoble legacy was made possible by Democrats who would look at their shoes whenever the Obama administration was accused of constitutional abuses.

On Thursday, Obama responded to the outcry over the AP and Fox scandals by calling for an investigation by … you guessed it … Eric Holder. He ordered Holder to meet with news media representatives to hear their “concerns” and report back to him. He sent his old sin eater for a confab with the very targets of the abusive surveillance. Such an inquiry offers no reason to trust its conclusions.

The feeble response was the ultimate proof that these are Obama’s sins despite his effort to feign ignorance. It did not matter that Holder is the sin eater who has lost his stomach or that such mortal sins are not so easily digested. Indeed, these sins should be fatal for any attorney general.

Jonathan Turley, the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, is a member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors.

In addition to its own editorials, USA TODAY publishes diverse opinions from outside writers, including our Board of Contributors.

Jonathon Turley is outraged over Obama’s criminal and blatantly unconstitutional power-grab over the media.  I want you to note here: Turley says nothing against what Obama did to in criminally targeting at least 500 conservative groups in effectively denying them the right to organize as tax-exempt groups.  He says nothing about the fact that by some bizarre coincidence Obama’s EPA did the same exact thing to conservative organizations while approving liberal green groups time after time.  He says nothing about the cover-up that clearly occurred in the aftermath of Benghazi – during which the president and numerous members of his administration literally claimed that what the intelligence said was true (that Benghazi was attacked in a planned operation by al-Qaeda-connected terrorists) was false and that what was false (that the attack was somehow the spontaneous result of a Youtube video) was true.  Obama lied to the American people and had his underlings lie to the American people because if the people knew how wildly Obama’s foreign policy had failed, he would not have been reelected.  And Turley only alludes to the Fast and Furious scandal in which Eric Holder was cited for contempt of Congress over his outright lies in that matter.  And even the issue that Turley expresses his outrage – in the Obama-Holder campaign to suppress and intimidate the press – Turley doesn’t give the full weight of what Eric Holder did, such as lie to Congress under oath when he testified.

At this point, Holder is refusing to answer how many journalists he has used the power of his office to attack.  Holder’s – and Obama’s – claim is complete ignorance – as if ignorance is some kind of a virtue.

At this point, Obama has already repeatedly documented that he does not give a flying damn about the law (example: he refused to uphold the Defense of Marriage Act, passed by Congress and signed into law by a president simply because he didn’t agree with the law and viewed himself above the law) or the Constitution (example: he doesn’t care about the 2nd Amendment and now we know he doesn’t give a flying fig about the 1st, either).  As I have rightly stated over and over again, Barack Obama is a true fascist.  As is Eric Holder.

The major question is simply this: do the American people care?  Do they have the last vestiges of decency to demand that Obama and his pet legal pit bull go.  Or has America crossed the Rubicon of apathy that will see this once greatest and mightiest nation in the history of the human race soon sliding into the graveyard of nations.

I’d love to be surprised, but I believe the latter.

I don’t believe the American people as a whole have any such virtue.  Which is why the beast is coming, and which is why the United States of America will join the world in worshiping the Antichrist and taking his mark.

Tags: Benghazi, contempt of Congress, EPA, Eric Holder, IRS, Jonathon Turley, journalists