The Calls To Fire Eric Holder Should Worry Wall Street

Isn’t it about time we saw a replacement for Eric Holder? Photo credit: ryanjelly

There’s recently been a sharp increase in the bipartisan calls to fire Eric Holder, an opinion we endorse. We want the Obama administration to fire Eric Holder and replace him with someone who will prosecute Wall Street. Here we’ll show a few excerpts from the recent calls to fire Eric Holder and explain our position. First, the excerpts:
From Jonathan Turley, Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University:

I am neither a Republican nor conservative, and I believe Holder should be fired.

From Michael Gerson, Washington Post opinion writer:

His tenure will not be remembered for its ideological bent. At times he has displayed the legal sensibilities of a flower child. At other points, he has provided the legal justification for President Obama’s expanded drone war or pursued the broadest attack on press freedom in decades.

From Matthew Filipowicz, host of the Matthew Filipowicz Show:

I’m sorry, but I do not buy that the Justice Department is powerless. They are not powerless here. Or if they are, it is 100% by choice. Eric Holder could prosecute Wall Street for their crimes, and the fact is he has chosen not to.

That last quote mirrors our opinion. If you’ve read the details of the specific crimes on Wall Street, or if you’ve seen Frontline’s documentary “The Untouchables,” you know that some Wall Streeters deserve jail time for the actions leading up to, during, and after the 2008 crash.
Frontline’s documentary was so powerful in proving the guilt on Wall Street and Washington’s lack of action that the day after it aired Lanny Breuer, the assistant attorney general, resigned. So there is clear proof that with enough public knowledge and enough public outcry over injustice, reform can happen.

What is perhaps most important, though, is that the public unites to demand that Holder’s replacement be someone who will hold Wall Street accountable.
As the links above show, we know that there are guilty players on Wall Street. We now just need someone with the political will to act on that knowledge. If Eric Holder is fired, it will at least give us that chance.
This isn’t a matter of satisfying some base desire for revenge. We don’t hold the view that all bankers are evil. We just know that if guilty Wall Streeters aren’t punished for their illicit activities in the financial crash, those activities are likely to continue over and over. It’s a matter of moral hazard, and it needs to be addressed quickly—before we find ourselves in another crisis.
It’s time to fire Eric Holder and replace him with someone who will hold Wall Street accountable (someone who didn’t work for Wall Street’s law firm, Covington & Burling).
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If you haven’t followed the story on Holder and Wall Street, this clip below from Jon Stewart gives a quick overview.