security advisor, defense secretary. i often have to look up what the partisan affiliation is, it s just often not that important. and there s a certain continuity and inertia in national security policy that transcends partisan wins. is that also true at justice? yes. and justice department officials have gotten in trouble when they have forgotten that the justice department really different from other agencies. i remember senator lei i had say, you re not the secretary of justice, you are the attorney general of the united states. and there has to be a wall between the justice department and the white house even though you re a part of the administration. put up kind of an interesting thing between me and a president who i was a friend with. certain things we couldn t discuss. certain things we didn t discuss. but i think that s an appropriate way for an attorney general to think of himself or herself and it s an appropriate way for the justice department to be run. is there more
public officials are national security advisors. i often have to look up with their partisan affiliation is because it s just often not that important and there is a certain continuity in national security policy that transcend partisan wins. is that also true at justice? yes. justice department officials have gotten in trouble, attorney generals who got in trouble when they have forgotten that the justice department is different from other cabinet agencies. i remember senator lahey said during confirmation, you re not the secretary of justice. you re the attorney general of the united states and there has to be a wall between the justice department and the white house even though you re a part of administration. put kind of an interesting thing between me and a president who i was a friend with, certain things we couldn t discuss and certain things we didn t discuss but i think that s an appropriate way for an attorney general to think of himself or herself and it s an appropriate w
reaction out of particularly a paranoid slice of the public. and it s there for just the hard place to be first. yeah. to break any sort of barrier. attorney general sits at the conjunction of law and policy and the justice department is in so many parts of so many people s lives. from national security things to civil rights, voting, that you are of presence in a way that other cabinet members are not. that is at least one of the reason why is perhaps, you know, i could ingender those kind of negative feelings most people saw me as representative of the obama administration, and for some, you know, for some. and i m not saying this is for all, but for some, i think they were probably some racial issues. attorney general of the united states is often a lightning rod for criticism of the president of the united states. eric holder understood that to be just part of the gig. now though, we ve got that gig inverted. where now the attorney general is a lightning rod for criticism
i think that actually worries me because i think it betray as lack of understanding what the attorney general is supposed to be. you can t go at the ag that way. if you understand the independent role with the administration. there are things an attorney general is going to do that the president isn t going to agree with and the president is going to suck it up and say the ag has the responsibility to enforce the laws and has national security responsibilities and he s an independent actor in the way other cabinet officials are not. unless the president doesn t treat him that way. unless the president doesn t treat him that way. history has shown us that when that wall is too low, that s when justice departments get in trouble during the nixon years, during the bush years when you have white house contacts with the justice department and channels that are not approved. what s the correct for that when it goes back? resignations, investigations,
media. he then became the first u.s. senator to endorse donald trump for president, and then once trump was president, sessions became the nations attorney general. now, jeff sessions days may conceivably be numbered even there, as every day, there is a new opportunity for the foth pick a fight with him. eric holder explains just why that dynamic might actually be something dangerous for the country. in terms of the justice department as a national security agency, which in many ways it is, i ve always wondered if if it fits the line of national security policy making, in the sense that it s less partisan than other types of domestic policy. what i mean by that is in my job, i m often looking back into some time in the last couple of generations, looking for historical context or things that are happening now and public officials are national security figures, national