“That area of his record is terrible,” says Robert Weissman, president of the progressive nonprofit, Public Citizen. 
 
 Weissman is criticizing U.S. attorney general Eric Holder for his “utter failure to prosecute any [major] institution or person for the events that led to the financial crisis and all the ensuing social devastation.” 
 
 Holder announced yesterday that he’ll step down from the post he’s held since 2009 as soon as the president appoints a successor, 
 
 The popular vein of criticism being voiced by Weissman, and encapsulated in the phrase “too big to jail,” is the albatross that threatens to weigh down Holder’s legacy in the business realm. 
 
 It’s more than just a cheap shot leveled by people that don’t really understand the fine points and technicalities of the criminal justice system. U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff, a former chief of the business fraud unit of the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office, published a powerful article in the New York Review of Books last January that, while tempered with judicial disclaimers and caveats, unmistakably conveys his slack-jawed disbelief that the “colossal frauds” the government has alleged in so many civil cases could not also have engendered at least one successful criminal prosecution. 
 
 To be sure, Holder’s legacy as attorney general will be determined by a much broader record of accomplishment and failure than just his stance on corporate crime. Historians will likely focus far more on the impact he had on civil rights, including gay and voting rights; his preference for prosecuting terrorism in criminal courts rather than military tribunals; his attempt to bring more equity in sentencing and drug crime prosecutions; his apparent tolerance of vast domestic surveillance in the name of fighting terrorism; and his surprising persistence in bringing leak prosecutions, even when it meant subpoenaing journalists, including New York Times reporter James Risen . 
 
 But in the business realm, will Holder’s champions have a case for counteracting criticism like Weissman’s? 
 
 Well, in recent years Holder has certainly been punishing banks with unprecedented civil fines and penalties. Laast month he won a $16.65 billion settlement from Bank of America Corp. ( bac ) the department’s largest with a single entity in history, for misrepresentations it made (or that its teetering acquisitions, Countrywide and Merrill Lynch made) about residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) during the runup to the crisis. Last November, he grabbed $13 billion more from JPMorgan Chase ( jpm ) for its similar conduct (and that of the companies it acquired, Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual). He picked up another $7 billion in a deal with Citigroup ( c ) in July, also stemming from alleged RMBS-related fraud. 
 
 And once we get past the financial crisis, Holder’s record looks tougher. His department came down hard on BP for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster. In November 2012, BP pleaded guilty to 11 felony manslaughter charges, environmental crimes, and obstruction of Congress, and agreed to pay $4 billion in criminal fines, even as the Justice Department continues to seek additional relief from BP in civil proceedings. (That’s all over and above, of course, the many billions BP has paid, and has yet to pay, in ongoing private litigation.) 
 
 Holder has also won unprecedented victories in fighting offshore tax evasion, obtaining guilty pleas from Credit Suisse AG ( cs ) (which paid $2 billion in fines and restitution) and from Wegelin & Co., Switzerland’s oldest private bank. 
 
 Finally, this past July his department obtained a guilty plea from Paris-based bank BNP Paribas ( bnp ) , for processing illegal transactions with Sudanese, Iranian, and Cuban entities, in violation of the Trading With the Enemy Act. BNP coughed up about $9 billion in forfeitures and fines. 
 
 “During attorney general Holder’s tenure, the sanctions on business have increased hugely,” Jamie Gorelick told me in an interview. Gorelick was deputy attorney general during the Clinton Administration, and is now a partner at the law firm of WilmerHale. “It used to be that a billion-dollar resolution was extraordinary. Now we have resolutions at levels many, many times that number.” 
 
 So, yes, Holder’s champions will have some basis to commend his record on business crime. 
 
 But in the end, the die is cast. With each new multi-billion-dollar recovery the government wins from Bank of America, JP Morgan, Citigroup, or some other company accused of civil fraud in connection with the conduct that launched the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, the more inconceivable it seems that there wasn’t also some prosecutable criminal wrongdoing going on at the time. 
 
 “Too big to jail” will be Holder’s sad legacy. 
 
 http://fortune.com/video/2014/06/20/bank-of-america-asks-to-meet-with-holder/ ||||| Photo by Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images 
 
 On Thursday the families of Michael Brown and Eric Garner joined with the NAACP, the National Urban League, the National Action Network, the National Bar Association, and the Black Women’s Roundtable to call for a full federal investigation in the police killings of the two young men. 
 
 Jamelle Bouie Jamelle Bouie is a Slate staff writer covering politics, policy, and race. 
 
 The Rev. Al Sharpton was part of the event, and he was about to take questions from those assembled when the news broke that Attorney General Eric Holder intended to resign from the administration. Naturally, Sharpton had a few words for the occasion. 
 
 “There is no attorney general who has shown a commitment to civil rights like Eric Holder,” said Sharpton, “If he is resigning, the civil rights community is losing the most effective civil rights attorney general in American history.” 
 
 
 
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 That is high praise, but it’s hard to say it’s unreasonable or unjustified. When President Obama entered office, the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department was in shambles, neglected by President Bush and staffed with a coterie of partisan operatives. Long-serving lawyers left the office, case files were closed with little explanation, political appointees sought to block liberals from career positions, and anti-discrimination efforts were few and far between. 
 
 At his confirmation hearing at the beginning of Obama’s term, Holder made the Civil Rights Division his priority, telling the Senate, “In the last eight years, vital federal laws designed to protect rights in the workplace, the housing market, and the voting booth have languished. … Improper political hiring has undermined this important mission. That must change. And I intend to make this a priority as attorney general.” 
 
 To that end, Holder took aggressive steps to repair the damage of the previous administration and restore the traditional priorities of the Civil Rights Division. On voting rights, Holder was a strong advocate against voter identification laws, attacking the 2012 Texas law as a “political pretext to disenfranchise American citizens of their most precious right” and comparing some practices to Jim Crow laws. “Many of those without IDs would have to travel great distances to get them—and some would struggle to pay for the documents they might need to obtain them. We call those poll taxes,” he said. 
 
 Holder was the “anger translator” for a president constrained from blunt talk on race. 
 
 After the Supreme Court struck down key parts of the Voting Rights Act—the strongest push in a broad rear-guard action against voting rights and access—Holder pledged to do everything possible to defend the VRA from further encroachment. He kept his word. Under a provision of the VRA that allows states to be brought under new federal scrutiny if violations of the 14th or 15th Amendment have occurred, the Department of Justice sued North Carolina and Texas over their controversial voter ID laws. Likewise, this year, it joined lawsuits against similar voting laws in Ohio and Wisconsin. 
 
 Holder took the lead in other civil rights areas. Under his tenure the Department of Justice has opened 20 investigations into police departments across the country. As Nicole Flatow and Ian Millhiser note for ThinkProgress, these investigations have ended with “scathing findings of police brutality, abuse of the mentally ill, and excessive deadly force, and agreements known as consent decrees that bind cities to federal monitoring and other reforms.” 
 
 Indeed, these investigations were one reason for Thursday’s press conference with Sharpton and others. This summer the Justice Department turned its attention to Ferguson, Missouri, where racial bias formed the backdrop for protests in the police killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown. In their plea for more federal involvement, the Brown and Garner families approached Holder as an ally to push, not an adversary to convince. 
 
 Other parts of Holder’s civil rights record are mixed. In his early years as attorney general, he increased prosecution of marijuana dispensaries and refused to reschedule the drug from its current classification, where it sits with heroin and LSD. At the same time, however, Holder pushed for retroactive enforcement of the Fair Sentencing Act—which narrowed the crack cocaine sentencing disparity tenfold—and has refrained from challenging the marijuana legalization experiments in Colorado and Washington. 
 
 He’s backed away from mandatory drug sentences, ensuring that federal prosecutors avoid the draconian punishments of the last few decades. “Although incarceration has a role to play in our justice system, widespread incarceration at the federal, state, and local levels is both ineffective and unsustainable,” he said. “It imposes a significant economic burden—totaling $80 billion in 2010 alone—and it comes with human and moral costs that are impossible to calculate.” Indeed, Holder has supported a change from the U.S. Sentencing Commission that would shorten incarceration for thousands of nonviolent inmates and keep many more people out of prison for long periods. More broadly, he’s criticized the “school-to-prison pipeline”—threatening lawsuits for schools that use criminal punishments for routine misbehavior. 
 
 Holder has also been a rhetorical foil to the calm and conciliatory President Obama, voicing anger and indignation on racism and racial injustice. “Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards,” he said in 2009. 
 
 Likewise, in a commencement address earlier this year, he gave direct rebuke to conservative claims that race had diminished in American public life. “Chief Justice John Roberts has argued that the path to ending racial discrimination is to give less consideration to the issue of race altogether,” he said. “This presupposes that racial discrimination is at a sufficiently low ebb that it doesn’t need to be actively confronted.” For Holder, that was nonsense. “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race,” he continued, “is to speak openly and candidly on the subject of race.” As I argued in May, Holder was the “anger translator” for a president constrained from blunt talk on race. 
 
 Now, Holder’s tenure wasn’t perfect, and as Eric Posner notes for Slate, there are areas of real disappointment. Not only did Holder give legal support to the administration’s policy of targeted killings, but his Justice Department has “enthusiastically defended the state secrets privilege,” used surveillance on journalists, and prosecuted more government officials for alleged leaks than all of his predecessors combined. Moreover, to the chagrin of many on the left, Holder’s Justice Department has done little to punish the banks and bankers responsible for the financial crisis. For as much as Holder wants to leave a legacy as a civil rights attorney general, there’s a chance he’ll be remembered instead for his missteps and conspicuous omissions. 
 
 With that said, I don’t think that’s likely. In his five years as attorney general, Holder has held the line against new efforts to gut civil rights laws and restrict the franchise. And he’s done so in the face of tremendous opposition from conservatives, who approached him with fierce loathing. In a first for a sitting Cabinet member, he was held in contempt by the House Republican majority, and he’s been denounced as a “menace to the rule of law,” who “stok[ed] racial division” and “turned the power of the Justice Department into a racially motivated turnout machine for the Democratic Party.” It’s possible that with less acrimonious politics, Holder—like his boss, Barack Obama—would have been more successful. ||||| Nick Gillespie is the editor in chief of Reason.com and Reason.tv. 
 
 
 
 
 
 So Eric Holder is stepping down as attorney general of the United States, reportedly just as soon as a successor is named and confirmed. 
 
 It’s a shame that it can’t happen sooner. 
 
 Despite some positive actions — refusing to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act, a federal law that is plainly discriminatory, and calling for long-overdue sentencing reform, for instance – Holder’s tenure has been marked by a disturbing mix of duplicity, incompetence, and obliviousness. 
 
 Which is another way of saying that he was a thoroughly typical attorney general, a cabinet position that has long been held by individuals whose first loyalty is to the president that appointed them rather than to the Constitution they swear to defend. 
 
 
 
 From A. Mitchell Palmer (who rounded up and deported real and imagined Communists) to John Mitchell (convicted on perjury charges related to Watergate) to Janet Reno (who ordered the disastrous assault on the Branch Davidians and spent years threatening to censor cable TV), the position has long been a holding tank for low-performing miscreants. 
 
 Early on his tenure, Holder told Congress that federal agents wouldn’t raid and arrest proprietors of medical marijuana dispensaries that were complying with state laws (all pot is illegal under federal law). Yet through 2013, the Obama administration was averaging 36 medical marijuana prosecutions a year, compared to 20 a year for the George W. Bush administration. Either Holder directed the Department of Justice and was lying to Congress or he was an administrator whose subordinates routinely disobeyed him. Neither possibility is comforting. 
 
 In 2012, he was held in contempt by a bipartisan vote in the House of Representatives for refusing to testify about the “Fast and Furious” scandal emanating from the Phoenix office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (BATF). Fast and Furious involved government agents allowing illegal sales of guns that were later found at the scene of the murder of a Border Patrol agent. The BATF is part of the Department of Justice and Holder has given conflicting statements about the operation. 
 
 Holder managed to earn the ire of progressive politicians such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) when he admitted that some Wall Street banks were not only too big to fail but too big to jail. The sheer size of some institutions, he told Congress, “has an inhibiting influence — impact on our ability to bring resolutions that I think would be more appropriate.” 
 
 Arguably more disturbing was Holder’s central role in signing off on the secret monitoring of Fox News’ James Rosen and other journalists and his staunch defense of National Security Agency surveillance programs (even when federal oversight boards decreed them unconstitutional and ineffective). It took a 13-hour filibuster by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to get Holder to acknowledge in plain language that there were in fact limits to the president’s secret kill list (the existence of which is itself deeply disturbing). 
 
 That Holder has moderated on some of these issues — just a couple of weeks ago, Holder voiced support for NSA reforms that would “provide the public greater confidence in our programs and the checks and balances in the system” — only drives home just how situational his ethics and actions always have been as attorney general. 
 
 Back in 2007, then-Sen. Barack Obama rightly attacked the risible performance of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, whom he said conceived of his job as being “the president’s attorney” rather than “the people’s attorney.” 
 
 Yet that’s exactly how Eric Holder has behaved during his time in office. Holder exists to protect the president and his policies. Worse still, his successor will almost certainly take up exactly where he leaves off. ||||| First black attorney general was strong on civil rights, but will be remembered for assaulting civil liberties. 
 
 Eric Holder. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla, Getty Images) 
 
 The resignation of Eric Holder as attorney general is an unavoidably symbolic moment for an administration that appears to be limping toward the end of a troubled second term. Holder truly personifies an administration of unrivaled ambitions colliding with reality. 
 
 Holder proved a fierce friend to President Obama, but that loyalty might have worked to the disadvantage of both men. Obama (like President George W. Bush) might have been better served by an attorney general who was less of a friend and more a defender of the Constitution. 
 
 Possible successors 
 
 Unfortunately, as the short list of candidates emerges, Obama appears again to be looking to reliable friends as opposed to outstanding lawyers for the top position at Justice. The list includes Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Sheldon Whitehouse, and some administration insiders. 
 
 Holder has secured a well-earned position in history as the nation's first black attorney general. He is an American success story. The son of a father born in Barbados, Holder went to Columbia University. President Reagan made him a judge on the local D.C. court; President Clinton appointed him U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia and, later, deputy attorney general. 
 
 Holder's life should be both an inspiration and a cautionary tale for young lawyers. As he grew in power, Holder was increasingly viewed by critics as a bit too political. That reputation was affirmed with Clinton's last-minute pardon of fugitive Democratic donor Marc Rich. By any measure, Rich was one of the least deserving pardon recipients in history — with 65 criminal counts, from tax evasion to wire fraud to racketeering to illegal trades with Iran. Though his companies pleaded guilty to 35 criminal counts, Rich fled to live the good life in Switzerland and cultivated a long list of friends close to Clinton. Clinton, in turn, had Eric Holder. 
 
 Holder was accused of short-cutting normal procedures to push through the pardon. Former FBI director Louis Freeh said Clinton had "used" Holder to keep the FBI and the Department of Justice from being heard on the pardon. 
 
 In his confirmation hearing, Holder promised not to allow politics to influence future decisions, one promise that he would have been wise to keep. 
 
 It did not take long, though, for Holder's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington story to become All the King's Men. When the president was confronted with demands to prosecute Bush administration officials for torture, Holder faced an early test. He failed. The DOJ blocked any prosecution despite our obligation under international treaties and the president's (and Holder's) acknowledgment that waterboarding is torture. 
 
 Tortured law 
 
 To quote Jerry Maguire, Obama had Holder at "hello" in seeking unbridled presidential authority. However, Holder racked up a series of losses in cases seeking massive reductions in privacy and due process protections for citizens. He unwisely pursued cases such as Canning, where a unanimous Supreme Court pushed back against broad claims of presidential authority. 
 
 Holder personally announced Obama's "kill list" policy, in which the president claimed the right to kill any U.S. citizen without a charge, let alone conviction. Holder's department used the controversial Espionage Act of 1917 to bring twice as many prosecutions as all prior presidents. He oversaw Nixonian surveillance of journalists and led a crackdown on whistle-blowers. Holder fought to justify massive warrantless surveillance and unchecked presidential authority. 
 
 Holder's confrontations with Congress came to a head in a series of scandals, including "Fast and Furious" in which the government allowed Mexican drug gangs to walk away with high-powered weapons. In that and other scandals, the administration withheld documents and key witnesses from Congress, which ultimately held him in contempt. 
 
 While Holder did not shy away from our race conflicts, calling the U.S. a "nation of cowards" on race was divisive. In the end, however, his positive work on civil rights will be eclipsed by his destructive legacy on civil liberties and constitutional government. 
 
 Holder could have been truly great, not simply as the first black attorney general, but as a man of principle who put law over politics and friendship. In one of history's huge lost opportunities,, Holder will finish his tenure as he began it: a man with tremendous but still unrealized potential. 
 
 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. To read more columns like this, go to the opinion front page or follow us on twitter @USATopinion or Facebook. 
 
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– The announcement of Eric Holder's pending resignation as attorney general has the early assessments of his legacy pouring in. One common theme, as in this editorial by the New York Times: He was terrific on civil rights and criminal-justice reform, but lousy on Wall Street accountability and on the trampling of rights under the excuse of "national security." The editorial ticks off various accomplishments, from same-sex marriage (he torpedoed the Defense of Marriage Act), to his staunch defense of voting rights, to his reform of drug-sentencing laws. His legacy will be defined in a good way by such things, says the editorial, but "it will also be defined by deeply harmful actions—and failures to act—involving issues of national importance." Among other things, the editors call out Holder's defense of the government's right to kill citizens without judicial review, his over-zealous prosecution of leaks, and his approval of the secret monitoring of American journalists. Other views: Too big to jail: Holder secured no big convictions in the nation's financial crisis, writes Roger Parloff at Fortune. This criticism, widely "encapsulated in the phrase 'too big to jail,' is the albatross that threatens to weigh down Holder’s legacy in the business realm." Good riddance: Sure, he's got some good marks on his record, but "Holder’s tenure has been marked by a disturbing mix of duplicity, incompetence, and obliviousness," writes Nick Gillespie at Time. Holder put his loyalty to President Obama above his loyalty to the Constitution. Good, but...: "The sad truth is that Holder could have been truly great—not simply as the first black attorney general but as a man of principle who stood with the law over politics and friendship," writes Jonathan Turley at USA Today. "In one of the great lost opportunities in history, Holder will finish his tenure as he began it: a man with great but still unrealized potential." Best for our times: Keep in mind that Holder served in extremely partisan times, writes Jamelle Bouie at Slate. He's not sure he can go as far as Al Sharpton in pronouncing Holder "the most effective civil rights attorney general in American history," but, writes Bouie, "he was a very good one, and given the times, that’s just as vital." Click to see who's in the early running to be the next attorney general.