For instance, Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder. The man who didn’t seriously investigate the various crimes committed by the Cheney-Bush Administration around the Iraq War and the War on Terror more generally, not even the blatantly criminal torture crimes. The man who didn’t prosecute most of the major financial executives for the illegal practices that brought on the financial crisis of 2008. Even John Ashcroft, the rightwing Christian nationalist who was the first Attorney General in the Shrub Bush government was more aggressive on pursuing corporate criminals than Eric Holder was.
It was the Obama Presidency and its look-forward-not-backward was their approach to crimes committed by elites. Maybe the most pitiful moment of the whole process was Obama’s explicit acknowledgment that the previous Administration had committed torture – but his administration wasn’t going to pursue legal action against the torturers. Responding to a question from the press in 2014 – over five years into his Presidency:
[E]ven before I came into office I was very clear that in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 we did some things that were wrong. We did a whole lot of things that were right, but we tortured some folks. We did some things that were contrary to our values. [Not to mention against the law!]It actually would have been better if he had just lied and said they had looked into it and so no grounds on which they could pursue criminal prosecutions of the tortures and those who directed them to commit torture crimes.
I understand why it happened. I think it’s important when we look back to recall how afraid people were after the Twin Towers fell and the Pentagon had been hit and the plane in Pennsylvania had fallen, and people did not know whether more attacks were imminent, and there was enormous pressure on our law enforcement and our national security teams to try to deal with this. And it’s important for us not to feel too sanctimonious in retrospect about the tough job that those folks had. And a lot of those folks were working hard under enormous pressure and are real patriots.
But having said all that, we did some things that were wrong. And that's what that report reflects. And that's the reason why, after I took office, one of the first things I did was to ban some of the extraordinary interrogation techniques that are the subject of that report.
And my hope is, is that this report reminds us once again that the character of our country has to be measured in part not by what we do when things are easy, but what we do when things are hard. And when we engaged in some of these enhanced interrogation techniques, techniques that I believe and I think any fair-minded person would believe were torture, we crossed a line. And that needs to be -- that needs to be understood and accepted. And we have to, as a country, take responsibility for that so that, hopefully, we don't do it again in the future. (1)
Instead, he said, though not exactly in these words: I knew before I became President about the torture crimes. But prosecuting them would hold important elites accountable before the law and I have no intention of doing that. I especially have no intention of prosecuting the senior officials directing the program, because I want to continue to appeal to Republicans who hate my guts and always will. And Michelle and I want to shmooze around with George W. Bush now that he’s no longer President. As President and a constitutional scholar, I tell you: our elites are above the law.
Obama’s line, “it’s important for us not to feel too sanctimonious in retrospect about the tough job that those folks had,“ is a plea for people to be generous minded ... to torturers.
It should have been one hundred times for the Obama Presidency to uphold the rule of law on the torture crimes.
The one thing that Dick Cheney and George W. Bush couldn’t give themselves was a subsequent Democratic Administration that would validate their criminal behavior by giving them a free pass on prosecution, even for gruesome and sadistic torture crimes.
Barack Obama and Eric Holder gave them that. Their failure was a serious blow to the rule of law. Their failure was one major station on a long journey from Vietnam and Watergate and the Nixon pardon and Iran-Contra to the practical immunity the Biden Administration gave Donald Trump for the January 6 insurrection to the Trump dictatorship-under-construction.
And Eric Holder now declares … it’s time for Democrats to fight for their own side!
After months of inertia and disunity in response to Trump, Democrats are now finding their voice and taking a stand. ,,,We shouldn’t take any of this seriously from Obama or from Eric Holder. But it’s some kind of good sign when a staunch supporter of elite impunity like Holder – who worked for a prestigious Wall Street law firm before he became Attorney General - feels like he needs to pretend he supports the rule of law.
They have the backing of prominent party figures such as Eric Holder, a former attorney general under President Barack Obama. Holder, whose organisation has long campaigned to end gerrymandering, admitted this week that he has changed his position and now believes that Democrats should respond with their own redistricting.
Holder told the New York Times: “What’s driving Democrats is, I think, a legitimate response. I mean, it’s like the Germans have invaded France. Are you going to just say, “Well, we’re against war and we’re for the resolution of disputes in a peaceful way”? Sometimes you have to take up arms. And when confronted with this authoritarian, anti-democracy effort, we have to take up arms.” (2)
The rule of law is important and Democrats need to uphold it. Rule of law is a critical part of democracy itself. You can’t have one without the other. And rule of law means that the President and everyone else is subject to the law. Getting there means that both Democrats and Republicans but especially Democrats should take enforcing the law against criminal elites very seriously and responsibly.
And that means not taking seriously politicians who claim to do so and nevertheless don’t gag on a line like, “it’s important for us not to feel too sanctimonious in retrospect about the tough job that those [torturers] had.”
Otherwise we wind up with masked thugs paid by the federal government literally kidnapping people who look like they might be Latino off the streets and shipping them to concentration camps in El Salvador or Florida.
This is not an argument against “strategic voting.” It’s an argument for the rule of law. Not rule by masked kidnappers and concentration camps.
Notes:
(1) Press Conference by the President. Obama White House Archives 08/01/2014. <https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/08/01/press-conference-president> (Accessed: 2025-10-08).
(2) Smith, David (2025): ‘We are at war – bring it on’: Democrats ready to fight dirty to stop Trump. Guardian 08/09/2025. <https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/09/democrats-fight-back-republicans-trump> (Accessed: 2025-10-08).
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