PEORIA, Ill. – Former Obama Administration Attorney General Eric Holder says he had no idea when Martin Luther King, Junior died, how much his legacy would end up being important to him.
Holder tells the Peoria MLK Luncheon Monday at the Peoria Civic Center now that he knows, he’s pleased in some ways with how things have changed since then, but in other ways, he’s “dissatisfied.”
“I am dissatisfied that every day in America, 300 of our fellow citizens are shot, and we have hundreds of mass shootings every year,” said Holder. “I am dissatisfied that economic progress remains uneven, that educational opportunity is far from uniform.”
Holder says he’s had the so-called “talk” with his son about how to address police who approach him. But, he says, the bad acts of a few police officers should not outshine the good all the rest do.
Holder says it’s no longer good enough to say “progress” has been made in addressing civil rights, and that it’s well past time to actually come up with solutions.
During a question and answer period with attendees, Holder was asked about the situations regarding classified documents found in the possession of both former President Donald Trump, and current President Joe Biden. He says they may be different, but we don’t know that yet.
“We don’t know, without having the special counsels doing their work, exactly what were the conditions upon which these documents were removed, how were they stored, were they given back to the government when the requests were made,” said Holder. “I think Merrick (Garland), the Attorney General, has made the right choice in appointing special counsels for both.”
Holder says he sides with some Illinois lawmakers and Governor JB Pritzker in the debate over whether cash bail should continue to be used.
Holder, in answer to another question, says cash bail has, in his words, “outlived its time” — and nowhere has cashless bail worked better than in Washington, D.C.
“If the government wants to hold somebody on a pre-trial basis, pre-trial detention, you don’t set a high bond that somebody can’t meet,” said Holder. “You make a factual determination. The government puts on a case — a limited case — that says these are the reasons why this person either is a danger to the community, or is unlikely to appear at his or her next appearance.”
Case in point, Holder says, Sam Bankman-Fried — who allegedly stole money from the FTX cryptocurrency exchange to bankroll his hedge fund. He says a judge set a high bond there that Bankman-Fried still was able to post.
