Holder has a long to-do list at Justice

WASHINGTON -- In his brief tenure as attorney general, Eric Holder has spent much of the time separating the Justice Department from the work of the prior administration.

He is a point person in the closing of the government's detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He has characterized waterboarding, the terrorist interrogation technique, as torture. And he has vowed to restore credibility to the Justice Department, badly damaged by the politically charged scandal involving the abrupt dismissal of nine U.S. attorneys.

Last week, Holder intervened in what was one of the most contentious prosecutions during the Bush administration when he dismissed the corruption charges against former Alaska senator Ted Stevens, a Republican, for the prosecution's failure to disclose crucial information to defense lawyers. The trial ended in conviction and cost the 85-year-old Senate icon the seat he held for 40 years.

Holder's actions sent a message aimed at fixing more than one bad case, legal analysts say.

"The attorney general has sent an unequivocal message that prosecutions of any kind, whether against Republicans, Democrats, independents or others, must be done right," Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said after Holder's announcement. "Public confidence in our justice system and in the Department of Justice can only be preserved when prosecutors adhere to the most stringent legal and ethical standards."

Just months ago, Leahy and the committee's ranking Republican, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, were among the Justice Department's harshest critics who, during the waning months of the Bush term, characterized the agency as one of the most damaged institutions in government.

J. Gerald Hebert, executive director of the Campaign Legal Center, which analyzes political ethics issues and the influence of money in politics, says it could take "years" to fully restore confidence in the department but that Holder's work so far marks a sharp change in course.

"For several years, as an alumnus of the department, I felt betrayed," says Bruce Udolf, former chief of the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section in South Florida. "I was angered at the way politics had been injected into the department. A lot of my colleagues have felt the same way. But this is refreshing."