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Covington & Burling partner Eric Holder Jr — co-chair of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign — has made a career out of breaking barriers. Will he become the first African-American attorney general? Andrew Longstreth reports

The day after the Pennsylvania Democratic primary, Eric Holder Jr is working from Covington & Burling’s elegant new Manhattan offices inside the year-old New York Times Building. He is there to prep Fernando Aguirre, the chief executive of Chiquita Brands International, for an interview with US news show 60 Minutes, which will be broadcasting a segment on the company’s past involvement with Colombian right-wing paramilitary forces. Last March, Holder helped Chiquita secure a slap-on-the-wrist plea deal to charges that it had paid off the terrorists.

But before the Aguirre meeting, Holder has to place a call to Warren Ballentine, a nationally-syndicated African-American radio talkshow host, who wants to discuss last night’s primary results.

Ballentine introduces his guest as a co-chairman of Barack Obama’s campaign and then adds: “And you know what? Mr Holder could wind up the nation’s first African-American attorney general should Obama win the White House.” Holder draws his left hand across his throat in a ‘please don’t go there’ gesture. His prayer is answered — for now. Ballentine asks Holder to explain Obama’s loss to Hillary Clinton the previous night. Holder glances down at what looks like a sheet of talking points. He calmly begins to hit his marks one by one.

Over the few minutes of the interview Ballentine agrees with everything Holder says. Then comes the last question. Assume Obama wins the presidency, Ballentine says. Will Holder become attorney general?

Holder does not hesitate. “That’s going to be up to the President,” he says. “I will also tell you that I am married to a wonderful woman who is a doctor. Her name is Sharon Malone. And Sharon tells me that I won’t be going anywhere except back to my law firm. So I think President Obama is going to have to talk to Sharon — and she’s a pretty formidable person.”

The answer gets a well-deserved chuckle from Ballentine. And if Holder’s partners at Covington were listening there would have been a collective sigh of relief at his response. In seven years at the firm Holder has become a sought-after lawyer, with high-profile assignments from the National Football League (NFL), Merck & Co and Chiquita last year alone. Life is good for private citizen Eric Holder. After more than two decades in public service jobs, including stints as deputy US attorney general and US Attorney for Washington DC, Holder now has time and money he never had before.

But as good as it has been for Holder at Covington, a successful private practice is not the endgame. Holder has an acute sense of his duty to serve. As an avid student of modern US history, he is well aware that he has been a groundbreaker: the first black US Attorney for the District of Columbia and, later, the first black deputy attorney general.

As his answer to Ballentine suggests, Holder wears the weight of history lightly. But the henpecked husband routine should not fool anyone. If President Obama asks his campaign co-chair to become the first African-American attorney general of the US, count on history to win out.

A shared worldview

Holder knows a lot of important people. In particular, he knows a lot of successful African-Americans, starting with his wife, Sharon Malone. Together the couple has an impressive set of friends with enough lofty credentials and titles to fill up a few boardrooms.

To name a few: Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick; former US Department of Labour secretary Alexis Herman; and Antoinette Bush, a partner at Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom, whose stepfather is another of Holder’s friends — Vernon Jordan Jr, former adviser to President Bill Clinton and now senior counsel at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. “All black people that finish college know one another,” jokes Jordan.

Given Holder’s social circle, it was perhaps inevitable that soon after Obama became the lone African-American in the US Senate, they would meet. In 2004 Holder was invited to a small dinner party hosted by Ann Walker Marchant, a niece of Vernon Jordan and a former Clinton administration White House aide. The gathering was planned to welcome Obama to Washington. Obama and Holder, seated next to one another, found they had a lot in common. The two men both had immigrant fathers, went to Ivy League schools (both attended Columbia College as undergraduates), played basketball and, of course, believed passionately in public service. “We just clicked,” says Holder.

Holder says he immediately sensed Obama’s talent. Despite the 10 years’ age gap, he found someone who thought similarly about race. “We share a worldview,” he says. “[Obama] is not defined by his race. He’s proud of it, cognisant of the pernicious effect that race has had in our history, but not defined by it.”

The two kept in touch sporadically over the next couple of years. On occasion, Obama’s Senate staffers asked Holder for his opinion on crime policy issues. Holder also co-hosted a fundraiser for an Obama political action committee. Then, during the spring of 2007, a few months after Obama announced he was running for president, he formally asked Holder to join the campaign.

Key positions on Team Obama

The Obama campaign has clearly energised Holder, who turned 57 this year. He is the utility man for Team Obama, playing a variety of positions: surrogate, fundraiser, strategist and source of wisdom in the ways of Washington, where Holder has lived since 1976. “There isn’t a day that we don’t talk,” says Valerie Jarrett, a close friend of Obama and a senior adviser to the campaign.

Holder has logged hundreds of hours and thousands of miles for Obama’s campaign. “I hope the management committee will be understanding when they see my billable hours this year,” he says.

Self-effacement is a well-used tool in the Holder charm kit. The fact is, Covington, like any firm, is thrilled to have a such a well-placed partner.

Despite the Obama campaign’s best efforts, race has all too often taken centre stage in the contest. Days after incendiary remarks by Obama’s former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, first hit the headlines, Holder tried to make light of them. “I thought that it was some Baptist Church thing I’m not familiar with [because] I’m just a dull Episcopalian.”

Holder is more serious about Obama’s first significant attempt to squelch the Reverend Wright controversy — the candidate’s historic 18 March speech in Philadelphia about race relations in the US. For Holder, the speech was a ringing affirmation of his decision to support Obama.

Sensing history in the making, he woke at 5am to catch a train from Washington to be there for the speech. “I was nervous,” says Holder. “This was a big moment.” In Philadelphia, Holder met up with Obama, his wife Michelle, campaign adviser Jarrett and a few others in the greenroom at the National Constitution Centre. No-one except for Obama had seen the speech, which he had finished writing that morning. Holder, with a knot in his stomach, was surprised that Obama was so interested in his assessment of the men’s college basketball tournament.

Obama’s speech, which tied together thoughts and feelings that Holder had on the subject of race but had never so eloquently articulated, moved Holder to tears. He also thought about his dad, an immigrant from Barbados. “He’s a guy who came here as a young teenager and who loved this country in a way that only an immigrant can,” says Holder. “And yet he tried to join the Army Air Corps and they laughed at him. While he’s [serving] in World War II and he’s in his uniform in Oklahoma, he can’t get served at a luncheon counter. My father loved America, but he had that anger that Barack talked about.”

The call to service

In a way, Holder’s public life was inspired by another famous speech. On 20 January, 1961, Holder was nine years old and living in Queens. Like millions of other Americans, he and his family gathered around the TV that day to watch President Kennedy’s inaugural speech. They lived near LaGuardia Airport, so the television’s sound was often drowned out by planes, but Holder clearly remembers hearing Kennedy’s call to service — a message that had a lasting impact on him. He keeps a copy of Kennedy’s inaugural address in his office at Covington.

Holder was born in the Bronx and grew up in East Elmhurst, then a mix of middle-class Italians and African-Americans. His father sold real estate and his mother worked as a secretary. Neither of his parents went to college but they valued education and encouraged in Holder a strong work ethic.

Straddling two worlds

Holder learned at a young age to navigate different worlds. Until he was 10 years old, he attended a public school in his neighbourhood. Then, in the fourth grade, he was selected to participate in a programme for intellectually gifted kids at a school made up of mostly white students.

When it was time to choose a high school, his white classmates were all taking an exam to enter the city’s elite public schools. Holder’s score was good enough to get him into Stuyvesant High School — an hour-and-a-half commute away in Manhattan. His decision to attend Stuyvesant puzzled his neighbourhood friends, who opted for schools in Queens.

Holder initially second-guessed himself. He didn’t like his teachers and felt overwhelmed by Stuyvesant’s academic demands. But his mother pushed him to keep at it. Holder learned not only to accept his dual existence but to thrive in it. At Stuyvesant, where he was eventually selected as captain of the basketball team, he earned an academic scholarship.

In 1969 Holder entered college at Columbia, where again he kept one foot on the largely white campus and another in the black community that surrounded it. Holder “bloomed”, says his mother, in the intellectual, political and cultural richness of Columbia. He played freshman basketball, took in shows at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem, spent Saturdays mentoring local kids. He also participated in campus protests, including one that involved taking over the dean’s office (Holder was forgiven for the incident and is now a trustee of the university). One college friend recalls that Holder could ‘talk trash’ on the basketball court just as quick as he could “go Ivy League on you”.

On to the Department of Justice

After earning his undergraduate degree in American history, Holder went straight to Columbia Law School, working for the NAACP Legal Defence & Educational Fund after his first year and the US Department of Justice (DoJ) after his second. His first job out of law school was with the DoJ’s brand-new Public Integrity Section.

In the wake of Watergate, it was a heady place to be. The original staff of eight lawyers confronted corruption among public officials with the innovative use of mail fraud and Racketeer Influenced & Corrupt Organisations statutes. The talent level in the office was high and the cases were often headline material. At Public Integrity, Holder gained national notice for pursuing corrupt judges in Philadelphia and met lawyers who are today his closest friends, including Reid Weingarten, the Steptoe & Johnson white-collar defence lawyer.

The first thing you notice about Holder’s Washington office at Covington is the mess — books and briefs are spread out everywhere. Then you see the DoJ souvenirs — photos and other mementos, including even his old nameplates.

Holder clearly has an emotional attachment to the DoJ, but the state of his office is an apt metaphor. He’s at home at Covington, where, as the clutter suggests, he has become a man in demand. When he started there in 2001, he worried about bringing in work. Then former Federal Bureau of Investigation director Louis Freeh hired him in a Texas employment discrimination case for MBNA and Holder never looked back. The last 18 months have been especially busy. Last summer, not long after negotiating Chiquita’s plea deal with federal prosecutors, the NFL hired Holder to investigate dog-fighting charges against American footballer Michael Vick. More recently, he represented Merck against the US and five states in a settlement involving allegations of fraud.

Clients are impressed with Holder’s judgement and lack of ego. “For someone who has accomplished as much as he has, he is remarkably unimpressed with himself,” says Jeffrey Pash, league counsel for the NFL.

Joining Covington in 2001, which meant leaving public service after 25 years, was one of the hardest transitions Holder has made. And it followed the most humiliating events of his career.

In 1997, after successful turns as a Washington DC superior court judge and then US attorney for the District of Columbia, Holder was named deputy US attorney general by President Clinton. Under attorney general Janet Reno, Holder acted as the chief operating officer of the DoJ. It meant being immersed in the details of budget and personnel issues but also resolving disputes among department heads and briefing reporters on policy initiatives, national security issues and major investigations. It was at times a glamorous position but Holder spent most of his time in meetings, far removed from the field. Moving from his job as US attorney to the deputy attorney general position, Holder says, was like going from “piloting a speed boat to being the number two on an ocean liner”.

Walking the political tightrope

In the Clinton-era DoJ, Holder walked a political tightrope. He and Reno were under constant fire from both congressional Republicans and the White House over the DoJ’s use of the independent counsel statute. Congress wanted more matters to be referred to independent counsel; the Clinton administration wanted Reno to rein in investigations. It was Holder that advised Reno in the DoJ’s most crucial decision, permitting the expansion of independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s investigation into the Monica Lewinsky affair, which ultimately led to the President’s impeachment.

Professionally, he was no longer the ultimate decision-maker, which was at times a difficult position to be in. “[Eric] said to me not that long ago [that] one thing he realises is that he never wants to be the second person in an organisation again,” says Kevin Olson, Holder’s former chief of staff.

Meanwhile, the job began to take a toll on Holder’s home life. His wife was the family’s main breadwinner, but she was also spending more time than Holder with their young children. And even when Holder got home, he was never done working.

Then came the Marc Rich case. On 19 January, 2001, the last full day of the Clinton administration, Holder had a lot on his plate. A pardon application for a fugitive commodities trader named Marc Rich was not the most pressing issue of the day. But when the White House asked for his view on the pardon he gave it: “neutral leaning towards favourable.”

The decision turned out to be a costly one for Holder. On 20 January, President Clinton issued 140 pardons, including one for Rich — whose ex-wife turned out to have donated large amounts of money to the Clinton Presidential Library while Clinton was in office. Critics claimed that Rich’s freedom had been bought.

For the first time in his career, Holder faced an assault on his integrity. He had been the main DoJ contact for Rich’s lawyer, John Quinn, of Arnold & Porter. The two knew each other well. Before the 2000 election, Holder told Quinn, a close confidant of Vice President Al Gore, that he wanted to be attorney general in a Gore administration.

Quinn first asked for Holder’s help on the Rich case in November 2000, when Rich’s prosecutors in the Southern District of New York refused to meet with him. When Holder wasn’t able to change the New York prosecutors’ minds, Quinn filed a pardon application with the White House. He told White House counsel that they should contact Holder about the case, even though Holder was only vaguely familiar with its details.

The Rich matter reached its nadir for Holder on 8 February, 2001, when he was summoned to testify before the House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform. Seated next to Quinn, Holder said in his statement that his conscience was clear, though he wished he had done certain things differently. But he also vented frustration at being the fall guy.

“I have been angry, hurt and even somewhat disillusioned by what has transpired over the past two weeks with regard to this pardon,” he said.

Holder endured hours of questioning from House members, some of it personal. Dan Burton, chairman of the oversight committee, insinuated that Holder and Quinn had engaged in a quid pro quo.

“The thing is, you wanted something from Mr Quinn,” said Burton. “You wanted his support for US attorney general and he wanted a pardon for Rich and his partner.”

Holder, who sharply denied such a deal, had his backers. But the damage to his image had been done. In a New York Times article explaining the Rich pardon, President Clinton did not do much to protect Holder. He wrote that he regretted that Holder “did not have more time to review the case”.

“It is without a doubt the darkest moment in Holder’s professional life,” says Olson, Holder’s former chief of staff. “I think it ate at him for quite a while.”

The decision to support Obama

Holder was never especially close to the Clintons. He says he was grateful for the appointments he’d received in the Clinton administration and left the DoJ as “a Clinton guy”. But when Obama asked, he was ready to join the rival campaign.

“Loyalty is something I value an awful lot. And so my decision to support Barack was not necessarily a difficult one, but I had to be really moved by him. My inclination would be to support Hillary Clinton, but I was overwhelmed by Barack,” says Holder, adding that Clinton did not formally request his support. “There is a feeling about Clinton that I think will coalesce conservatives [in a way] that Barack will not.”

Since the campaign began, Holder has not been sentimental about his former boss. On the day of the Pennsylvania primary, news reporter Andrea Mitchell asked Holder to respond to a comment Bill Clinton had made the previous night. Clinton said Obama’s campaign had “played the race card” against him. In response, Holder called Clinton’s assertion “really kind of ridiculous”.

Holder’s wife has always believed that the Clintons owed her husband more loyalty than he was shown. Indeed, friends say that Holder and his wife differ on the costs of public service. Several years ago, Holder considered running for mayor of Washington DC; Malone opposed it. “I remember Sharon saying [to Eric] very directly: ‘It’s fine if you want to run for mayor, but you will be running as a single man,’” says Walker Marchant, a friend of both Holder and Malone.

Malone says that is not a direct quote. She does admit that she didn’t see the “upside” in being mayor, but says it did not have anything to do with Holder’s stint at the DoJ. Malone says she has taken “heat” for blocking her husband’s pursuit of public service, which she finds amusing — since it is not possible. “At some point you have to make peace with the fact you are married to a public servant,” she says. “It took a while.”

So if President Obama pages Dr Malone to recruit her husband, will she take the call? “Oh, of course,” she says.

A version of this article also appears in The American Lawyer, Legal Week’s US sister title.

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