Eric Holder becomes the first Black U.S. attorney general

On 3 February 2009 Eric Holder was sworn in as the 82nd attorney general of the United States, a day after the Senate confirmed him by 75 votes to 21. He was the first African American to lead the Justice Department and served until April 2015.

Rebuilding the Justice Department after politicization claims

Allegations of political interference in federal prosecution shaped the agenda Eric Holder inherited when he became the first Black attorney general of the United States. On 2 February 2009 the Senate confirmed him by 75 votes to 21. Vice President Joe Biden administered the oath on 3 February, making Holder the 82nd attorney general. Holder had earlier worked as a federal prosecutor, served as US attorney for the District of Columbia and held the deputy attorney general post under President Bill Clinton. His appointment placed a former senior official back into a department damaged by controversy during the George W. Bush administration.

At the 3 February ceremony Holder emphasized restoring the Justice Department's credibility after allegations of political influence and renewing its civil-rights mission. White House materials from the same day identified counterterrorism, civil rights, crime, environmental protection and market fairness as the principal areas of work. The rule of law problem was institutional as much as partisan: federal lawyers exercise enormous discretion over criminal charging and civil enforcement, so credibility depends on decisions that can be defended without presidential favoritism.

Holder's term ran until April 2015. Its controversies included debates over security powers, federal investigations, voting rights and the failed gun-trafficking investigation known as Operation Fast and Furious. His department also pursued major civil-rights and financial-enforcement initiatives in the years after the 2008 crash. These later actions brought the appointment into political competition, with Republicans and Democrats arguing about accountability, executive authority and the department's independence. The 2009 oath was a constitutional transfer of office, but the measure of the appointment lay in how investigations and enforcement decisions were conducted across subsequent years.