On Thursday, hosts on MSNBC and CNN were thrilled by Barack Obama’s former Attorney General Eric Holder – who famously politicized the Justice Department – penning a profoundly hypocritical Washington Post op/ed in which he accused current Attorney General William Barr of being “plainly ideological” and “nakedly partisan.”
“Former Attorney General Eric Holder has a new op/ed in The Washington Post entitled, ‘William Barr is Unfit to be Attorney General,’” co-host Mika Brzezinski proclaimed on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. She then read the opening line of the screed: “Attorney General William Barr has made a series of public statements and taken actions that are so plainly ideological, so nakedly partisan and so deeply inappropriate for America’s chief law enforcement official that they demand a response from someone who held the same office.”
Over on CNN’s New Day, co-host Alisyn Camerota recited Holder’s same nasty opening paragraph, before also touting this quote: “I now fear that his [Barr’s] conduct – running political interference for an increasingly lawless president – will wreak lasting damage.”
Anchoring special Senate impeachment hearing coverage in the 1:00 p.m. ET hour, MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell turned to former Holder Justice Department spokesperson Matt Miller and noted: “Your former boss, Eric Holder, one of Bill Barr’s predecessor[s] had an op/ed in The Washington Post today and basically saying that the Attorney General should not be in his job.”
Miller professed: “That he’s unfit for office. I can tell you, that was a very tough piece for him to write.”
On CNN’s Right Now during that same hour, anchor Brianna Keilar breathlessly told viewers:
Bill Barr’s opposition to the inspector general’s findings appears to be the final straw for Eric Holder, Obama’s first attorney general. And Holder just wrote a scathing rebuke of Barr in a Washington Post op/ed, with the final line saying Attorney General Barr, quote, “is unfit to lead the Justice Department.” Holder goes on to blast Barr for not being an impartial law enforcement official, but a quote, “partisan actor under the direct ‘control’ of President Trump.”
None of the fawning coverage made any mention of how controversial and political Holder’s tenure was at the Justice Department.
In addition, the fact that Holder was held in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a subpoena from House Republicans in 2012 was also ignored. At the time, MSNBC and CNN actually mocked the GOP effort to hold Holder accountable.
