At 2 pm today in the Justice Department’s Great Hall, Attorney General Eric Holder is scheduled to receive the coveted Henry E. Petersen Memorial Award, which is normally bestowed upon a top career civil service manager for years of exemplary service.
This year, however, the award is being given to Holder by Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, the head of DOJ’s Criminal Division, who oversees all federal public corruption cases. The fact that Breuer reports directly to Holder and is also his former law partner at Covington & Burling has DOJ watchers seething.
Breuer seems to be oblivious to the fact that giving his boss and former law partner an award that normally goes to a top DOJ careerist is an appalling breach of protocol that is damaging his unit’s morale. Worse, the man in charge of prosecuting insider deal-makers has just signaled that he’s one of them.
“If [the award] is going to Eric for his work in the Criminal Division, it is 20 years late,” one disgusted DOJ veteran said. “If it is for his oversight of the Criminal Division while Janet Reno’s deputy attorney general, it is a decade late. If it is for his support of the Criminal Division as attorney general, it, like Obama’s Nobel, is based on mere months in office.
“If it is for his work as the assistant attorney general’s law firm partner, it is inappropriate. If it is for what Breuer wants Holder to do for the Criminal Division or himself in the future, it is inappropriate. If it is for the attorney general’s great testimony before the Senate a week ago or NYC terrorist prosecutions, it is laughable.
“It will be even funnier if the other 20 or so DOJ components start giving the AG awards, too.”
