Person of Interest

Obama's D.C. Insider

How Eric Holder won over the President-elect.

All signs point towards Eric Holder as Barack Obama's Attorney General, although it is not expected to be made official for some time. So who exactly is Holder, whose profile is so much lower than some of Obama's other choices? A June profile from The American Lawyer says that Holder, the first black U.S. attorney for Washington D.C. and the first black deputy attorney general (under Clinton), first met Obama in 2004 at a dinner meant to welcome the new senator to Washington. He and Obama hit it off, and Holder served during the campaign as 'the utility infielder for Team Obama, playing a variety of positions: surrogate, fund-raiser, strategist, and source of wisdom in the ways of Washington." Since his deputy attorney general stint, he has run a lucrative private practice in Washington, representing clinets like the NFL, Merck & Co., and Chiquita. The darkest spot on his record? He oversaw Bill Clinton's pardon of Marc Rich.