Attorney General Eric Holder wasn’t the only Justice Department employee in Afghanistan on Wednesday. Joining the Attorney General on his one-day trip were Kevin Ohlson, Holder’s chief of staff; Bruce Swartz, a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Criminal Division; and Brian Tomney, Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General for Afghanistan Rule of Law matters.
Attorney General Eric Holder speaks at a press conference at the U.S. embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. (Getty)
Holder’s trip was kept tightly under wraps, all the way up until a news release announcing his arrival in Afghanistan hit reporters’ e-mail inboxes just after midnight Wednesday morning — the standard practice when high-ranking U.S. officials visit Afghanistan. No officials from the Office for Public Affairs accompanied Holder on the trip.
Justice Department officials could not immediately provide details about when Holder’s trip was planned, but under normal circumstances a trip like Holder’s would be arranged ahead of time to allow for security precautions. Officials said he departed the country late Wednesday.
Holder arrived at Bagram Air Base on Wednesday and traveled by helicopter to Kabul, the country’s capital. There he met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Minister of Justice Habibullah Ghalib and Attorney General Mohammad Ishaq Aloko.
The Attorney General held a news conference in Afghanistan but did not take questions from reporters.
Holder’s trip came the same day as militants allegedly associated with the Taliban set off a suicide car bomb and shot rocket-propelled grenades at the gate of the NATO air base in eastern Afghanistan. The attack was not believed to be related to Holder’s trip.
As Holder said in a statement, those on the trip aren’t the only Justice Department employees in the country.
“We have sent some of our most experienced federal prosecutors and law enforcement agents – from our Criminal Division, the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, the FBI, the DEA and the U.S. Marshals Service – to work here with their Afghan law enforcement counterparts,” Holder said in a written statement.
DOJ employees typically serve on one-year deployments to the region, which are funded by the State Department, according to a recent presentation by Tomney, one of the top Justice Department officials focused of DOJ activities in Afghanistan.
Some Justice Department lawyers work in the International Criminal Investigative Training and Assistance Program to provide training to Afghan prosecutors and police investigators. DOJ attorneys also advise the Afghan Attorney General’s Anti-Corruption Unit and Major Crimes Task Force, according to a Justice Department news release.
Drug Enforcement Administration agents are helping establish drug enforcement institutions in the country and combating drug trafficking organization that work for the insurgency, the news release said. A DEA spokesman said the agency does not typically reveal how many of its employees are stationed in a particular country.
FBI agents in the country do counterterrorism work and support investigations by Afghanistan’s Major Crimes Task Force, while the U.S. Marshals Service has boots on the ground advising and training Afghanistan’s Judicial Security Unit on witness and judicial security.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also trains canine teams that deploy to Afghanistan with U.S. military forces.
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