Earlier this week, Attorney General Eric Holder defended the prosecution of the late Aaron Swartz with some rather convoluted reasoning:

Eric Holder: "There was never an intention for him to go to jail for longer than a three-, four-, potentially five-month range. That was what the government said specifically to Mr. Swartz. Those — those offers were rejected."

Sen. John Cornyn: "Does it strike you as odd that the government would indict someone for crimes that would carry penalties of up to 35 years in prison and million-dollar fines and then offer him a three- or four-month prison sentence?"

Eric Holder: "Well, I think that’s a good use of prosecutorial discretion to look at the conduct, regardless of what the statutory maximums were, and to fashion a sentence that was consistent with what the nature of the conduct was. And I think that what those prosecutors did in offering three, four, zero to six was consistent with that conduct."

Sen. John Cornyn: "So you don’t consider this a case of prosecutorial overreach or misconduct?"

Eric Holder: "No, I don’t look at what necessarily was charged as much as what was offered in terms of how the case might have been resolved."

So, despite threatening to throw Swartz in the slammer for 35+ years, all they were trying to do was bully him into pleading guilty, so they could lock him away for a few months for essentially nothing. Instead, they bullied him into tying a rope around his neck.

Then later in the week, Holder admitted that he is completely and totally unable to uphold the law:

"I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy," he said. "And I think that is a function of the fact that some of these institutions have become too large."

If he's not willing to stand for justice, or at least the law, then what are we paying him to do?