Mr. Holder is a particularly juicy target because he presides over issues that have served as recurrent fodder for political controversy ? including using the criminal justice system for terrorism cases, and federal enforcement of civil rights and immigration laws.
More than most administration officials, he has served as a proxy for Republican attacks on what they see as President Obama?s left-leaning agenda. At least two possible 2012 Republican presidential hopefuls have already called for Mr. Holder?s resignation.
?It?s likely to be a difficult year,? said Bruce Buchanan, a political science professor at the University of Texas, Austin, who said Mr. Holder?s coming fights are likely to ?attract press attention in a way that steps on other messages the Obama administration would like to have front and center.?
Sitting in a conference room adjacent to his office this month, Mr. Holder pointed out that he had been deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration, when both chambers of Congress were under Republican control and were conducting aggressive oversight of the Justice Department.
?You?ve got to understand that I cut my teeth in the leadership of this department dealing with the situation we?re about to encounter,? he said.
He defended himself in advance on some hot-button issues, and he seemed to hint at some steps in the realm of counterterrorism policies that might hearten his conservative critics in Congress but could draw criticism on the left. He also laid out what amounts to an agenda for the coming year, from continuing to restore the ?traditional mission? of the department ? law enforcement work put on the back burner after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 ? to national security matters, including a fresh push to overhaul an important surveillance law.
As Mr. Holder takes up such work, the incoming House chairmen most likely to play leading roles in Justice Department oversight are Representatives Lamar Smith of Texas, the new head of the Judiciary Committee, and Darrell Issa of California, who will lead the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Both declined to be interviewed, but Mr. Smith said in a statement, ?I am committed to fair and reasonable oversight of the Justice Department and to ensuring openness and transparency of our federal law enforcement agencies.?
Mr. Holder said that he did not know Mr. Issa well, but that he had known Mr. Smith for years. The two recently had lunch, and Mr. Holder said he believed they could work together.
Like much of Washington, the two chairmen are likely to start off focusing on economic issues. But it seems inevitable they will turn to Mr. Holder, a frequent target of their criticism over the past two years.
Last March, for example, they released a joint letter criticizing the Justice Department for not doing more to investigate the community activist group Acorn, and for an early 2009 decision to downsize a voter-intimidation lawsuit against the New Black Panther Party, a black-nationalist fringe group they portrayed as an Obama administration ally.
?We?ve already seen this administration dismiss one case against a political ally ? the New Black Panther Party ? for no apparent reason,? Mr. Issa and Mr. Smith wrote. ?We remain concerned that politicization at the Justice Department once again may result in the administration?s political friends getting a free pass.?
Asked about the prospect of oversight hearings and subpoenas involving the New Black Panther case, Mr. Holder said, ?there is no ?there? there.?
?The notion that this made-up controversy leads to a belief that this Justice Department is not color-blind in enforcement of civil rights laws is simply not supported by the facts,? he said. ?All I have on my side with regard to that is the facts and the law.?
Another high-profile issue confronting Mr. Holder in the new year is how to deal with mounting pressure to prosecute the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, over his role in a major disclosure of classified government documents. Prosecutors have been examining whether Mr. Assange could be charged as a conspirator to the leak, or for publishing the materials.
Mr. Holder pushed back against the suggestion that indicting Mr. Assange would open the door to prosecuting traditional news organizations that take steps to ferret out and disclose information the government says should be a secret ? including The New York Times, which published some of the WikiLeaks documents and often writes about classified matters.
?Do you think that what you do is consistent with what you understand Assange and WikiLeaks did?? Mr. Holder asked a reporter. ?Would I have liked not to see the stuff appear? Yes. But did The Times act in a responsible way? I would say yes. I am not certain I would say that about those people who were responsible for the initial leaks and the wholesale dumping of materials.?