Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced on Friday that the Justice Department would cease sharing confiscated private property with state and local police agencies under its Equitable Sharing program. Asset forfeiture has recently been widely denounced by both liberals and conservatives as an civil liberties atrocity that has victimized innocent Americans across the nation. A Washington Post report suggested that the policy change was part of Mr. Holder's efforts "to burnish his place in history."

Mr. Holder's decision is justly being applauded across the political spectrum. Before placing a halo over the attorney general's head, though, it should be remembered that it was Mr. Holder, pulling strings on Capitol Hill 15 years ago, who did more than anyone else to perpetuate the abuses he curtailed on Friday.

Asset forfeiture was the most controversial law enforcement abuse in the 1990s. Republican Rep. Henry Hyde of Illinois noted at a 1993 congressional hearing that 80 percent of the people whose property is seized by the federal government under drug laws are never formally charged with any crime. Scores of horror stories about the fleecing of innocent owners spurred outrage far beyond Capitol Hill. However, the Clinton administration stonewalled reform efforts by promising administrative reforms that never occurred.

In 1997, Mr. Hyde, then chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, joined liberal Democrats, Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts and Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, to push a bill to roll back federal confiscatory powers. Mr. Hyde's bill, which was endorsed by both the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Rifle Association, sailed through the House by a vote of 375 to 48.