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WASHINGTON (AP) Eric Holder, who served as the public face of the Obama administration's legal fight against terrorism and weighed in on issues of racial fairness, is resigning after six years on the job. He is the nation's first black attorney general.

The White House said that President Barack Obama would announce Holder's departure later Thursday and that Holder planned to remain at the Justice Department until his successor was in place. White House officials said Obama had not made a final decision on a replacement for Holder, who was one of the most progressive voices in his Cabinet.

Advisers to Obama and Holder said the attorney general had been planning his departure with the president for some time. Some possible candidates who have been discussed among administration officials include Solicitor General Don Verrilli, California Attorney General Kamala Harris, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, Deputy U.S. Attorney General James Cole and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a former Rhode Island attorney general.

Holder, a 63-year-old former judge and prosecutor, took office in early 2009 as the U.S. government grappled with the worst financial crisis in decades and with divisive questions on the handling of captured terrorism suspects, issues that helped shape his tenure as the country's top law enforcement official. He is the fourth-longest serving attorney general in U.S. history.

He also took on questions of racial fairness, working to improve police relations with minorities, enforce civil rights laws and remove disparities in sentencing. Most recently he became the Obama administration's point man in the federal response to the police shooting last month of Michael Brown, an unarmed black 18-year-old in Ferguson, Missouri. In the shooting's aftermath, he enlisted a team of criminal justice researchers to study possible racial bias in law enforcement.

The news of Holder's resignation came as civil rights leaders and the families of Brown and Eric Garner, who died in a New York City police chokehold this summer, were appearing at a news conference in Washington calling on the Justice Department to take over investigations into the deaths.

The Rev. Al Sharpton urged the White House to meet with civil rights representatives before appointing a replacement. "There has not been an attorney general with a civil rights record equal to Attorney General Eric Holder," Sharpton said.

In his first few years on the job, Holder endured a succession of controversies over, among other things, an ultimately abandoned plan to try terrorism suspects in New York City, a botched gun-running probe along the Southwest border that prompted Republican calls for his resignation, and what was seen as failure to hold banks accountable for the economic near-meltdown.

But he stayed on after Obama won re-election, turning in his final stretch to issues that he said were personally important to him. He promoted voting rights and legal benefits for same-sex couples and pushed for changes to a criminal justice system that he said meted out punishment disproportionately to minorities.

Stung by criticism that the department hadn't been aggressive enough in targeting financial misconduct, Holder in the past year and a half secured criminal guilty pleas from two foreign banks and multibillion-dollar civil settlements with American banks arising from the sale of toxic mortgage-backed securities. Even then, critics noted that no individuals were held accountable.

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White House: Holder resigning as attorney general

By Jim Acosta, Senior White House Correspondent

updated 12:13 PM EDT, Tue October 14, 2014

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Washington (CNN) -- The sure-to-be politically fraught nomination process for Eric Holder's replacement as attorney general will come after next month's midterm elections, the White House said on Tuesday.

An official, speaking anonymously about the nomination process, said Senate Democrats urged the White House to wait until after November's contests to put a nominee forward to head the Justice Department. Democrats are urgently working to maintain control of the Senate, and are expected to lose seats in the Republican-controlled House.

Holder, the last of President Barack Obama's original cabinet members, was a politically divisive attorney general, and the fight to replace him is expected to be rancorous on Capitol Hill.

A nominee could be pushed through a lame duck session after the midterm elections, though other issues on the congressional docket -- like authorizing Obama's use of force in against ISIS -- are expected to dominate proceedings in November and December.

"I do anticipate that Democrats will hold the Senate," White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters after Holder resigned. "That said, I also anticipate that whoever the nominee is will earn and ultimately receive bipartisan support."

Democrats close to the nominating process have floated several names as potential Holder replacements: the current Labor Secretary Tom Perez, the former Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, and former White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler are all considered in the mix.

Others include U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara and former Justice Department official Tony West.

Read the original here:
White House: No Holder replacement until after midterms

WASHINGTON - The sure-to-be politically fraught nomination process for Eric Holder's replacement as attorney general will come after next month's midterm elections, the White House said on Tuesday.

An official, speaking anonymously about the nomination process, said Senate Democrats urged the White House to wait until after November's contests to put a nominee forward to head the Justice Department. Democrats are urgently working to maintain control of the Senate, and are expected to lose seats in the Republican-controlled House.

RELATED: Eric Holder resigning as attorney general

Holder, the last of President Barack Obama's original cabinet members, was a politically divisive attorney general, and the fight to replace him is expected to be rancorous on Capitol Hill.

A nominee could be pushed through a lame duck session after the midterm elections, though other issues on the congressional docket -- like authorizing Obama's use of force in against ISIS -- are expected to dominate proceedings in November and December.

"I do anticipate that Democrats will hold the Senate," White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters after Holder resigned. "That said, I also anticipate that whoever the nominee is will earn and ultimately receive bipartisan support."

Democrats close to the nominating process have floated several names as potential Holder replacements: the current Labor Secretary Tom Perez, the former Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, and former White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler are all considered in the mix.

Others include U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara and former Justice Department official Tony West.

See original here:
No Holder replacement until after midterms

Eric Holder and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) may seem like polar opposites, but the outgoing U.S. Attorney General said this week that he and the libertarian-leaning senator have a surprising amount of views in common.

Speaking by phone Tuesday with MSNBC, Holder talked about his various priorities, including fighting strict state voter ID laws and restoring voting rights to felons. On the latter issue, in particular, Holder had some praise for Senator Paul: We agree on more things than people would expect.

Indeed, Sen. Paul has been among a handful of Republicans to join Holder in calling for an end to mandatory minimum sentencing laws, decrying the militarized police response to Ferguson, Mo., protests in August, and dismissing the GOP push for stricter voter ID laws as a waste of effort.

The potential 2016 candidate recently visited Ferguson for a listening session with local black leaders, a move that many consider to be another one of the his attempts to reach out to people infamously underrepresented in his party.

>> Follow Andrew Kirell (@AndrewKirell) on Twitter

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Eric Holder on Rand Paul: We Agree on More Things than People Would Expect

Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday said the unrest after a Missouri police officer fatally shot an unarmed black 18-year-old in August shows law enforcement must directly address tensions within communities.

Holder also called for an expanded review of police techniques and tactics in the wake of the Michael Brown shooting to provide national direction to law enforcement.

Holder and former President Bill Clinton spoke at the start of a two-day meeting of mayors and police chiefs gathered to talk about lessons from the shooting of Brown by white Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson and the protests that followed. Holder told the group what happened in the St. Louis suburb put a national spotlight on the rift between police and citizens in many cities.

The events in Ferguson reminded us that we cannot and we must not allow tensions, which are present in so many neighborhoods across America, to go unresolved, Holder said at the meeting held by the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

He said the Justice Departments broad review of police techniques, tactics and training should be expanded to provide strong, national direction on a scale not seen since President Lyndon Johnsons Commission on Law Enforcement nearly half a century ago.

Holder, who announced his resignation last month, visited Ferguson after the shooting to help ease tensions. The Justice Department is investigating whether Browns civil rights were violated.

When I traveled to Ferguson in the days after that incident, my pledge to the people of that community was that our nations Department of Justice would remain focused on the challenges they faced, and the deep-seated issues and difficult conversations that the shooting brought to the surface, long after national headlines had faded, he said.

The meeting on lessons from Ferguson was held at the Clinton presidential library in Little Rock and marked the 20th anniversary of Clinton establishing the Community Oriented Policing Services program. Clinton and Holder heralded the program, saying it was key to restoring trust between police and citizens.

We know that if we have a situation where the law enforcement community and the government generally is inclusive and represents all elements of the community and (is) connected, were more likely to make good decent decisions and less likely to make big bad mistakes, Clinton said.

Clinton also warned about the impact of departments using surplus military equipment under a program that is now the subject of a White House review. The program began during Clintons administration, but the former president said he didnt know about it.

The rest is here:
Bill Clinton, Eric Holder talk missteps of Ferguson ...