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US attorney general Eric Holder to announce resignation US attorney general Eric Holder to announce resignation
(35 minutes later)
Eric Holder, the first black attorney general in the United States, will announce later on Thursday that he is to step down. Eric Holder, the United States’ first black attorney general, will announce later on Thursday that he plans to resign from his post as soon as a successor can be confirmed.
House minority leader Nancy Pelosi confirmed Holder’s resignation during a meeting of the Congressional Black Caucus, where he had been due to speak.The news drew gasps from many in the audience and a panel including several prominent African American politicians. House minority leader Nancy Pelosi confirmed Holder’s resignation during a meeting of the Congressional Black Caucus, where he had been due to speak.The news, first reported minutes earlier by National Public Radio, drew gasps from many in the audience and a panel including several prominent African American politicians.
The news was first reported by National Public Radio. Just beforehand, the panel had been praising Holder for his instrumental role in pushing the administration on sentencing reform and other key issues. “I do associate myself with the comments … about the excellence our of great attorney general Eric Holder,” Pelosi said.
More details soon... She went on: “I do, then, want to say that the word is that the attorney general will resign today. He has served our country very well, but the message is that the attorney general will be submitting his resignation to the president.”
Holder had been at the forefront of the administration’s efforts to tackle racial discrimination, famously accusing the US of being a “nation of cowards” when it came to discussing ongoing problems of racism in society.
“Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot,” Holder said in a speech given during Black History Month in 2009, “in things racial we have always been and I believe continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards.”
In office, he pushed hard to reform federal sentencing laws and guidelines, trying to tackle wildly disproportionate incarceration rates for young black men and proposing sweeping reductions in sentences for non-violent drug offences.
And in recent months, Holder has been noticeably more vocal than the White House on issues of race, particularly during the disturbances in Ferguson, when he was sharply critical of the response by local police.