Holder resigning as attorney general, officials say

Attorney General Eric Holder plans to announce Thursday that he is resigning from the Obama administration, officials confirmed to Fox News. The decision would cap a tumultuous six-year term for the nation’s top law enforcement official.

Holder is one of the few Cabinet officials to have stayed on since the beginning of the Obama presidency. A Justice Department official said Holder has agreed to remain on the job until his successor is confirmed.

According to the official, Holder has discussed his plans with Obama on “multiple occasions” in recent months.

“[He] finalized those plans in an hour-long conversation with the president at the White House residence over Labor Day weekend,” the official said. The official added that Holder has “no immediate plans” after leaving the post.

Holder, who previously worked in private practice and before that was a federal prosecutor, was one of the most controversial members of the administration. Republicans made clear Thursday they would not miss him in the Obama Cabinet.

“Eric Holder is the most divisive U.S. attorney general in modern history,” House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said in a statement. “By needlessly injecting politics into law enforcement, Attorney General Holder’s legacy has eroded more confidence in our legal system than any attorney general before him.”

Holder was held in contempt of Congress by the Republican-led House in 2012 — a vote in which Issa played a central role — for failing to provide key information about the botched Operation Fast and Furious program. He is the only sitting Cabinet member to have been held in contempt of Congress.

Holder and GOP lawmakers routinely clashed, over Fast and Furious but also over his department’s handling of the IRS targeting scandal, its civilian prosecution of terror cases, surveillance of media outlets and other issues. His hearing appearances were at-times combative; some lawmakers even sought to impeach him.

During the contempt fight, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, was quoted saying Holder’s “arrogance knows no bounds.”

In that debate, Holder was blasted by Republicans for not turning over documents related to the gun-running probe along the Southwest border. Democrats decried the contempt push, in an election year, as political.

Holder is the fourth-longest serving attorney general in U.S. history, and the first black attorney general.

A White House official said the president has not made any final decision about a possible replacement for Holder.

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