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Holder Calls Norton, Who Recommended Him as DC U.S. Attorney, to Inform Her of His Resignation

September 25, 2014

WASHINGTON, D.C. – United States Attorney General Eric Holder called Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today, who first recommended him in 1993 to President Bill Clinton to be United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, to inform her that he will be resigning from his post as Attorney General as soon as a successor is confirmed. Holder, the first African American Attorney General, was also the first African American U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.


"It is heartbreaking for me to see the Attorney General leave the administration, but it is understandable that, after six years of outstanding work on domestic and international legal issues, he would desire to return to private life," Norton said. "We in the District of Columbia are especially proud and grateful that it was his outstanding record as U.S. Attorney here that first brought Eric to the attention of President Clinton and, ultimately, to President Obama. This morning, we discussed his exceptional work to avoid the harshness of federal mandatory minimum sentencing in selected cases, when the results would have been particularly unfair, by using the local courts. This was possible because of the U.S. Attorney's dual local and federal jurisdiction. His work influenced the changes now underway with federal mandatory minimums that are reducing the sentences of thousands of low-level drug offenders."

Norton said that the toughest issues in the administration invariably made their way to Holder's office, including the many legal issues surrounding terrorism. Holder was often attacked as a way of getting at the President, she said, citing the sixteen-month Operation Fast and Furious investigation by Congress, although Operation Fast and Furious was a program that was initiated by the Attorney General of the Bush administration.

Norton recommended Holder for U.S. Attorney in the District of Columbia from a list formulated by her nominating commission after President Bill Clinton granted her senatorial courtesy to recommend the U.S. Attorney, District Court judges and the U.S. Marshal for the District of Columbia, as President Obama has also done.