September 25, 2014 10:00 AM UTC

Attorney General Eric Holder Will Resign; Announcement Today

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• by: Colorado Pols

From the Associated Press:

Eric Holder, who served as the public face of the Obama administration's legal fight against terrorism and pushed to make the criminal justice system more even-handed, 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 planned to announce Holder's departure later Thursday. The White House said Holder plans to remain at the Justice Department until his successor is in place.

The 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 six-year tenure as the country's top law enforcement official. He is the fourth-longest serving attorney general in U.S. history. [Pols emphasis]

There is always speculation about the cause whenever a top cabinet member resigns from the job, but Holder has been serving as Attorney General for a long time — longer than most, in fact, as we highlighted in the last line above — so it's not really a surprise that he would leave the Obama Administration well before the end of the President's second term. President George W. Bush, for example, had three different Attorney Generals during his eight years in office.