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There was a time when Republicans were eager to have Eric Holder gone from the Justice Department. That time isn't now.

GOP lawmakers began calling for the attorney general's resignation as early as 2011, and they even held him in contempt of Congress a year later.

Nowadays the issue keeping Holder in office has nothing to do with him, or Loretta Lynch, the Brooklyn U.S. attorney

Attorney General Eric Holder took aim at former Defense and CIA chief Leon Panetta on Monday, whose recently-published memoir accused President Barack Obama of vacillating over policy in Syria and damaging U.S. credibility. Holder, in an interview with CNN, defended the president's decisiveness and said Panetta acted improperly by dishing on the president. "I think [what] Leon said in the book

While Attorney General Eric Holder had made clear that he wanted to leave the post before the end of Obama's second term, the announcement of his departure just before midterm elections took many by surprise and the timing could complicate the effort to replace him. Choosing a new attorney general and getting approval in a Senate confirmation hearing will be difficult for the White House.

Attorney General Eric Holder says national security has been damaged as a result of leaks about a pair of government surveillance programs and that the U.S. will punish the person who is responsible.