WASHINGTON (CN) - After nearly six years at the helm of U.S. Justice Department, Attorney General Eric Holder said today that he is stepping down.
President Barack Obama made what had been Washington, D.C.'s worst kept secret official with an announcement at the White House this afternoon.
"Through it all he's shown a deep and abiding fidelity to one of our cherished ideals as a people and that is equal justice under the law," Obama said before a crush of media and staff in the East Room of the White House.
The president praised Holder at length, highlighting the attorney general's record in the area of criminal justice reform and civil rights, particularly as in the area of voting rights, gay rights and criminal sentencing.
"It's a pretty good track record," Obama said.
One of the longest-serving members of President Obama's cabinet and the fourth-longest-tenured U.S. attorney general in history, Holder is also the nation's first black attorney general.
The White House said the president's announcement of Holder's departure had been scheduled for this late afternoon. Events quickly got ahead of the announcement, however, inspiring the president to take to Twitter in advance of his formal remarks.
In one Tweet that appeared on the White House website this afternoon, President Obama said of Holder, "He believes, as I do, that Justice is not just an abstract theory. It's a living and breathing principle."
In another, the president said Holder has shown a "deep and abiding fidelity to one of our most cherished ideals as a people ... equal justice under the law."
While his 5 ½ years in office have been marked by a series of skirmishes with Republicans in Congress, Holder's tenure has also included criminal-justice reforms, advances in civil rights and neutralization of several national-security threats.
Holder refused to defend a law that defined marriage as between a man and a woman; sued North Carolina and Texas over voting restrictions that disproportionately affect minorities and the elderly; conducted widespread investigations into abuse meted out by local police departments; and has been a vocal critic of the sentencing guidelines for nonviolent drug crimes.
Just this week, Holder announced the federal prison population dropped by 4,800 in the past year - the first such decline since 1980. The attorney general attributed the drop to sentencing reforms for which he has long been an advocate.
Last summer Holder played a critical role in reducing tensions in Ferguson, Mo., after a white policeman killed an unarmed black, 18-year-old. He has since said the shooting, which sparked weeks of riots and protest, left the country at "a moment of decision ... that can no longer be avoided."
Myrlie Evers-Williams, the widow of slain civil rights activist Medgar Evers, said in a statement, "Attorney General Holder never shied away from the issues that greatly affect us all,"
"There has been no greater ally in the fight for justice ... " Evers said. "From lobbying Congress to reduce prison sentences for non-violent drug offenders, to cracking down on abuse by police departments and to working to ease racial tension throughout the United States, the Attorney General was always there ready to correct injustices and offer common sense reforms to better our nation."
