Yahoo — More than two years after leaving the Obama administration, former Attorney General Eric Holder is reentering the political fray.
His goal: to lead the legal resistance to Donald Trump’s agenda — and perhaps even run against the president in 2020.
Seized by a sense of urgency to oppose Trump and restore what he regards as America’s best self, Holder is mulling a White House bid of his own, according to three sources who have spoken to him and are familiar with his thinking.
“Up to now, I have been more behind-the-scenes,” Holder told Yahoo News in an exclusive interview about his plans. “But that’s about to change. I have a certain status as the former attorney general. A certain familiarity as the first African-American attorney general. There’s a justified perception that I’m close to President Obama. So I want to use whatever skills I have, whatever notoriety I have, to be effective in opposing things that are, at the end of the day, just bad for the country.
“Now is the time to be more visible,” Holder added. “Now is the time to be heard.”
On Monday morning, Holder launched this new phase of his career by traveling to California to speak out.
Nearly all of the officials who stepped to the podium in the lobby of Los Angeles’s Ronald Reagan State Building Monday were Californians. They showed up, and summoned the local press corps, in order to promote a piece of legislation called SB 54 (aka. the California Values Act), which is designed to prevent the Trump administration from forcing local police departments to assist in the deportation of undocumented immigrants. Critics — and even some supporters — have said it would transform the whole of California into a so-called sanctuary state.
The lineup included outspoken anti-Trump Democrat Kevin de Leon, president pro tempore of the California state Senate, who introduced SB 54 last December and is now working to push it through the legislature; Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck, who finally endorsed the controversial measure; other top cops from Long Beach and Sacramento; and Linda Lopez, head of immigrant affairs for L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti.
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