The resignation of Attorney General Eric Holder is met with both pride and disappointment by the Civil Rights community. We are proud that he has been the best Attorney General on Civil Rights in U.S. history and disappointed because he leaves at a critical time when we need his continued diligence most.
Al Sharpton
We are engaged in immediate conversations with the White House on deliberations over a successor whom we hope will continue in the general direction of Attorney General Holder.
I'm not against the government. I'm against this ever-expanding government that doesn't know its limits. And that's how I see the role of the attorney general, as someone in an office that can protect you and defend the Constitution and defend state sovereignty and our individual liberty.
Alan Wilson
At the end of the day, you realize that this is important stuff, but it isn't as important as how my kids feel about me. That's how I'm going to measure my success - not how I did as counsel to the president or as attorney general. How did I do as a dad?
Alberto Gonzales
I think what we ought to be focusing on is that we are on path for the release of 75,000 pages of documents in connection with John Roberts' work in the White House, as in the counselor's office and as his time working as an assistant in the office of the attorney general.
I retire to make way for an abler man. In my four years as attorney general I have aged about ten years, but when I have get back to the practice of law, I hope to show those lawyers that I still have some vitality left.
Alexander Henry
At every juncture as Oklahoma's attorney general, Scott Pruitt has consistently chosen to undermine and attack environmental safeguards - not to defend them.
Amber Valletta
I will not vote in favor of Senator Sessions' nomination for attorney general.
Amy Klobuchar
As attorney general, I've led a victim-centered office.
Andy Beshear
As attorney general, I'm helping lead a national effort to protect coverage for pre-existing conditions.
Kentuckians can see how I've lived my values by looking at my priorities as attorney general.
As attorney general, I've launched a specialized unit to protect voting rights.
When I ran for attorney general, I promised to protect our seniors - and just look at what we've accomplished. From stopping scammers and cracking down on abuse to fighting for lower prescription drug costs, I've always put our seniors first.
I've given everything I've got as attorney general.
When states like Alabama and Arizona passed some of the harshest immigration laws in history, my Attorney General took them on in court and we won.
Barack Obama
Do we want an Attorney General who will play politics with the law, play politics with the court and just play politics with international conventions designed to protect our troops? I do not want to play that kind of politics. I am going to vote against Alberto Gonzales.
Barbara Mikulski
On March 12, 2004, acting attorney general James B. Comey and the Justice Department's top leadership reached the brink of resignation over electronic surveillance orders that they believed to be illegal.
Barton Gellman
As attorney general, I've had some connection with just about every important public issue in the last eight years in Kentucky. All of the important public issues of the day have, at some point.
Ben Chandler
As attorney general, I can either look into it or I can ignore it because they're a bunch of powerful legislators... and I'm afraid they're going to cut my budget.
We should never again have an attorney general capable of saying virtually nothing as the law of major intelligence programs and the integrity of his department's work in overseeing these programs are assailed over a protracted period of time.
Benjamin Wittes
June 10, 2002, the day John Ashcroft announced the arrest of Jose Padilla, marked a low point in Ashcroft's career as Attorney General.
The nature of the job of attorney general has changed - irrevocably. And we should never again have an attorney general, of either party, capable of expressing surprise at the role that national security issues now play in the life of the Justice Department or in the role of its chief.
The economy is governed through cartel agreements and monopoly. The attorney general is the one who's controlling funds. There is no free business in Georgia.
The attorney general should be a watchdog for the rule of law, not a lapdog for the president - simple as that.
My wife and daughters work. My campaign manager in 2005 was a working mother. I appointed 5 women to my senior staff as Attorney General.
Salazar's record is one of weakness; he hasn't been a good attorney general.
Trump's relentless public humiliation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions was clearly intended to get him to resign.
You know, as attorney general, there's no issue more important than making sure you are safe, that your families are safe.
I couldn't do that as attorney general. Why? Because they are my clients. You can't say they're not doing what they ought to be doing when you are the attorney general.
It is the honor of a lifetime to serve as Director. I long ago grew to know and admire the FBI from my earliest days as a line prosecutor to my years as assistant attorney general.
Our laws are very clear on a woman's reproductive health care. I will not only enforce those laws as attorney general, I will take the appropriate action against anyone who tries to interfere with a woman's right to choose her reproductive health care.
Mr. Gonzales' failure to respond to questions legitimately posed to him by the Senate raises grave doubts in my mind as to his fitness to serve the people of the United States as their Attorney General.
The political status legislation which emerged in Congress in 1990 and 1991 did not receive the support needed for enactment into law during my tenure as Attorney General.
As attorney general I see my role as defender both of press freedom and of the fair administration of justice.
As a past attorney general I consider a WTO Brexit to be a disaster for us as, leaving aside the economic damage it will cause, it would trash our reputation for observing our international obligations - as it must lead to our breaching the Good Friday Agreement with Ireland on the Irish border.
Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and I found that out when I was Attorney General in Massachusetts.
The responsibility of the attorney general is to change things and bring us closer to the ideals expressed in our founding documents.
Any attorney general who is not an activist is not doing his or her job.
I was raised - professionally - in the Public Integrity Section. I started in 1976, stayed there for 12 years. It was formed after Watergate by then-head of the Criminal Division Dick Thornburgh, who ultimately became Attorney General.
If you want to call me an activist attorney general, I will proudly accept that label.
I'd like to continue being involved with issues that animated my time as attorney general - criminal-justice reform and civil rights especially. I don't just want to give speeches; I'd like to involve myself in this work in a systematic way.
There are a whole variety of reasons I want to be attorney general, a whole variety of things that I do as attorney general that go beyond national security.
I'm attorney general of the United States. I will not stand for - I will not allow people to take away that which people gave their lives to give, and that is the ability for the American people to vote.
Although the attorney general is a part of the president's team, you're really separate and apart. You have a special responsibility as the nation's chief law enforcement officer. There has to be a distance that you keep - between this department and the White House.
I sit here as the first African-American attorney general, serving the first African-American President of the United States. And that has to show that we have made a great deal of progress. But there's still more we have to travel along this road so we get to the place that is consistent with our founding ideals.
If I were attorney general in Kansas in 1953, I would not have defended a Kansas statute that put in place separate-but-equal facilities.
Kids who I grew up with, who I played ball with, basketball, baseball, and went to parties with - for whatever reason - they ended up in a fundamentally different place than I did. I'm the attorney general of the United States and they are ex-felons.
I am the attorney general of the United States, but I am also a black man.
On a personal level, I've seen a lot in my time as attorney general, but few things have affected me as greatly as my visit to Ferguson. I had the chance to meet with the family of Michael Brown. I spoke to them not just as attorney general but as a father of a teenage son myself.
Ninety-five percent of the work in the attorney general's office is civil litigation and regulatory work, and I think I certainly have a lot more experience in that than most of the folks who have served in the office.
