Former AG Eric Holder will advise California legislature on combating Trump
Former Attorney General Eric Holder has a new gig: helping the California legislature navigate potential conflicts with President-elect Donald Trump.
Two top leaders in the legislature, Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, announced the move Wednesday.
“With the upcoming change in administrations, we expect that there will be extraordinary challenges for California in the uncertain times ahead,” Rendon and de León said in a statement. “This is a critical moment in the history of our nation. We have an obligation to defend the people who elected us and the policies and diversity that make California an example of what truly makes a nation great.”
The news comes a month after California Gov. Jerry Brown announced he would nominate Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-California) to become the state’s next attorney general, replacing Kamala Harris who was just sworn into the U.S. Senate.
Rendon and de León said that Holder will complement Becerra’s role, and that California needs to “best and brightest defense” to “resist any attempts to roll back the progress California has made.”
In an interview with the New York Times, de León said issues on which he expected California to need to defend itself against Washington include immigration, climate change and criminal justice.
“It was very clear that it wasn’t just campaign rhetoric,” de León said of Mr. Trump’s comments on various policy areas. “He was surrounding himself with people who are a very clear and present danger to the economic prosperity of California.”
Holder, who currently works for the firm Covington & Burling in Washington, was succeeded at the Department of Justice by Loretta Lynch in 2015.
