Attorney General Eric Holder To Resign

Eric Holder, the first black U.S. Attorney General, will announce his resignation today, NPR Politics reports.

?Holder, one of the longest serving Attorney Generals in history, will stay aboard until his successor is confirmed, according to sources familiar with the decision.

??Holder has faced intensive scrutiny for his role in the "Fast & Furious" scandal, where FBI and ATF agents purposely allowed guns to be purchased by straw buyers, hoping to trace them back to Mexican drug cartels.

He also had to tamp down complaints over his choice to try the 9/11 plotters in a New York City courthouse instead of a military court, a decision he eventually reversed.

??Despite all this, Holder was dispatched by President Obama to Ferguson, Mo. to ease racial tensions - a job that even his most adamant critics admit was admirable and should largely overshadow a 2009 slip-up when he referred to the U.S. as a "nation of cowards" during a specialized Black History Month speech. ??

According to the NPR story, the leading candidate to replace Holder is Solicitor General Don Verrilli, the top representative of the Obama administration in the Supreme Court.