Attorney general to resign, spent final year fighting financial crime

Attorney General Eric Holder, criticized during his tenure for failing to go after big financial players for their roles in the 2008 meltdown, has spent the last year making up for lost time in an effort to hold banks accountable for their role in the financial crisis

Eric Holder spent his last year making up for lost time by pursuing the nation’s largest banks for their role in the financial crisis.

The U.S. attorney general announced his resignation Thursday after nearly six years as the nation’s top prosecutor. Holder has spent the last year making up for lost time in an effort to hold banks accountable for their role in the financial crisis, according to Bloomberg News.

Holder was criticized during his tenure for not prosecuting the largest banks and their top executives. He was reported saying in a March 2013 Senate Judiciary Committee meeting that some banks are too big prosecute.

“I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy,” Holder said, according to a March 2013 Wall Street Journal article. “And I think that is a function of the fact that some of these institutions have become too large.”

However, since last fall, Holder has pursued a series of multibillion-dollar penalties against big financial institutions, including the nearly $17 billion settlement last month with Bank of America. The Justice Department also announced in July a $7 billion settlement with Citigroup, and last year, JPMorgan agreed to a $13 billion settlement.

No decision has been made on Holder’s replacement.