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California Hires Former Attorney General Eric Holder To Help Fight Trump
Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder on January 29, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images)
Never accuse the great state of California of not knowing how to fight back. In anticipation of the impending attack on everything America stands for inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, the Golden State has pulled out the big guns and hired former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder as outside legal counsel to advise on potential legal challenges with the incoming Trump Administration.
The state legislature—anticipating possible Trump-shaped attacks on the climate change, health, civil rights and immigration policies that California holds dear—has retained Holder to lead "an expert legal team from the nationally-renowned Covington law firm" to advise in "our efforts to resist any attempts to roll back the progress California has made," according to a joint press release from California Senate President pro Tempore Kevin de León and California Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon.
"This is a critical moment in the history of our nation," Rendon and de León said. "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."
In remarks last month quoted in the L.A. Times, Rendon characterized the incoming administration as a "major existential threat,” adding that "Californians do not need healing. We need to fight."
The New York Times characterized the state's decision to hire Holder, who served as America's top lawyer from 2009 to 2015, as "the latest sign of the ideological battle that may play out over the next four years between this predominantly Democratic state and Washington." Who needs another Star Wars movie when we have our very own showdown between good and evil happening right here in California?
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