Eric Holder
Holder tells Colbert he's considering 2020 run
01:55 - Source: CNN
Washington CNN  — 

Former Attorney General Eric Holder announced Monday that he will not run for president in 2020.

“Though I will not run for president in 2020, I will continue to fight for the future of our country through the National Democratic Redistricting Committee and its affiliates,” Holder, who served under President Barack Obama, wrote in a Washington Post op-ed. He did not provide a reason for his decision.

“I will do everything I can to ensure that the next Democratic president is not hobbled by a House of Representatives pulled to the extremes by members from gerrymandered districts,” added Holder, who currently serves as chairman of the NDRC.

Holder, who served as the head of the Justice Department from 2009 to 2015, was thought to be considering joining the crowded field of 2020 Democratic candidates aiming to take on President Donald Trump.

In July, he told a group of prominent Democrats in Cincinnati that he was “interested” in the job. That same month, he told “The Late Show” host Stephen Colbert the same thing, adding that he’d “make a determination sometime early next year.”

In his op-ed, Holder explained what criteria he thinks the Democratic nominee should meet, including possessing integrity and an ability to inspire as well as “the experience to revitalize a federal government that has been mismanaged at home and diminished abroad.”

“In evaluating potential nominees, we should remember that creativity is not limited to the young, nor wisdom to those who are older. We must measure our candidates not by their age, but by the vitality of their ideas,” he wrote.

Holder also threw his support behind “transformative policies,” writing, “Now is a time to think big — but to be wary of purists.”

The former official said that in addition to helping “ensure fairness in our democracy,” he will also do his part to make sure a Democrat takes office in 2021.

This story has been updated.

CNN’s Dan Merica and Arlette Saenz contributed to this report.