Former Attorney General Eric Holder calls new drug prosecutions policy 'dumb on crime'

Former Attorney General Eric Holder.
(Image credit: Chris Graythen/Getty Images)

Former Attorney General Eric Holder on Friday tore into Attorney General Jeff Sessions' new policy cracking down on drug offenses. In a statement responding to Sessions' memo issued Friday directing federal prosecutors to charge defendants facing drug-related charges with "the most serious, readily provable offense," Holder dismissed the notion that the policy is "tough on crime."

"It is dumb on crime," Holder said in the statement. "It is an ideologically motivated, cookie-cutter approach that has only been proven to generate unfairly long sentences that are often applied indiscriminately and to little to achieve long-term public safety."

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