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Holder Hospitalized and Released After Shortness of Breath

         

By Erin McClam

Attorney General Eric Holder was hospitalized for about three hours Thursday after experiencing shortness of breath, Justice Department officials said.

The officials said that Holder’s symptoms also included faintness, and that he began to feel them during his regular morning meeting with senior staff. They said he was alert, comfortable and talking with his doctors while he was in the hospital.

A Justice Department official who was in the meeting said that Holder told the group he wasn’t feeling well and excused himself. The official described it as “nothing sudden or traumatic.” The diagnosis was not clear, but an official said Holder has been feeling under the weather all week.

Holder, 63, is an avid basketball player and has been in good health. He was scheduled to attend a White House event with President Barack Obama later in the day.

The attorney general was taken to MedStar Washington Hospital Center by ambulance, a Justice Department official said. Holder was joking with the paramedics on the way, an official said.

Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, told reporters that the president wished Holder a speedy recovery.