WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was resting at home after he was released from a Washington, D.C., hospital on Thursday, about three hours after he was taken there complaining of faintness and shortness of breath, a spokeswoman said.
Holder, 63, fell ill during a morning meeting but was in good condition, according to an earlier statement from the Justice Department. Details on what might have caused the illness were not immediately released, but the spokeswoman said Holder never lost consciousness.
Holder is an appointee of President Barack Obama and has been the head of the Justice Department since 2009. He served as the department's No. 2 official in the Clinton administration and was a corporate lawyer before he worked on Obama's 2008 presidential campaign.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said the president was being kept aware of Holder's condition.
Holder keeps an active schedule, including frequent travel, such as a trip this month to Sweden to speak about gay rights.
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He often climbs stairs rather than ride an elevator to and from his fifth-floor Justice Department office, and was due to play basketball this weekend, the spokeswoman said.
Speaking at a legal conference in October, Holder boasted of his basketball skills and jokingly said that although he had never played with Obama, "he's from Hawaii. I'm from New York. You figure out who has the better game."
His immediate predecessor Michael Mukasey collapsed during a speech at a hotel in 2008 after what his staff called a fainting spell. He returned to work the next day.
The U.S. attorney general is seventh in the presidential line of succession, after the vice president, congressional leaders and three cabinet secretaries, according to 2008 report from the Congressional Research Service.
