Sacramento Bee | Anti-war protesters disrupt Holder’s speech

Published on Friday, May. 27, 2011 by the Sacramento Bee

By JAMES WALSH
Star Tribune (Minneapolis)

MINNEAPOLIS — Attorney General Eric Holder came to Minneapolis on Friday to speak at a meeting of city leaders about how to decrease youth violence.

But Holder’s efforts to talk about youth violence prevention kept being interrupted by several anti-war protesters sitting in the crowd. They were among those whose homes and offices had been raided by the FBI on Sept. 24, 2010 in a case involving, “providing material support to terrorism,” according to the search warrants.

Again and again protesters stood to question Holder about why they are being investigated. Holder told the first protester to stand, Tracy Molm, that he would be happy to talk with her after his speech.

About a half-hour later, after several more interruptions from other protesters, Holder left the stage, retreated to a back room and eventually spoke with Molm.

She said he gave her about three minutes, did not answer her questions and told her, “We’ll have to agree to disagree.”

Protesters shadowed Holder much of the day, from his morning appearance at the University of Minnesota’s McNamara Alumni Center to his afternoon “town hall” meeting with Minneapolis Somalis at Augsburg College.