July cannot be counted as the warmest of months for Eric H. Holder Jr. The attorney general clashed with Congress over national security policy, fielded complaints from federal judges upset with bungled evidence and, in the most painful indignity, cracked his tooth.

Then came a bombshell three days ago that has sent Washington political circles reeling: Holder’s inclination to appoint a prosecutor to examine whether interrogators tortured terrorism suspects during the Bush years. The disclosure has exposed him to new scrutiny even among colleagues in the Obama administration, where views about unearthing divisive episodes from the past are hardly uniform.

All of that took a back seat yesterday when Holder, 58, arrived in his home town of New York for a rousing speech to the NAACP, where he had served as an intern decades ago. Seated between civil rights icon Julian Bond and the group’s president, Benjamin Todd Jealous, at a luncheon during the organization’s centennial convention, Holder was lauded by the crowd as a symbol of pride and progress in his ascent to becoming the nation’s first black attorney general.

Five months into his tenure, criticism of Holder is now coming from multiple directions, including conservatives who portray Holder as soft on terrorism and at times hypocritical, as in his controversial decision to overrule department lawyers on the constitutionality of the D.C. voting rights bill. A bipartisan group of lawmakers this summer restricted the Justice Department from bringing suspects detained at the military facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, onto American soil, tying Holder’s hands as the one-year clock for closing the prison in January ticks down.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (Ala.), the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, last month pronounced himself “disappointed” with Holder’s performance.

“I do not believe your actions have matched your promises,” Sessions said.

At the same hearing, Judiciary Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) praised Holder for an “impressive start” and for showing “great courage in the face of political pressure” on Guantanamo Bay.

Sessions’s sharp words came even before last weekend, when Holder signaled he was leaning toward naming a prosecutor from inside the Justice Department to examine whether CIA interrogators crossed legal lines set out by Bush lawyers in their handling of terrorism suspects. The inquiry, if it proceeds as expected within a few weeks, is designed to be narrowly confined and would not conflict with messages from President Obama about following the facts and the law where they lead, according to a senior Justice Department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the matter is at a delicate stage.

Government officials went out of their way yesterday to portray the relationship between Holder and the White House as professional, even cordial. Holder has acknowledged a warm if not close relationship with Obama, for whom he co-led the vice presidential selection process. The attorney general has attended White House celebrations for the Super Bowl and Independence Day. But he does not exercise with the president or otherwise socialize with the first family.

The president is a lawyer and a former law professor, which infuses his interest in the work of the department. At a news conference honoring his first 100 days in office, Obama spoke with ease about one of the most vexing legal issues of the early administration: when the government will invoke the “state secrets” privilege in a bid to dismiss civil cases filed by those who allege rendition, warrantless surveillance and torture. A department review awaits release while the White House formulates a policy directive, according to legal sources.