Obama nominates Loretta Lynch to be next U.S. Attorney General

U.S. President Barack Obama on Saturday nominated Brooklyn federal prosecutor Loretta Lynch to be the next U.S. attorney general who, if confirmed by the Senate, would be the first black woman in the job.

Obama said he hoped the Senate would confirm Lynch, 55, who he said had distinguished herself as “tough and fair,” with out delay.

Lynch would replace Eric Holder, the first black attorney general, who has held the job since Obama took office in 2009. She was among several candidates Holder had recommended to succeed him.

Obama’s nomination of Lynch to be attorney general comes as the department she would take over continues to investigate the police shooting of an unarmed black 18-year-old in Ferguson, Missouri and seems partly intended to convey the message that police misconduct and civil rights will remain a principal focus even after the departure of Eric Holder.

Lynch has overseen corruption, terrorism and gang cases in her years as a federal prosecutor. But it’s her involvement some 15 years ago in the Louima prosecution that gave her high-profile experience in step with a core priority of the Justice Department.

She was a federal prosecutor in New York when she encountered an astonishing case of police brutality: the broomstick sodomy of a Haitian immigrant in a precinct bathroom. The 1997 assault on Abner Louima set off street protests, frayed race relations and led to one of the most important federal civil rights cases of the past two decades — with Lynch a key part of the team that prosecuted officers accused in the beating or of covering it up.

Lawyers say Obama likely selected Lynch, 55, the current U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, on the strength of a varied career and stature within the department. “She has spent years in the trenches as a prosecutor, aggressively fighting terrorism, financial fraud, cybercrime, all while vigorously defending civil rights,” Obama said in introducing Lynch at the White House ceremony Saturday. He said her prosecution of the officers in the Louima case was “one of her proudest achievements.”

Source: Newswires