Current Attorney General of the United States Eric Holder resigned in September, and President Obama has nominated as his replacement US Attorney Loretta Lynch, who, provided the Republican Party will actually approve her nomination, will be the first black woman to be the US Attorney General in the nation's history.
Holder leaves at a time when the Department of Justice is deeply involved in investigating notable civil rights and police brutality cases, including the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Lynch's background should be a reassurance to those of us keen to see those investigations continue.
Loretta Lynch 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.A+.
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.
...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.
"It is certainly significant that she has a personal history of involvement in prosecuting police misconduct," said Samuel Bagenstos, the former No. 2 official in the department's civil rights division. "Obviously that will be helpful, and probably suggests that police misconduct cases will continue to be a priority of the Lynch Justice Department just as they were with the Holder Justice Department.
...Her office, which encompasses Brooklyn, Queens, Long Island and Staten Island, won convictions in a thwarted plot to bomb the city's subway system, successfully prosecuted a New York state assemblyman caught accepting bribes in a sting operation and, more recently, filed tax evasion charges against Republican Rep. Michael Grimm. She's also worked closely with Justice Department leadership by heading a U.S. attorneys committee that advises Holder on policy.
But it was the case of Louima, tortured with a broken broomstick on a bathroom floor, that elevated her profile. In a Senate questionnaire for the job of U.S. attorney, she placed the case second — behind only a sexual harassment matter involving a city councilman — in a list of the most significant cases she personally handled.
...The president said Lynch "has spent her life fighting for fair and equal justice that is the foundation of our democracy."
Senator Mitch McConnell, current Senate minority leader who will soon be the Senate majority leader, says: "Ms. Lynch will receive fair consideration by the Senate. And her nomination should be considered in the new Congress through regular order." Sounds good. Now let's see that actually happen, pal.
Of course, I suspect McConnell and I have different definitions of "fair."
In related news, conservatives are already covering this nomination in spectacular fashion. Good grief.
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