WASHINGTON
— President Obama announced on Saturday that he would nominate Loretta
E. Lynch, the top federal prosecutor in Brooklyn, to be the next
attorney general, paving the way for the first African-American woman to
hold the job.
At
a ceremony at the White House, Mr. Obama called Ms. Lynch a highly
qualified, tough, fair and independent lawyer who deserved confirmation
“without delay.”
“She
has spent years in the trenches as a prosecutor, aggressively fighting
terrorism, financial fraud, cybercrime — all while vigorously defending
civil rights,” the president said in the Roosevelt Room, where he
appeared with Ms. Lynch and Eric H. Holder Jr., the current attorney general who has announced his intention to step down.
“Loretta
might be the only lawyer in America who battles mobsters and drug lords
and terrorists, and still has a reputation for being a charming people
person,” Mr. Obama said.Ms. Lynch, 55, a low-profile prosecutor, said that if confirmed she
would “wake up every morning with the protection of the American people
my first thought, and I will work every day to safeguard our citizens,
our liberties, our rights, and this great nation.”
Born
in Greensboro, N.C., Ms. Lynch, who has undergraduate and law degrees
from Harvard University, first rose to prominence for her work
prosecuting members of the New York City Police Department for the 1997
case in which a Haitian immigrant, Abner Louima, was beaten and sexually
assaulted with a broom handle. The case became a national symbol of
police brutality and was fraught with racial sensitivities, as it
involved white police officers accused of assaulting a black man.
On
Saturday, Mr. Obama called the case “one of her proudest achievements.”
He also portrayed Ms. Lynch as apolitical, noting that she had brought
charges against public officials “in both parties,” and had twice won
unanimous Senate confirmation.
It
was not clear how quickly the Senate would move to consider Ms. Lynch’s
current nomination. The White House is deferring to Senate leaders and
the Judiciary Committee, but would like her to be confirmed “as quickly
as possible,” one official said. That would suggest hearings and a vote
during the lame-duck congressional session that begins next week, in
which Democrats will still control the Senate.
But
Republicans, including Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who is in
line to become majority leader in January following his party’s takeover
in Tuesday’s elections, said Ms. Lynch’s nomination should be
considered “in the new Congress through regular order.”
Senator
Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and chairman of the Judiciary
Committee, has said that his top priority in the post-election session
is passage of his National Security Agency surveillance bill, which also
would have to be considered by his panel.
That
makes it possible that Ms. Lynch’s confirmation vote could wait until
early next year, which is when Mr. Holder has said he anticipates
leaving.
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Ms.
Lynch, a two-time federal prosecutor, has no personal ties to the
president and has twice been confirmed by the Senate by acclamation as a
United States attorney — in 2000 and again in 2010 — suggesting that
she might draw at least some level of bipartisan support. Prominent
Republicans said they had high hopes that she would perform more ably,
in their view, than Mr. Holder, a confidant of Mr. Obama’s who is
reviled by many of them.
Mr.
Holder “has repeatedly demonstrated a lack of commitment to enforcing
the laws, but more fundamentally, a lack of respect for the
constitutional separation of powers,” said Representative Robert W.
Goodlatte, Republican of Virginia and chairman of the House Judiciary
Committee. If the Senate confirms Ms. Lynch, he added, “I look forward
to working collaboratively with her to fully enforce our laws and
safeguard our national security.”
Senator
Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the senior Judiciary Republican who is in
line to be committee chairman in the new Congress, said he hoped Ms.
Lynch would “restore confidence in the attorney general as a politically
independent voice for the American people.”
But
some Republicans have signaled they would seek to make Ms. Lynch’s
nomination a proxy fight over the president’s use of executive power,
particularly his intention to act unilaterally to shield millions of
undocumented immigrants from deportation. Senator Jeff Sessions,
Republican of Alabama and a vocal critic of Mr. Obama’s immigration
agenda, has said any attorney general nominee must disavow the executive
action.
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