U.S. Senate confirms Loretta Lynch as attorney general
By Lindsay Dunsmuir and Richard Cowan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate voted on Thursday to approve Loretta Lynch as President Barack Obama's next attorney general, making her the first black woman to occupy the post at a time of substantial challenges for law enforcement in the United States. With deadly altercations between police and unarmed black men in the headlines, along with pending allegations of misconduct against major banks, Lynch will be tested early as she takes over the U.S. Justice Department from Eric Holder. Her confirmation ended a five-month partisan deadlock in the Senate. She had waited for a confirmation vote longer than the last seven attorneys general combined. In the end, she was approved by a 56-43 vote. Ten Republicans voted for Lynch, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. She is expected to start work on Monday. President Obama said the country will be "better off" now that Lynch, 55, has been confirmed. As attorney general she will likely be confronted with civil rights cases stemming from recent police altercations in several U.S. cities. For instance, the Justice Department said earlier that it would look into bringing civil rights charges over the death of a Baltimore man who died on Sunday after sustaining a spinal cord injury while in police custody. Lynch will also have to take on financial cases involving allegations that some of the world's largest banks helped clients evade U.S. taxes and manipulated currency markets. The voting margin in the Senate reflected many Republicans' disapproval of Lynch's support for an executive order issued by Obama in November that was meant to shield millions of undocumented immigrants from the threat of deportation. But the tally in Lynch's favour was larger than expected, perhaps reflecting political concerns. Of the Republicans who backed her, four are up for reelection next year, three of them from states with big cities that have large black populations. Before the vote, Alabama Republican Senator Jeff Sessions, an outspoken critic of Obama's executive action on immigration, blasted Lynch. "We do not have to confirm someone to the highest law enforcement position in America if that someone is publicly committed to denigrating Congress, violating law," he said. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid berated Republicans for delaying the confirmation and said Lynch was "as qualified a candidate" as he'd seen in almost 30 years in the Senate. Lynch's elderly father, Lorenzo, a retired Baptist minister from North Carolina, watched the vote from a visitors' gallery in the Senate chamber. Lynch had awaited confirmation since November when Obama, a fellow Harvard Law School graduate, nominated her. Despite the delay, she was widely seen as less controversial than Holder, who often clashed with Republicans. She has said she aims to smooth relations with Congress. Her nomination was backed by the Senate's Judiciary Committee by a vote of 12-8 on Feb. 26. But her confirmation languished over an impasse in the Republican-led Senate on an unrelated bill meant to protect human trafficking victims. Democrats had balked at an anti-abortion provision included in that bill, but that dispute was settled on Tuesday and the bill was approved on Wednesday. An accomplished career prosecutor, Lynch has twice served as U.S. attorney in Brooklyn, New York, most recently since 2010. Her office there handled more terrorism prosecutions than most other offices in the United States. For two years, she also led a committee that advised the attorney general on policy. At a Senate confirmation hearing on Jan. 28, Lynch said her top priorities would include fighting terrorist threats and cyber crime, and improving relations between law enforcement and minority communities. (Reporting by Lindsay Dunsmuir, Richard Cowan and Julia Edwards; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and James Dalgleish)
