Politics

Lynch to Bring Prosecutor’s Perspective to Justice Dept.

Published

11 years ago

April 24, 2015

Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch is sworn in on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2015, prior to testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on her nomination. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

ERIC TUCKER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — As attorney general Loretta Lynch assumes a portfolio that includes fighting terrorism, preventing cyberattacks and dealing with police and race — issues strikingly similar to what she’s dealt with as top federal prosecutor for much of New York City and its eastern suburbs.

She inherits a Justice Department consumed by efforts to stop the flow of Islamic State recruits to Syria and prevent destructive computer crimes against American corporations. And she arrives with the department at the center of an ongoing national dialogue on relations between police and minority communities, something she pledged at her confirmation hearing to address.

The Senate’s long-delayed confirmation Thursday of Lynch, 55, makes her the first African-American woman to hold the position. She’s expected to be sworn in next week to replace Eric Holder following his six-year tenure, which made civil rights protections a cornerstone priority.

Lynch will have limited time in the twilight of the Obama administration to craft ambitious new policy proposals and is seen as unlikely to depart in radical ways from Holder’s priorities. But supporters expect her to bring her own understated and low-key management style, and she sought to assure anxious Republicans in recent months that she would arrive in Washington with her own law-and-order perspective.

“She’s a professional prosecutor, a career law-enforcement person, and she’s also someone who is apolitical,” said Robert Giuffra, a New York lawyer who has known Lynch for years.

The workload itself won’t be unfamiliar for Lynch, who since 2010 has been the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, one of the busiest Justice Department offices in the country. The job has given her the opportunity to oversee cases against terrorists, cybercriminals and elected officials — all common Justice Department targets. Her office also is involved in the civil rights investigation arising from the death of a black Staten Island man who was placed in a chokehold by a white police officer.

In addition, she’ll need to build relationships on Capitol Hill, where Republicans who criticized Holder as overly political repeatedly clashed with him and once held him in contempt.

“I think DoJ badly needs a new attorney general to start to reset relationships, first and foremost with members of Congress, the overseers,” said Ron Hosko, former head of the FBI’s criminal division and president of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund. “I think that the negativity, the friction, between Holder and the oversight committees ultimately hurt” the department.

Never known as a publicity seeker, the Harvard-educated Lynch has kept an even lower profile in recent months while her nomination was in limbo, caught up in a partisan dispute over a human trafficking bill. Her office has recently brought several noteworthy cases against suspected Islamic State group recruits, but without the typical fanfare of a news conference. Her chief media spokesman retired last year and was never replaced.

As a Brooklyn prosecutor, she attracted attention for her leading role in one of the most sensational police brutality cases in city history, the 1997 broomstick torture of Haitian immigrant Abner Louima in a precinct bathroom. Even in that case, she encouraged a far more junior member of the trial team, Kenneth Thompson, to deliver opening statements rather than taking the opportunity herself.

“It shows that Loretta is more interested in doing justice than getting the limelight,” said Thompson, now the Brooklyn district attorney.

She served from 1999 to 2001 as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District — which encompasses Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and Long Island — before entering private practice. She returned to the position in 2010 and was appointed to the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee, a position that required her to spend more time in Washington and drew her closer to Holder.

During her second tenure, Lynch’s office has won convictions in a thwarted al Qaida-sanctioned plot to attack New York City subways, and against a Canadian drug kingpin who was one of New York’s biggest marijuana suppliers. More recently, her office brought a tax evasion case against former Republican Congressman Michael Grimm that resulted in his guilty plea and resignation.

Lynch is not expected to radically reshape the Justice Department in the remaining year and a half of the Obama administration, and at her confirmation hearing in January, she carefully endorsed some of the staples of Holder’s legacy and spoke of the need to continue repairing bonds between law enforcement and minorities.

But in nuanced ways, she also created space between herself and the outgoing attorney general. She said the death penalty, which Holder personally opposes, was an effective punishment and voiced unequivocal opposition to the prospect of marijuana legalization.

It also remains to be seen how aggressively she will support Holder’s efforts to transform the criminal justice system’s treatment of nonviolent defendants.

Supporters expect her to bring not only her own perspective but also a unique biography that she says instilled in her the value of public service. She grew up in North Carolina at the height of the Civil Rights movement, the daughter of a librarian and a fourth-generation Baptist preacher who carried her on his shoulders as he opened his Greensboro church to protesters planning sit-ins and marches.

“If confirmed as attorney general,” she told lawmakers in January, “I will be myself. I will be Loretta Lynch.”

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Associated Press writer Tom Hays in New York contributed to this report.

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Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP

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#NNPA BlackPress

COMMENTARY: The National Protest Must Be Accompanied with Our Votes

Just as Trump is gathering election data like having the FBI take all the election data in Georgia from the 2020 election, so must we organize in preparation for the coming primary season to have the right people on ballots in each Republican district, so that we can regain control of the House of Representatives and by doing so, restore the separation of powers and balance that our democracy is being deprived of.

Published

10 hours ago

February 10, 2026

Oakland Post

Dr. John E. Warren, Publisher San Diego Voice & Viewpoint Newspaper. File photo..

By Dr. John E. Warren, Publisher San Diego Voice & Viewpoint Newspaper

As thousands of Americans march every week in cities across this great nation, it must be remembered that the protest without the vote is of no concern to Donald Trump and his administration.

In every city, there is a personal connection to the U.S. Congress. In too many cases, the member of Congress representing the people of that city and the congressional district in which it sits, is a Republican. It is the Republicans who are giving silent support to the destructive actions of those persons like the U.S. Attorney General, the Director of Homeland Security, and the National Intelligence Director, who are carrying out the revenge campaign of the President rather than upholding the oath of office each of them took “to Defend The Constitution of the United States.”

In California, the primary comes in June 2026. The congressional races must be a priority just as much as the local election of people has been so important in keeping ICE from acquiring facilities to build more prisons around the country.

“We the People” are winning this battle, even though it might not look like it. Each of us must get involved now, right where we are.

In this Black History month, it is important to remember that all we have accomplished in this nation has been “in spite of” and not “because of.” Frederick Douglas said, “Power concedes nothing without a struggle.”

Today, the struggle is to maintain our very institutions and history. Our strength in this struggle rests in our “collectiveness.” Our newspapers and journalists are at the greatest risk. We must not personally add to the attack by ignoring those who have been our very foundation, our Black press.

Are you spending your dollars this Black History Month with those who salute and honor contributions by supporting those who tell our stories? Remember that silence is the same as consent and support for the opposition. Where do you stand and where will your dollars go?

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Activism

Congresswoman Simon Votes Against Department of Homeland Security, ICE Funding

“They need accountability. Republicans already gave these agencies an unprecedented $170 billion for immigration enforcement, funding they have used to conduct raids at schools, separate families, and deploy a masked paramilitary who refuse to identify themselves on American streets. This bill gives them more funding without a single reform to stop unconstitutional, immoral abuses,” she said.

Published

11 hours ago

February 10, 2026

Oakland Post

Congresswoman Lateefah Simon (D-CA-12). File photo.

By Post Staff

Congresswoman Lateefah Simon (D-CA-12) released a statement after voting against legislation to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which supports Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CPB).

“Today, I voted NO on legislation to fund the Department of Homeland Security through Feb. 13, 2026.

“ICE and CBP do not need more funding to terrorize communities or kill more people,” she said in the media release.

“They need accountability. Republicans already gave these agencies an unprecedented $170 billion for immigration enforcement, funding they have used to conduct raids at schools, separate families, and deploy a masked paramilitary who refuse to identify themselves on American streets. This bill gives them more funding without a single reform to stop unconstitutional, immoral abuses,” she said.

“The American people are demanding change. Poll after poll of Americans’ opinions show overwhelming support for requiring ICE agents to wear body cameras and prohibiting them from hiding their faces during enforcement actions. This is the bare minimum transparency standard, and this funding legislation does not even meet this low bar,” Simon said.

“Republicans in Congress are not serious about reining in these lawless agencies. Their refusal to make meaningful changes to the DHS funding bill has consequences that go beyond immigration enforcement. TSA agents who keep our airports safe and FEMA workers who help our communities recover from disasters are stuck in limbo due to Republican inaction.

“The Constitution does not have an exception for immigrants. Every person on American soil has rights, and federal agencies must respect them. The East Bay has made clear at the Alameda County and city level that we will hold the line against a violent ICE force and support our immigrant communities – I will continue to hold the line and our values with my votes in Congress.”

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Activism

Post Newspaper Invites NNPA to Join Nationwide Probate Reform Initiative

The Post’s Probate Reform Group meets the first Thursday of every month via Zoom and invites the public to attend. The Post is making the initiative national and will submit information from its monthly meeting to the NNPA to educate, advocate, and inform its readers.

Published

11 hours ago

February 10, 2026

Oakland Post

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By Tanya Dennis

The National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) represents the Black press with over 200 newspapers nationwide.

Last night the Post announced that it is actively recruiting the Black press to inform the public that there is a probate “five-alarm fire” occurring in Black communities and invited every Black newspaper starting from the Birmingham Times in Alabama to the Milwaukee Times Weekly in Wisconsin, to join the Post in our “Year of Action” for probate reform.

Reporter Tanya Dennis says, “The adage that ‘When America catches a cold, Black folks catch the flu” is too true in practice; that’s why we’re engaging the Black Press to not only warn, but educate the Black community regarding the criminal actions we see in probate court: Thousands are losing generational wealth to strangers. It’s a travesty that happens daily.”

Venus Gist, a co-host of the reform group, states, “ Unfortunately, people are their own worst enemy when it comes to speaking with loved ones regarding their demise. It’s an uncomfortable subject that most avoid, but they do so at their peril. The courts rely on dissention between family members, so I encourage not only a will and trust [be created] but also videotape the reading of your documents so you can show you’re of sound mind.”

In better times, drafting a will was enough; then a trust was an added requirement to ‘iron-clad’ documents and to assure easy transference of wealth.

No longer.

As the courts became underfunded in the last 20 years, predatory behavior emerged to the extent that criminality is now occurring at alarming rates with no oversight, with courts isolating the conserved, and, I’ve heard, many times killing conservatees for profit. Plundering the assets of estates until beneficiaries are penniless is also common.”

Post Newspaper Publisher Paul Cobb says, “The simple solution is to avoid probate at all costs. If beneficiaries can’t agree, hire a private mediator and attorney to work things out. The moment you walk into court, you are vulnerable to the whims of the court. Your will and trust mean nothing.”

Zakiya Jendayi, a co-host of the Probate Reform Group and a victim herself, says, “In my case, the will and trust were clear that I am the beneficiary of the estate, but the opposing attorney said I used undue influence to make myself beneficiary. He said that without proof, and the judge upheld the attorney’s baseless assertion. In court, the will and trust is easily discounted.”

The Black press reaches out to 47 million Black Americans with one voice. The power of the press has never been so important as it is now in this national movement to save Black generational wealth from predatory attorneys, guardians and judges.

The next probate reform meeting is on March 5, from 7 – 9 p.m. PST. Zoom Details:
Meeting ID: 825 0367 1750
Passcode: 475480

All are welcome.