After 5-Month Delay, Loretta Lynch Becomes 1st Black Female Attorney General

Loretta Lynch at the ceremony in the Roosevelt Room of the White House Nov. 8, 2014, in Washington, D.C., after President Barack Obama introduced her as his nominee to replace Eric Holder as attorney general

WIN MCNAMEE/GETTY IMAGES

Updated Thursday, April 23, 3:45 p.m. EDT: Shortly after Loretta Lynch’s confirmation for the position of attorney general was announced, President Barack Obama released a statement declaring that America “will be better off” for the decision:

Loretta has spent her life fighting for the fair and equal justice that is the foundation of our democracy. As head of the Justice Department, she will oversee a vast portfolio of cases, including counterterrorism and voting rights; public corruption and white-collar crime; judicial recommendations and policy reviews—all of which matter to the lives of every American, and shape the story of our country. Loretta’s confirmation ensures that we are better positioned to keep our communities safe, keep our nation secure, and ensure that every American experiences justice under the law.

Earlier:

Loretta Lynch was finally confirmed as attorney general by the Senate Thursday after five months of being at the center of a partisan battle over a provision in a human trafficking bill, the Washington Post reports. The vote was slightly less narrow than expected because 10 Republicans ended up voting for Lynch’s confirmation—five more than expected.

According to NPR, the 56-43 vote ensures that Lynch will be Eric Holder’s successor to head the Justice Department and become the first black woman to hold the position.  

Lynch’s confirmation had been tied to a partisan battle over an anti-trafficking bill that included an abortion provision that Democrats believed further restricted the procedure. Earlier this week, the Senate struck a deal to end the impasse, clearing the way for the confirmation vote.  

“I guess I was naive in thinking my Republican colleagues would treat Loretta Lynch with the dignity that she and her office deserve,” Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said Thursday morning, according to the Post. “Perhaps my mistake was forgetting that for Republicans, this isn’t about Loretta Lynch. It’s about President Obama.”

As the Post notes, Lynch also came under fire from Republicans when, during questioning before the Senate Judiciary Committee, she said she thought that President Barack Obama’s executive actions on immigration were legal and constitutional.

“Ms. Lynch has said flat out that she supports those policies and is committed to defending them in court,” Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) countered on Thursday. “So I think Congress has a real role here. We do not have to confirm someone to the highest law-enforcement position in America if that someone is publicly committed to denigrating Congress.”

The Senate Republicans who voted for Lynch are Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), Kelly Ayotte (N.H.), Thad Cochran (Miss.), Susan Collins (Maine), Jeff Flake (Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Orrin Hatch (Utah), Ron Johnson (Wis.), Mark Kirk (Ill.) and Rob Portman (Ohio). 

Loretta Young, 87, the elegant beauty whose acting career...

Loretta Young, 87, the elegant beauty whose acting career extended from silent movies to television and included an Academy Award for best actress in "The Farmer's Daughter"; both on and off the screen, she presented the image of serene uprightness; appeared in 88 movies from 1927 to 1953 and on television in more than 300 episodes of "The Loretta Young Show"; she was nominated seven times for Emmys as best starring actress and won three times; retired at the end of "The New Loretta Young Show" in 1963, devoting her time to charities and a line of beauty products bearing her name; returned to acting in 1986, appearing in a television movie, "Christmas Eve"; Aug. 12 in Los Angeles, of ovarian cancer.

Eliahu Ben-Elisar, 68, a veteran right-wing politician who helped negotiate Israel's peace treaty with Egypt; he later served as ambassador to Egypt, the United States and France; as a major figure in the office of then-Prime Minister Menahem Begin, he was closely involved in the negotiations with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, the first Arab leader to make peace with Israel, in 1979; Aug. 12 in Paris.

Michael S. Reynolds, 63, author of a five-volume biography of Ernest Hemingway; he was noted for his meticulous scholarship and for his efforts to sort the autobiographical fact from the fiction in Hemingway's work; at times, he seemed to enter Hemingway's mind and to know his most intimate thoughts; Aug. 12 in Santa Fe.

Marshall Wolke, 80, the grandfatherly former head of Conservative Judaism's million lay members in America during the 1970s; he helped found a worldwide organization of Conservative congregations, and earlier took part in the Jewish Agency, the quasi-government that existed prior to the official establishment of Israel in 1948; Aug. 15, on a trip to Israel.

Mary G. Sethness, 87, who made her Gold Coast apartment a venue for Chicago's elite businesspeople, philanthropists and entertainers to come together; she served on the national governing board of the USO, was appointed as Illinois' civilian aide to the secretary of the Army, and was the honorary consul general of Nepal; a longtime friend of many politicians and entertainers, Bob Hope once called her "The lady with clout"; Aug. 12, in Illinois Masonic Medical Center.

Judge William J. Obermiller, 77, known nationwide as the "Spanking Judge" for having a teen defendant spanked in his courtroom in 1962; his family values-oriented pronouncements from the bench included haircuts for long-haired defendants and garbage collection for litterers as terms of their probation; his first spanking order came after a teen called his mother "an idiot" in court; Aug. 14, in Hammond, Ind.

Marvin Lee Manheim, 63, an early researcher in information technology who pioneered analysis of transportation systems and roadways; he published a textbook on transportation system analysis and founded worldwide forums on the topic; he has been a consultant to governments and companies around the world, including the United States, Japan and Mexico; Aug. 10, in his Lakeview home.

Lee Edgar Townsend, 83, former director of the Illinois office of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; he specialized in pollution surveillance, playing a key role in the prosecution of U.S. Steel's Gary plant in 1972; Aug. 14, in Westmont Convalescent Center.

William McBride, 87, a pack rat who was instrumental in documenting African-American social and political life in Depression-era Chicago; a former Works Progress Administration mural artist, he collected everything from playbills to African art; the collection was donated to the Chicago Public Library's Vivian G. Harsh Collection of Afro-American History and Literature in 1995; Aug. 11, in Alden Princeton Rehabilitation and Health Care Center.

Frieda Mae Hardin, 103, who joined the Navy during World War I when women were still denied the right to vote, and 79 years later came to represent the achievements of all the women in the armed forces; she was among almost 12,000 women who served in the Navy during World War I as clerks, draftsmen, translators, camouflage designers and recruiters; Aug. 9 in Livermore, Calif.

Val Dufour, 73, who won an Emmy Award as outstanding actor in a daytime drama series in the 1976-77 season for playing John Wyatt on "Search for Tomorrow"; in New York, he studied with Uta Hagen and at the Actors Studio; he was in several Broadway shows, television shows and movies; July 27 in New York.

Virginia Admiral, 85, an American painter and writer who studied with Hans Hofmann; her work is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice; in New York, she wrote for True Crimes magazine; at the Hofmann School in New York, she met the artist Robert De Niro, who was working as a class monitor; they married in 1942 and their son, the actor Robert De Niro, was born in 1943; July 27 in New York.

Richmond: U.S. Attorney General Lynch meets with police, youth

The United States Attorney General Loretta Lynch, center, shares a laugh with Richmond Mayor Tom butt, right and Acting U.S. Attorney Brian Stetch, left, prior to holding a town-hall-style meeting in Richmond on Sept. 25, 2015. (Dan Honda/Bay Area News Group)

RICHMOND -- U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch met with Contra Costa officials, law enforcement and teens during a stop Friday in Richmond, part of a national tour aimed at improving relations between police and residents and highlighting effective community-policing strategies.

"No issue is more important than the issue of police-community relations in this day and age," Lynch said, mentioning last year's violence in Ferguson, Missouri, after the shooting death of a young man stopped for allegedly stealing a pack of cigarillos.

"Those incidents reflect years and generations of negative interactions and mistrust that come together in flash-point situations and turn into conflagrations."

Julie Perez, of Pinole, protests outside Richmond City Hall during a visit by U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch on Sept. 25, 2015. Perez is seeking justice in the shooting death of her son, Richard "Pedie" Perez, by a Richmond police officer last September. (Dan Honda/Bay Area News Group)

During her visit, Lynch, who was sworn in this April and is the first African-American woman to hold the post, met with Richmond youths and spoke with officers from the Richmond Police Department, both of which meetings she described as candid discussions. She also met with female law enforcement chiefs to discuss women in leadership and held a round-table talk with representatives from community organizations and schools. All meetings were closed to the news media.

Richmond is one of six cities Lynch is visiting on her national tour aimed at highlighting positive police practices and restoring trust; the others are Cincinnati; Birmingham, Alabama; Seattle; Pittsburgh; and East Haven, Connecticut,

During her public comments, Lynch highlighted the Richmond Police Department's early adoption of body cameras, which went into effect this winter; training on implicit bias; and programs such as Operation Ceasefire, which addresses gun violence by pulling in police, probation officers and community groups.

"It's clear to me that Richmond is working toward a holistic and comprehensive approach to criminal justice that is more than just an arrest but is trying to identify many of the causes that lead people to connect with the criminal justice system in the first place," Lynch said.

During a stop at the RYSE Youth Center, which offers mentoring, counseling, classes and peer groups, Lynch met with 12 young people to hear about what they wanted to see from law enforcement. There, she was told that while Richmond police have made many improvements in their interactions with residents, officers still needed more training, especially in their interactions with young people, said Kimberly Aceves, executive director of RYSE.

Another concern was school resource officers and the so-called "schools-to-prison pipeline" that critics say makes students of color more likely to get suspended and expelled than their white peers.

"Many young people feel that the boundaries between police and education get blurred and there needs to be another way to ensure a safe environment," Acevedo said about the SROs.

Outside City Hall, Lynch was greeted by a group of residents protesting last year's shooting death of Richard "Pedie" Perez, a 24-year-old unarmed man who was killed after an altercation with a police officer. The Perez family and their supporters want an independent inquiry into the death. They have also filed a federal lawsuit and say they aren't willing to settle.

"We want U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch to know that all is not well in paradise," said Gerald Smith, a member of the Oscar Grant Committee, which advocates against police brutality.

Since being sworn in, Lynch has pushed improving community relations. She launched a review of the Baltimore Police Department after the death of a black man who was in police custody and met with civil rights leaders and law enforcement in Baltimore and Cincinnati in an attempt to regain trust between police and the black community.