U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch to visit Birmingham
Attorney General Loretta Lynch is scheduled to visit Birmingham to discuss strengthening relationships between law enforcement and citizens. The Department of Justice says Lynch will travel to Birmingham on Wednesday and meet new cadets at the city’s police academy, local law enforcement officials and others. Lynch is also scheduled to visit the 16th Street Baptist Church and the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. Officials say the visit is part of a tour centered on national community policing initiatives and President Barack Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper program. Lynch began the tour in Cincinnati, Ohio and is expected to visit East Haven, Conn., next. Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
Loretta Lynch sworn in as new U.S. attorney general
Loretta Lynch was sworn in Monday as the 83rd U.S. attorney general, the first African-American woman to serve as the nation’s top law enforcement official. Speaking before family members, Justice Department lawyers and supporters, Lynch said her confirmation as attorney general showed that “we can do anything” and pledged that the agency would “use justice as our compass” in confronting terrorism, cyberattacks and other threats facing the country. “We can imbue our criminal justice system with both strength and fairness, for the protection of both the needs of victims and the rights of all. We can restore trust and faith both in our laws and in those of us who enforce them,” Lynch said, an apparent reference to ongoing efforts to repair relations between police departments and minority communities that they serve. Vice President Joe Biden administered the oath of office to Lynch at a Justice Department ceremony, calling Lynch an “incredibly qualified” selection. He said Lynch had shown grace during the months-long confirmation process, in which her nomination became caught up in Congress with a dispute over human trafficking legislation. The 55-year-old Lynch was confirmed by the Senate on Thursday. She replaces Eric Holder, who left the position Friday after serving as attorney general for six years. “Ladies and gentlemen, it’s about time — it’s about time this woman is being sworn in,” Biden said to applause. She was previously the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, which encompasses much of New York City, and is expected to serve as the top federal law enforcement official for the remainder of the Obama administration. Lynch isn’t expected to make radical departures from Holder’s agenda, but has said she hopes to have a productive relationship with Congress. Holder frequently clashed with Republicans on Capitol Hill and was held in contempt during a document dispute stemming from the Fast and Furious federal investigation into gun trafficking. The Harvard-educated Lynch grew up in North Carolina during the civil rights movement of the 1960s, the daughter of a librarian and a fourth-generation Baptist preacher who Biden said would take his child to the courthouse to observe important cases. “I am here to tell you, if a little girl from North Carolina who used to tell her grandfather in the fields to lift her up on the back of his mule, so she could see ‘way up high, Granddaddy,’ can become the chief law enforcement officer of the United States of America, then we can do anything,” Lynch said.
White House hopefuls gather in New Hampshire
11 a.m. (EDT) Just down the street from the big gathering of Republican presidential hopefuls in Nashua, N.H., a leading Democratic voice is saying that all those Republican voices are the same. “With all of their shared extreme views they might as well just be one,” said Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee. Wasserman Schultz says she’s in New Hampshire to draw a contrast between Republican and Democratic candidates. She says each Republican would take the country backward. • • • 10:20 a.m. (EDT) Conservatives may not like it, but former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush isn’t shying away from his support for creating a way for immigrants who are living in the country illegally to gain legal status. He also responded Friday to critics in his party who often suggest such immigrants come to the United States simply for the government benefits. “The people who want to come here are driving for success,” Bush said in a morning appearance at Saint Anselm College. Bush has yet to say whether he’s running for president, but he looks and acts very much like a candidate. If elected, he said, he would deal with the millions of immigrants in the country illegally “in a rational, thoughtful way.” “My suggestion is earn legal status, not earn citizenship, but earn legal status,” Bush said, adding such immigrants would have to pay taxes, pay a fine, learn English, and not “commit crimes.” • • • 9:45 a.m. (EDT) Hillary Rodham Clinton is on the minds of New Hampshire Republicans. Opening a two-day conference for presidential hopefuls at a hotel in Nashua, New Hampshire state GOP party Chairwoman Jennifer Horn said it’s sexist to think people will “blindly and stupidly” vote for the former secretary of state and New York senator because she is a woman. Clinton launched her campaign this past weekend and spent two days this week in Iowa. She’ll be in New Hampshire to campaign on Monday and Tuesday. Horn slammed it as a “coronation tour.” Horn told the crowd gathered to hear from close to 20 prospective presidential candidates to ask them tough questions, but to save their attacks for Democrats. • • • 9:30 a.m. (EDT) There aren’t many presidential contenders flanked by family photos when they campaign in New Hampshire. That’s the case, though, for former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, where massive photos of his brother and father are among the presidential portraits hanging on the walls at Saint Anselm College. Bush joked to the crowd at the school’s “Politics and Eggs” event that the pictures brought back “really fond memories.” And he used the opportunity to address what may be at the same time his greatest political asset and liability — his own last name. “I’m going to have to show my heart, show who I am, tell my story,” Bush said. “It’s a little different than the story of my brother and my dad. This may come as a shock to you, but you have brothers and sisters so you may appreciate this: We’re not all alike. We make our own mistakes in life. We are on our own life’s journey.” • • • 8:50 a.m. (EDT) A big weekend in 2016 presidential politics is underway in New Hampshire, where nearly 20 Republican White House prospects will court voters this weekend at a state GOP meeting in Nashua. It’s the first gathering of its kind in the first-in-the-nation primary state this year, and around the formal speeches and Q&As, the candidates will be out and about all weekend for “retail” campaign stops at diners, shooting ranges, sports bars and house parties. The day’s first event is underway down the road in Manchester, where former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is speaking at “Politics and Eggs” — a breakfast fixture for 2016 prospects at Saint Anselm College. Last night, at an event called “Politics and Pies,” Bush told a crowd the Senate should confirm attorney general nominee Loretta Lynch despite objections from many of his fellow Republicans. “If someone is supportive of the president’s policies, whether you agree with them or not, there should be some deference to the executive,” Bush said. “It should not always be partisan.” Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
