WASHINGTON — Loretta Lynch, who won Senate confirmation Thursday to become the next U.S. attorney general, is taking over the Justice Department amid a national uproar over alleged police brutality that could largely define her tenure.
The first African-American woman to serve as the nation’s top law enforcement officer arrives at a time of unprecedented public pressure for federal officials to respond to the growing list of confrontations between local-level police and unarmed citizens.
The Justice Department announced Tuesday it was investigating last week’s death in Baltimore of Freddie Gray, who died of a broken spine after being taken into police custody, the latest in a series of such controversies since the fatal Aug. 9 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.
As a longtime federal prosecutor who has put cops in jail, yet also a favorite of the law enforcement establishment, Lynch brings credibility to the issue that few others could muster.
“She is in a good position because she has earned credibility with the law enforcement community to begin with,” said James M. Cole, who served as deputy attorney general until January.
President Barack Obama on Thursday praised Lynch’s record, calling her “a tough, independent and well-respected prosecutor on key, bipartisan priorities like criminal justice reform.”
But even Lynch — approved by a narrow 56-43 Senate vote — will find it hard to address the mounting public demands for action against rogue cops while still maintaining the faith of the 113,000 prosecutors, prison guards, and FBI and DEA agents on her payroll.
As a new member of the Obama administration, Lynch will no doubt inherit some of the baggage of her predecessor, Eric H. Holder Jr.
Holder was heavily criticized by police for making critical public comments about the Ferguson Police Department after Brown’s death.
As a newcomer, Lynch has an opportunity to make a fresh start on the issue.
She seemed to send a strong signal in January that she would be different, emphasizing her respect for law enforcement groups.
But as Lynch knows, there are limits to the prosecutorial tools at her disposal to deal with the issue.
The sharpest tool is to file criminal civil rights charges against police officers who cross the line, as the department did in the case of the 1992 beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers.
But that is also the hardest instrument to wield effectively because the legal bar to prove a criminal civil rights violation is high, particularly in cases involving police.
One of her first prosecutorial decisions involving police could be in a case she knows well. As U.S. attorney for Brooklyn, she led the federal civil rights investigation into the death of Eric Garner on Staten Island last year after police apparently placed him in a chokehold.
Now, as attorney general she will make the final call on whether to charge the police officers involved.
Lynch had plenty of experience with police brutality before the Garner case. The biggest feather in her prosecutorial cap in Brooklyn was the conviction of New York City Police Officer Justin Volpe in 1999 for sodomizing Haitian immigrant Abner Louima.
But errant police will be only one of many thorny issues on Lynch’s agenda. Cole, the department’s former No. 2, said that among them is the reauthorization of the post-9/11 Patriot Act, a section of which has been used to authorize National Security Agency collection of telephone call records. That provision is due to expire in June.
Cole said Lynch would also take over responsibility for the department’s investigation into whether Internal Revenue Service officials violated any laws when they targeted political groups seeking tax-exempt status. Other Justice Department officials mentioned the ongoing investigation into alleged manipulation of patient data by officials in the Veterans Administration.