Loretta Lynch on Voting Rights, Terror Trials and the Press

I think she deserves a full and fair hearing in the new Congress. We should assess her record and give her the opportunity to share her views on the pressing issues of the day and her vision for the Department of Justice.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, on Wednesday called Lynch a “solid choice” but vowed she would be “asked some hard questions.” Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who also serves on the committee, said Lynch “looks good to me” but that “I don’t know enough about her.”

“I think the president may have made a very good choice there,” Hatch said.

Lynch wasn’t a regular face on Capitol Hill over the past several years—Main Justice leaders, though, regularly find themselves in front of senators and representatives—but she did make at least a couple of appearances to testify about health care fraud and medical data privacy.

Lynch’s confirmation can turn as much on what she will say as on what she has said. And if she has not yet said anything about the legality and scope of executive orders, she has certainly been outspoken about other issues such as voting rights, terror trials and relations with the press.

What follows are highlights from Lynch’s speeches in recent years.

Voting rights enforcement:

Fifty years after the march on Washington, 50 years after the civil rights movement we stand in this country at a time when we see people trying to take back so much of what Dr. King fought for. We stand in this country [as] people trying to take over the state house and reverse the goals that have been made in voting in this country. But I’m proud to tell you that the Department of Justice has looked at these laws—and looked at what’s happening in the deep South and in my home state of North Carolina—[and] has brought lawsuits against those voting rights changes that seek to limit our ability to stand up and exercise our rights as citizens. And those lawsuits will continue. [January 2014]

Terror trials in civilian courts:

Upon my return to the office when I’d present what used to be a fairly traditional matter—the prospect for example of prosecuting a federal case in federal court. There is nothing more innocuous or plain vanilla than that prospect. And yet as many of you will recall, when the discussion was had over where to prosecute certain terrorism cases, the discourse shifted and it went completely into the political arena. And for many of us who consider ourselves career prosecutors—whether we’re in or out, your hearts are always sort of there—it was a very difficult discussion to even watch because it tied to nothing about the actual case and more about the political realities and the issues people had and what people wanted to talk about. … My office in fact has prosecuted more terrorism cases in Article III courts than any other district in the country since 9/11 all safely, all securely. But that debate got hijacked and it got cast aside so that was a very difficult thing to see. [April 2014]

Meet the press:

Federal prosecutors are among the most heavily regulated lawyers in the system. … You sort of grow up in a mentality of automatically not speaking to the press.

[On the press:] “It’s a working relationship. It is sometimes adversarial in the sense that the press always wants more information than you can provide. … [It is] an arm’s-length one at all times, and I think it has to remain that way. No matter how friendly you get, you have to be very cognizant of the fact that, whatever you say, you are very, very clear.

The press does have a job to do. They have an important responsibility in explaining the criminal justice system to those who don’t understand it and explaining what’s happening in our overall system of government to everyone. they are the eyes and ears of everyone in the courthouse. … I’d like to see the press get it right more often. [September 2007]

On DOJ’s Civil Rights Division under George W. Bush:

It is a sad reality that certainly over the past, say 8-10 years, … the Department of Justice was unfortunately politicized in ways that did not redound to its benefit. [Notes the U.S. attorney firing scandal.] If you go down to Main Justice people will talk to you—for example, the Civil Rights Division became a shadow of itself in certain years and that was extremely unfortunate. [April 2014]

Sentencing disparities:

From the reduction of the use of solitary confinement, to the expansion of the federal clemency program, to our support for the retroactive reduction of penalties for nonviolent drug offenders to the reduction in the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine, we have worked to improve our criminal justice system in furtherance of our human rights treaty obligations. [August 2014]

Budget cuts were ‘meat clever’:

The current financial crisis, embodied by sequestration, constitutes a grave threat to our ability to carry out our mission. The mandatory cuts of sequestration took a meat cleaver, to put it bluntly, to the federal budget, with little to no consideration for the impact on the government’s ability to carry out its mission. [December 2013]

On prosecutors’ roles in the communities they serve:

Prosecutors do not work in a vacuum. … You have a community that you are responsive to. And what you’re trying to—at least what you should be trying to do—is look at the issues in that community and how do you best address them. And to the extent that there might in fact be a perception or a reality that certain classes of defendants get dealt with differently by an office—whether it is along racial or educational or gender grounds—that is something that should be addressed and can be validly address in a number of ways.