As Loretta Lynch, President Obama’s nominee to succeed Eric Holder as Attorney General, awaits confirmation hearings scheduled to begin before  the the Senate Judiciary Committee on January 28 and 29, Matt Apuzzo on The New York Times profiled her in today’s paper.

In an article entitled Nominee for Attorney General Less an Activist Than Holder, Apuzzo writes,

Ms. Lynch, President Obama’s nominee to become the next attorney general, is easy to misread. Mr. Obama predicted that she would carry on the legacy of Eric H. Holder Jr., an African-American who proudly declared himself an activist and became the administration’s most outspoken voice on race.

But while Ms. Lynch shares Mr. Holder’s views on issues such as the strained relations between the police and minorities, her friends and colleagues describe someone cautious and comfortable staying in the background who sees her role as that of a traditional prosecutor and not a civil rights advocate. Those differences are likely to become clear when confirmation hearings on her nomination begin in the Senate in the next few weeks.

 

The Times quotes Ronald T. Hosko as one of “Mr. Holder’s most vocal critics.” Hosko is president of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund and a former assistant director of the F.B.I. Hosko offered only praise for Lynch,

Mr. Hosko said his old colleagues had told him to expect an aggressive prosecutor and a reluctant political figure.

“It was all very, very positive,” he said. “I haven’t heard any reports that she’s weak in the knees, that the office is afraid.”

 

The Times also quotes Paul Fishman, the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey, “It’s never about Loretta, said Fishman. “It’s always about the work.”

As Lynch awaits the Senate hearings, Sally Yates also awaits confirmation as the Deputy Attorney General. Jim Cole has left the Department to return to private practice. Eric Holder has announced, however, that he will remain in office until his successor is confirmed.

President Obama announced on December 22 that Sally Quillian Yates, the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, will be nominated to be the Deputy Attorney General. Yates, currently vice chairwoman of the the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee, has worked in the U.S Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia since 1989, and as U.S. Attorney since her Senate confirmation on March 10, 2010. She is a 1986 graduate of the University of Georgia School of Law.

Yates would replace Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole, who is stepping down in January to take a job in the private sector. The Senate is expected to begin the confirmation hearing for attorney general nominee Loretta Lynch in the second or third week of January. Holder has said he will remain as attorney general until a nominee is confirmed.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced today that the Justice Department collected $24.7 billion in civil and criminal actions in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2014. The more than $24 billion in collections in FY 2014 represents nearly eight and a half times the appropriated $2.91 billion budget for the 94 U.S. Attorneys’ offices and the main litigating divisions of the Justice Department combined in that same period.

On Saturday, November 8, 2014, in a ceremony at the White House, President Obama announced the nomination of Loretta Lynch to succeed Eric Holder as the Attorney General of the United States. Lynch is serving her second turn as the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York and is also the chair of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee.

Lynch received her A.B., cum laude, from Harvard College and her J.D. from Harvard Law School. She joined the Brooklyn office of the Untied States Attorney in 1990, and prosecuted white collar crime and public corruption cases. She served as chief assistant to United States Attorney Zachary Carter, and was a member of the trial team in the civil rights case involving the sexual assault by New York City police officers upon Haitian immigrant Abner Louima. In the photograph below, she is shown in 1999 with Carter (left), now the New York City corporation counsel and NAFUSA board member, and Alan Vinegrad (far right), another member of the Louima trial team who also served as U.S. Attorney in the EDNY (2001-2002) and is a member of NAFUSA.

Ruby Washington/The New York Times

Lynch was appointed by President Clinton to succeed Carter as the U.S. Attorney for the EDNY, serving from 1999 to 2001. Before returning to a second term as United States Attorney in 2010, she was a partner in the New York office of Hogan & Harston, L.L.P.

In Saturday’s ceremony at the White House, also attended by Attorney General Holder, President Obama said Loretta Lynch “might be the only lawyer in America who battles mobsters and drug lords and terrorists, and still has a reputation for being a charming people person.”

In Sunday’s “Quotation of the Day” in The New York Times, Zach Carter said: “She really is the soul of grace under pressure.”

The White House confirmed today that President Barack Obama will nominate Lorreta Lynch, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, to be the next Attorney General. Lynch, a former member of NAFUSA, is the chair of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee, and is serving her second turn as the chief federal prosecutor in Brooklyn. The New York Times noted that

If Ms. Lynch is confirmed, it would be the first time in nearly two centuries that a president had elevated a United States attorney directly to the position of attorney general. The last time was in 1817, when President James Monroe chose William Wirt, the top prosecutor in eastern Virginia, for the job.

Lynch spoke to the NAFUSA conference last month in Boston, engaging in a dialogue with then NAFUSA President Don Stern, as shown above.  Lynch was appointed by President Clinton as the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, serving from 1999 to 2001. Before returning to the office as United States Attorney in 2012, she was a partner in the New York office of Hogan & Harston, L.L.P. She earned her college and law degrees at Harvard.

Eric Holder announced in September that he would be stepping down as soon as his successor can be named and confirmed. Shortly thereafter, Deputy Attorney General James Cole also announced he would be leaving. NAFUSA member Joe Whitley was interviewed by CBS on September 25 about Holder’s resignation, stating that Holder was a good friend who will be remembered as having done a good job. Click here to watch Whitely’s CBS interview.

President George Washington signed the Judiciary Act of 1789 on September 24th of that year. Among other things, the Act created the Office of Attorney General and established 13 judicial districts, each with a United States Attorney and a United States Marshal. The 13 were one each in the 11 states that had ratified the Constitution, plus a District of Maine in Massachusetts and a District of Kentucky in Virginia. (North Carolina ratified the Constitution in November 1789, Rhode Island in May 1790. The United States Department of Justice was established in 1870.)

Tom Wales was a celebrated and very well-regarded Assistant United States Attorney in the Western District of Washington who was murdered on the evening of October 11, 2001 as he sat working at his computer in the basement of his residence in Seattle. A gunman standing in the yard fired into the basement window of Tom’s home office in what can only be characterized as an assassination. Tom was hit with multiple rounds, but managed to phone 911 before losing consciousness.

The killer was familiar with both Tom’s property and his work habits, and was careful to avoid setting off floodlights in the yard that were attached to motion detectors, leading investigators to conclude that it was a carefully planned execution. One investigator observed that, “This may be as close as you come to a perfect murder, . . . the only physical evidence left behind was the bullets and shell casings, and nothing else.” The only witnesses to the crime heard several shots and then saw a man walk quickly down the sidewalk in front of the Wales house, get into a parked car, and drive away. It is widely believed that the murder was in retaliation for Tom’s work as an Assistant United States Attorney and was perpetrated or arranged by the target of a criminal investigation. If so, Tom would be the first AUSA in the history of our country to be killed in the line of duty.

Most media reports indicate that the focus of the criminal investigation of Tom’s murder is on someone he had prosecuted for a white collar crime, an individual who was accused of falsifying aviation records submitted to the FAA. The Wales’ case has not been solved and the prosecutors believe that until someone comes forward and talks, the case will never be prosecuted.

Shortly after AUSA Wales’ murder, DOJ offered a reward of $1,000,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person who committed this crime. The NAFUSA Foundation is leading a drive to raise another $1,000,000 to match the reward offered by the Department of Justice. The Foundation has been working closely with the head of the FBI task force, Special Agent Russell E. Fox, who says that should the Foundation be able to raise an additional $1 million for a reward, his efforts will be greatly enhanced.

The Foundation has set a goal of raising $1 Million in pledges by December 31, 2014. More than $360,000 has already been pledged by prominent firms, including Williams & Connolly ($100,000), DLA Piper ($100,000), Perkins Coie ($100,000), as well as NAFUSA ($25,000). Several NAFUSA board members have made individual pledges. These are just pledges.  Payments will be made only if someone comes forward with information leading to the arrest and conviction of Tom’s murderer(s) and only after the DOJ determines that the person providing the information qualifies for payment of the reward funds put up by the United States government.  And if this occurs, payments will be made through the NAFUSA Foundation, a 501(c)(3) entity.

We encourage your firm or company to make a pledge, or make an individual pledge. Foundation President Mike McKay (U.S. Attorney, WDWA, 1989-1993) is happy to answer any questions and provide pledge forms (mdm@mckay-chadwell.com).  Special Agent Fox is also available to talk about how an increased reward fund would help his team’s efforts to find the person or persons behind AUSA Tom Wales’ murder.

Relevant articles:

The Search for the Killer of Tom Wales Goes On (The Atlantic)

New Push for Help in Solving a Prosecutor’s 2001 Murder (New York Times)

An Unsolved Killing (The New Yorker)

Continued resolve to find Thomas Wales’ killer (Seattle times)

Holder reiterates resolve to find Thomas Wales’ killer (Seattle Times)

Daughter to Seattle fed prosecutor’s killer: ‘I’m not afraid of you’ (Seattle P.I.

Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole announced on Wednesday, April 24, 2014, that the department would consider recommending clemency for nonviolent felons who have served at least 10 years in prison and who would have received significantly lower prison terms if convicted under today’s more lenient sentencing laws.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder has urged that the sentencing system be overhauled. In 2010, Congress unanimously voted to reduce the 100-to-1 disparity between sentences for crack cocaine offenses and those for powdered cocaine.

The movement for sentencing reform has drawn support from former judges, prosecutors and law enforcement officials, including many members of NAFUSA. See, for instance, Letter re Smarter Sentencing Act 12-9-13, a letter to Senators Richard Durbin and Michael Lee in support for their bill to reform federal sentencing contained in the Smarter Sentencing Act.

But the movement for reform has not been without its critics, including the National Association of Assistant United States Attorneys (NAAUSA), the National Narcotics Officers Association’ Coalition, the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association and other law enforcement groups. NAAUSA has been circulating a proposed letter, the ReidMcConnellLetter-NAAUSASignOn, to Senators Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell, opposing the Smarter Sentencing Act, which has been signed by a number of NAFUSA members.

The 2009 J. Michael Bradford Memorial Award winner Marshall L. Miller has been named acting principal deputy assistant attorney general and chief of staff of the Department of Justice Criminal Division. Miller has been serving as the chief of the Criminal Division in the United States Attorneys Office for the Eastern District of New York. He has served in that office since 1999 and has handled many of the most important national security prosecutions in that district.

Miller is shown in the center of the above photo receiving the Bradford Award at the Seattle conference in 2009. He is flanked by Mike McKay, left, NAFUSA president in 2008-09 and Bill Lutz, right, who became president in 2010-11.

As chief of staff in the Criminal Division, Miller will be filling the shoes of Jay Stephens and Rich Rossman, both of whom have held that position during their long careers.