[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 42 (Thursday, March 12, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1475-S1476]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            LYNCH NOMINATION

  Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise to speak on behalf of the nomination 
of Loretta Lynch to be Attorney General of the United States.
  It is interesting that this is a week when we have been engaged in a 
dialogue about human trafficking, which is a serious and significant 
issue, obviously. But it, along with many other issues, demands a 
strong Justice Department, and a strong Justice Department is not 
possible without a confirmed Attorney General as a leader.
  Ms. Lynch has now been nominated over 4 months ago. It has been 124 
days since her nomination, and she has still yet to be confirmed. I 
rise to speak on her behalf.
  I have visited with Loretta Lynch in person. I have observed her 
throughout the nominations process. My brother-in-law worked as an 
assistant U.S. attorney with her in the Eastern District of New York in 
the late 1990s. I am impressed, as are many of my colleagues, by her 
credentials and her extensive experience, and I was gratified to see 
that the Judiciary Committee reported her nomination to the floor.
  I am disappointed that it has taken 124 days to get to this point. I 
was pleased to hear the majority leader indicate that the Senate may 
take up her nomination next week, but I think it is important for the 
Nation to recognize how critical this appointment is and how we should 
not have let it go this long.
  I want to reflect back to probably the hardest elected office I held 
or will hold, which was mayor of Richmond. When I was a city councilman 
and mayor from 1994 to 2000, my city had the burden of having the 
second highest homicide rate in the United States. We worked in our 
community together with everyone, especially law enforcement and 
community leaders, to try to bring down that scourge of violent crime 
that was affecting neighborhoods, especially the poorest neighborhoods.
  We were able, over the course of 7 years, to achieve some very 
dramatic success to make our city safer, but along the way I learned a 
couple of very important things. The first was this. One can't tackle 
major public safety challenges without a strong relationship between 
the community and the local police department. It is impossible to make 
progress if that does not happen. Secondly, I also learned that one 
cannot tackle a difficult public safety challenge without a strong 
Department of Justice. We relied upon that partnership with our local 
U.S. attorney's office in the Eastern District of Virginia--all the way 
up through

[[Page S1476]]

main Justice and the Attorney General--in order to try to tackle and 
turn our city's public safety situation around.
  Today there are critical issues facing this country--urgent issues 
facing this country--that deal with the relationship between our 
communities and law enforcement agencies. If there were ever a time 
when we would want to have a confirmed Attorney General in office 
without question marks surrounding when that confirmation will take 
place, it would be now.

  Over the last few months, we have seen a series of controversies that 
have torn at all of us as we have watched challenges and distrust 
between communities and law enforcement agencies. In early August, 
Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old, was shot during a confrontation 
with an officer in Ferguson, MO. That shooting spurred nationwide 
protests and concerns against what many in Ferguson and elsewhere 
viewed as overly aggressive tactics by the police.
  A month prior to the death of Michael Brown, Eric Garner died as a 
result of a police chokehold in July in New York when he was confronted 
over the selling of untaxed cigarettes. There have been similar 
instances in Cleveland and Madison. It is not limited to one part of 
the country. It is not limited to North, South, East, or West. There 
have been similar instances that have raised serious concerns about the 
connection between law enforcement and communities.
  There have also been horrible atrocities committed against members of 
the law enforcement community, the deaths of two NYPD officers, Wenjian 
Liu and Rafael Ramos, who were shot pointblank weeks ago in New York 
City while they sat in their patrol car. Yesterday, as we heard 
reported, there were shootings of police officers in Ferguson, MO.
  These instances in cities around the country demonstrate a 
significant level of tension and even distrust between the police and 
communities they serve, which are often minority communities or 
communities of color.
  I am here to say these tensions do not have to exist. They can be 
bridged. They can be solved. But it takes a fully functioning 
Department of Justice with a leader at the helm who has been confirmed 
to solve these issues.
  The Department of Justice has, throughout history and today, played a 
critical role in investigating cases such as this and some of the 
situations I mentioned. The DOJ has been able to come in and be 
involved and provide some calm to situations, provide some level of 
confidence that there would not be a sugarcoating or an effort to sweep 
legitimate questions into the closet in the community.
  In the State of Virginia, there is currently a DOJ investigation 
concerning the police shooting death of John Geer, an unarmed Caucasian 
who was shot on the steps of his residence in August of 2013. Local 
officials in that county have welcomed the involvement of the 
Department of Justice because they knew that citizens would have a 
greater confidence in the outcome if it was being done by someone other 
than the officials who had been elected locally.
  There is a critical need at this point to provide some confidence to 
communities that have questions about the relationship between their 
own concerns and the service of law enforcement departments, just as 
law enforcement departments want to have a way to build bridges with 
the communities they represent.
  Loretta Lynch understands the significance of the Attorney General's 
role in these situations. She testified that one of her key priorities 
would be to work to strengthen the bonds between law enforcement 
personnel, whom she has worked with during her entire career, and the 
communities they serve which she well understands.
  Last week, the DOJ released a report from their investigation into 
the Ferguson policing practices that laid out a number of significant 
concerns that, if left unaddressed, will continue to lead to distrust 
in Ferguson and elsewhere. A strong Justice Department that can help 
mediate and bring the sides together is a part of the solution.
  I raised these issues only to highlight that right now we are at a 
critical time in the Nation's criminal justice system. A delay of 
confirming an Attorney General for 4-plus months is never warranted, 
given the importance of the position. A delay is not warranted in this 
case, given these strong credentials of Loretta Lynch, but the delay is 
especially unwelcome, given the urgent need to have leadership at the 
Department of Justice. They can try to calm any potential situations 
and build confidence in communities and among law enforcement agencies.
  We need our incoming AG to be on the job, taking on these challenges 
in a manner that will bring different aspects of the community 
together, to make changes as necessary and to strengthen the equality 
of our criminal justice system for all.
  Of course, beyond the issue of community policing, we face so many 
other challenges, such as national security and terrorism, and in that 
respect the Eastern District of New York, which is where Ms. Lynch has 
served, has had one of the most significant dockets of antiterrorism 
cases of any jurisdiction in the country. She is an expert in those 
areas. Cyber security, the very human trafficking issues we have been 
discussing on the floor today, are issues Ms. Lynch has worked on 
significantly in her role, protecting voting rights, and so many more.
  Ms. Lynch is a no-nonsense, hard-working prosecutor known for her 
aplomb, her demeanor, her intelligence, and her ability to work with a 
wide variety of stakeholders. I am absolutely confident Ms. Lynch will 
approach these issues with the same focus, fairness, and expertise with 
which she has approached her work in the past.
  I stand today to urge my colleagues to not wait, and to support 
Loretta Lynch as our next Attorney General. It has been said to the 
point where it is a cliche, but nevertheless a true one, that justice 
delayed is justice denied. The refusal to confirm a leader to head the 
most important law enforcement agency in the United States is a delay 
of justice that for many seems to be a denial of justice. We can 
rectify that concern in communities across this country if we act with 
dispatch to confirm a person who is eminently qualified to hold the 
Nation's highest law enforcement position.
  With that, I thank the Presiding Officer and yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.

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