Various sources are confirming that Ms. Lynch will be the nominee to replace Eric Holder. Presumably her nomination will go to the Senate Judiciary Committee (SJC).
Last July, the WSJ had this piece on Ms. Lynch.
Readers might recall that it was Ms. Lynch who gave in to Judge John Gleeson's unethical and baseless windfall for a repeat violent carjacker, Francois Holloway. I described the case in some detail here. It's a scandal, there's no other word for it.
She initially resisted Gleeson's bullying, to her credit. When he kept it up, however, she gave in. One of her AUSA's wrote a legally and factually frivolous motion to vacate two of Holloway's convictions in order to enable Gleeson to impose the more lenient sentence he had been campaigning for for years.
I think it deeply troubling that a United States Attorney would sign a motion to vacate two perfectly valid convictions -- indeed, convictions whose validity was not questioned. The motion and accompanying argument were pasted together for the sole purpose of placating Gleeson's petulance.
The Senate Judiciary Committee should take a careful look at Ms. Lynch's role in the Holloway case.
One simple question seeking a yes/no answer, Bill: Based on this Gleeson/Holloway incident, would you vote against her if you were on the SJC?
I just saw in another thread that you stated you think AG-nominee Lynch should be rejected by the Senate because of her actions in the Holloway case. I sincerely hope you will write up your opposition in a few simple paragraphs in order to allow me to post that on my blog ASAP.
1. I already wrote up the reasons for my opposition "in a few simple paragraphs." Here they are:
The Attorney General, as a high officer of a co-equal branch of government, cannot be intimidated by anyone in the judicial branch on a matter of policy. If he/she is, the "co-equal" part disappears, and with it the constitutional balance the Framers intended.
This is to say nothing of the actual substantive position she approved, to wit, supporting a drastically lower than required sentence for a repeat violent felon.
Then there's the matter of betraying finality. This case had been up to the SCOTUS years ago and was affirmed. If the government does not insist on finality, especially in those circumstances, it will wind up spending taxpayer money it doesn't have going over and over old cases, ignoring or slighting those in need of initial adjudication.
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I may well have more to say on this in the future, but you wanted a few simple paragraphs and there they are.
2. You are of course free to post on your blog anything in the public domain you care to. I hope, however, that you will also post my reasons for viewing the actions by both the government and the court in the Holloway matter as being improper (in the former case) and unethical (in the latter). The reasons may be found in the following two entries:
http://www.crimeandconsequences.com/crimblog/2014/07/john-gleeson-defense-lawyer-in.html
http://www.crimeandconsequences.com/crimblog/2014/10/when-can-a-judge-ethically-be-.html
3. The present record of Ms. Lynch's behavior in the Holloway case is sufficient to reject her, correct. Indeed, Ms. Lynch herself initially (and correctly) told Gleeson that his proper avenue was to seek clemency from the President, not hector her Office. That was her own implicit but quite clear recognition that the stunt he was asking her to pull off was improper.
If you can't stick to your guns under pressure from a single district judge, how are you going to do under the far, far greater political pressures the AG faces every day?
4. Nonetheless, in order to be fair about it, there might be something in the case that's different from what it appears. I would thus happily give Ms. Lynch the opportunity to explain at a confirmation hearing what the legal basis was for vacating Holloway's convictions, why she caved to Gleeson, whether she continues to believe such caving was the right thing to do, exactly what communications she and Gleeson had with each other, what the value of finality is in the legal system, whether re-opening a case after the Supreme Court has affirmed on the merits is proper, whether she views Gleeson's behavior as ethical and her own as courageous, whether she would repeal 924(c), if not, whether she would vigorously enforce it as AG after bailing out on it in the Holloway case, and what pressures and/or inducements she made to the AUSA to present the motion in court.
That's for starters -- the ones I can think of off the top of my head.