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 The Senate confirmed Lynch by a vote of 56-43 to end a five-month
partisan deadlock over her nomination by President Barack Obama. She
had waited for a vote longer than the last seven attorneys general
combined.
Obama said Lynch, the 55-year-old U.S. attorney for Brooklyn, New
York, had credibility with both law enforcement and the communities
they police.
He told supporters from his Organizing for Action political group
that he would work with her to rebuild trust so that everyone felt
safe and that the law was working on everyone's behalf.
Taking over the Justice Department from Attorney General Eric
Holder, Lynch also will face early tests on financial cases alleging
some of the world's largest banks helped clients evade U.S. taxes
and manipulated currency markets.
She is expected to start work on Monday.
Ten Republicans voted for Lynch, including Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell. The tally in Lynch's favor was larger than
expected, perhaps reflecting political concerns. Of the Republicans
who backed her, four are up for reelection next year, three of them
from states with big cities that have large African-American
populations.
 As attorney general she will likely be confronted with civil rights
cases stemming from police altercations in several U.S. cities.
On Tuesday, the Justice Department said it was gathering information
to determine whether it can bring civil rights charges in the death
of a man who died after being arrested by Baltimore police.
Freddie Gray, a 27-year-old black man, was arrested by white
officers on April 12 and died days later after slipping into a coma.
A preliminary autopsy report said he died from a spinal injury.
IMMIGRATION AN ISSUE
The voting margin in the Senate reflected many Republicans'
disapproval of Lynch's support for an executive order issued by
Obama in November that was meant to shield millions of undocumented
immigrants from the threat of deportation.
Before the vote, Alabama Republican Senator Jeff Sessions, an
outspoken critic of Obama's executive action on immigration, blasted
Lynch. "We do not have to confirm someone to the highest law
enforcement position in America if that someone is publicly
committed to denigrating Congress, violating law," he said.
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid berated Republicans for delaying
the confirmation and said Lynch was "as qualified a candidate" as he
had seen in almost 30 years in the Senate.
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Lynch's elderly father, Lorenzo, a retired Baptist minister from
North Carolina, watched the vote from a visitors' gallery in the
Senate chamber.
Lynch had awaited confirmation since November when Obama, a fellow
Harvard Law School graduate, nominated her.
Despite the delay, she was widely seen as less controversial than
Holder, who often clashed with Republicans. She has said she aims to
smooth relations with Congress.
Her nomination was backed by the Senate's Judiciary Committee by a
vote of 12-8 on Feb. 26. But her confirmation languished over an
impasse in the Republican-led Senate on an unrelated bill meant to
protect human trafficking victims.
Democrats had balked at an anti-abortion provision included in that
bill, but that dispute was settled on Tuesday and the bill was
approved on Wednesday.
An accomplished career prosecutor, Lynch has twice served as U.S.
attorney in Brooklyn, most recently since 2010. Her office there
handled more terrorism prosecutions than most other offices in the
United States. For two years, she also led a committee that advised
the attorney general on policy.
At a Senate confirmation hearing on Jan. 28, Lynch said her top
priorities would include fighting terrorist threats and cyber crime,
and improving relations between law enforcement and minority
communities.
(Reporting by Lindsay Dunsmuir, Richard Cowan, Jeff Mason and Julia
Edwards; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh, James Dalgleish and Howard
Goller)
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