Loretta Lynch, President Barack Obama's pick for attorney general, on Wednesday sought to make a clean break from the testy relationship her predecessor had with Congress, while supporting the legality of Obama's controversial actions on immigration.
Lynch, a career prosecutor known for her diplomatic skills, struck a delicate balance during her confirmation hearing, telling the Senate Judiciary Committee, "I look forward to fostering a new and improved relationship."
Her willingness to listen to Republican concerns was generally well received by the senators and marked a departure in style from the current attorney general, Eric Holder, an unapologetic liberal voice and one of Obama's closest allies.
Still, she defended the administration's legal justification for Obama's November immigration order, which eased the threat of deportation for some five million undocumented immigrants.
"I don't see any reason to doubt the reasonableness of those views," Lynch said.
Lynch, nominated in November, has stirred little controversy in her 16 years with the U.S. Attorney's office in Brooklyn and is expected to win confirmation with some bipartisan support.
Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, who chairs the committee, said the hearing, which was split into morning and afternoon sessions, will determine if Lynch "has what it takes to fix the Obama Department of Justice," which Grassley said has become too politicized.
He also took aim at Obama's immigration executive action. "Not only is this action contrary to our laws, it's a dangerous abuse of executive authority," he said, while telling Lynch her obligation would be to defend the Constitution, not Obama's policies.
Democrats quickly shot back, referring to conservatives including talk show host Bill O'Reilly who have praised the nominee. New York Senator Chuck Schumer, who introduced Lynch, said, "The president's immigration policies are not seeking confirmation today. Loretta Lynch is."
Lynch defended the program as a lawful effort by immigration agents to seek guidance from the president on the most effective way to prioritize which undocumented individuals to deport.
She offered similar defenses of Justice Department efforts to go after states that have strict, allegedly discriminatory, voter ID laws, and to limit marijuana prosecutions in states that have legalized the drug.
She drew on her background in law enforcement to say she would still exercise her own judgment on a case-by-case basis, and not be held back in prosecuting individual undocumented immigrants, even those protected by the immigration action.
"As a prosecutor, I always want the responsibility to still take some sort of action against those who may not be in my initial category as the most serious threat," Lynch said before a packed hearing room that included Lynch's family and red-jacket-clad members of her Delta Sigma Theta sorority, which she belonged to at Harvard.
Lynch, 55, would be the first black woman to lead the department. She comes to the post amid tensions between black communities and law enforcement after grand juries did not indict two white police officers who killed unarmed black men in separate incidents in Ferguson, Missouri and New York City.
Lynch said one of her top priorities would be to strengthen the relationship between the two. "Few things have pained me more than the recent reports of tension and division between law enforcement and the communities we serve," she said.
She also said she would like to "expand and enhance" the department's ability to prevent and prosecute cybercrimes.
Lynch, who spent recent weeks visiting with senators, appeared to have built goodwill ahead of the hearing.
"She's an impressive prosecutor, a U.S. attorney and professional," Senator John Cornyn, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, said on Tuesday. "For me, anything that would expedite Eric Holder's retirement is a good thing."
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