Loretta Lynch was nominated to replace Eric Holder as the the United States Attorney General on Saturday. Relatively unknown, Lynch’s past has begun to surface, and her corporate law past has progressives and financial reform advocates questioning the nomination.
In short, Lynch has buddied up to the Big Banks and Wall Street. Prior to the nomination, Lynch was the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. Her career in the public sector has been pretty good, but it’s her private sector resume that is unsettling, reported Salon.
After graduating from Harvard School of Law in 1984, Lynch started working for Cahill Gordon & Reindel as a litigation associate. Cahill is the law firm of renowned First Amendment attorney Floyd Abrams who defended the New York Times after publishing the Pentagon Papers.
As much as a step for journalism as that case was, decades later he was part of the Citizens United decision, arguing that “money is speech.” The case effectively put elections into the pockets of corporations. Cahill has defended the dirtiest of Wall Street criminals; AIG, HSBC, Credit Suisse, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and many more.
After an 11 year stint with the U.S. Attorney’s office in Brooklyn, Lynch worked white-collar criminal defense and corporate compliance at a firm then called Hogan & Hartson (recently renamed Hogan Lovells). The firm is based in Washington D.C. and concentrates on corporate and financial law.
Lynch has a long-standing relationship with high-ranking banksters. While on the New York Federal Reserve Board from 2003 to 2005, she served with former Citigroup chairman Sandy Weill and former Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld. Sure, Lynch was a prosecuting attorney during the Citigroup securities fraud case, a $7 billion settlement, she still give the bank a pass with settlements paid by shareholders. No one went to jail and victims were not compensated. Lynch perpetuates the pay-to-play criminality of Wall Street banks.
Americans cannot have another AG that will not get tough on banks. Eric Holder was an ineffectual, weak AG that protected the banks, or at the very least was afraid to. Lynch was actually friends with these guys, and even practiced law on Wall Street’s behalf. This is just more New Democrat, corporate-friendly nonsense.
