April 23

Loretta Lynch Confirmed

The United States Senate on April 23, 2015 confirmed Loretta Lynch - the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York as the first female African American United States Attorney General by a vote of 56 - 43 with 10 Republicans voting for her to be the 83rd attorney general of the United States.  She served as attorney general until January 20, 2017. Lynch is a native of North Carolina where her mother worked as a school librarian and her father was a well known Baptist Pastor.  She received her undergraduate and law degree from Harvard University.  Her career began as a lawyer and would eventually lead to being a prosecutor in New York's Eastern District U.S. Attorney's office.   She would later be nominated by President Bill Clinton in 1999 to serve as the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.  She served in that position until 2001 when she left to become a partner in a law firm.  She was nominated again to serve as the  U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York by President Obama in 2010 where she served until the United States Attorney General nomination in 2015.   Lynch is married to Stephen Hargrove.