The Bizarre Right-Wing Smears Against The AG Nominee

Even mainstream conservatives admit Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch is qualified for the position. But right-wing media are attacking her for work a different attorney with the same name did decades ago, for her college sorority, and more.

Right-wing media outlets are criticizing Loretta Lynch, the highly-qualified attorney that President Obama has nominated to replace outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder, by attacking her support of voting rights litigation and claiming her membership in one of the country’s leading African-American sororities is “controversial.”

On September 25, Holder announced that he would step down as attorney general, but would stay in office until his replacement was confirmed. The president nominated Lynch to the post on November 8, citing her extensive legal experience and stating that “it’s pretty hard to be more qualified for this job than Loretta.” Even conservative figures appear to agree, with Republican Senator Lindsay Graham calling her a “solid choice.” News Corp Chairman Rupert Murdoch echoed Graham’s sentiment, noting that the nominee has a “reputation for fairness and strict legality.” Lynch is a Harvard Law graduate, has decades of experience as a successful and widely praised federal prosecutor, and has served as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York since 2010, when she was confirmed by unanimous consent.

But after Obama’s announcement, conservative media ignored her qualifications and began to attack Lynch anyway, falsely accusing her of partisanship. Breitbart.com was so eager to find fault in her nomination that it went after the wrong Lynch, erroneously claiming that she was involved in former President Bill Clinton’s defense during the Whitewater investigation in 1992. In reality, it was a different attorney named Loretta Lynch

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