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At This Hour

Obama Expected to Name Loretta Lynch to Justice Department; Obama Holds Cabinet Meeting

Aired November 07, 2014 - 11:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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JOHN BERMAN, CNN CO-ANCHOR: I'm John Berman.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN CO-ANCHOR: And I'm Michaela Pereira. Good morning.

BERMAN: @THISHOUR, a lot going on in Washington at the White House, President Obama meeting with his cabinet. We have our first pictures of this meeting. Let's listen in.

That was just some technical goings on. We get that fed in from the White House. That has already happened. What you saw there was that video actually being fed in.

We do not know what was said at the top of this meeting. We will get that to you as soon as it comes.

Meanwhile, there is breaking news.

PEREIRA: We want to bring in Evan Perez. He's our justice correspondent. He's got a big development, a new head for the Justice Department.

Evan, tell us what you know.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Michaela, the new attorney general that President Obama is expected to announce very soon is Loretta Lynch. She's right now the U.S. Attorney in Brooklyn, and she's very well regarded. She has been U.S. Attorney since 2010 under President Obama, and previously served in the same job in the Clinton administration.

Now this is obviously the big -- a big announcement for the Obama administration. Eric Holder is stepping down, as you know. He announced that last month, and there's a lot of big cases that they're looking at, including the investigations into the shooting of Michael Brown.

Now, Loretta Lynch handled a very important case similar to the Michael Brown case in the 1990s. If you remember the Haitian immigrant Abner Louima who was sodomized by some New York City cops, she handled that case. So that's going to be an interesting thing for -- experience for her to bring to the justice department. BERMAN: Evan, such a fascinating choice. She is not known as a

headline grabber here in New York, and there are plenty of those in this area. She's known as a crime fighter mostly and a prosecutor.

And you brought up the Abner Louima case, which is so interesting, because obviously one of the biggest cases or one of the biggest situations the Justice Department is dealing with right now and will be dealing with is what happened out in Ferguson and the issue of police conduct.

PEREZ: Right. Exactly. And as you pointed out, Loretta Lynch is not a big name for a lot of people. In New York she's overshadowed sometimes by Preet Bharara, the federal prosecutor in Manhattan.

But she has a lot of the same experiences. Not only has she done the regular crime cases but she's done national security cases and so -- and more importantly, for folks here in Washington, she's not going to be controversial. She got approved by a Senate voice vote last time.

And so I think the Obama administration knows that they're going to have to deal with a Republican Congress. They want to make sure it's not anybody who's going to be held up because of any controversies.

PEREIRA: Well, and you know, controversy is obviously one of the aspects and the fact is there's a lot of conversations right now going on about race relations in our country, as you mentioned, about what's going on with Ferguson.

Obviously, somebody like this, people are going to turn to her and look for her voice and communications in a situation like Ferguson.

PEREZ: Right. Exactly. And she would be the second African-American to serve in this job, second woman. Janet Reno was the first.

And, you know, I should note we asked the White House for comment. They said they don't have announcements to make just yet. The president is leaving on a trip to Asia on Sunday, so we expect that the announcement might come in the next few days, perhaps when he gets back.

BERMAN: Tell us a little bit more about Loretta Lynch, 55 years old, a Harvard law graduate.

PEREZ: Harvard law.

BERMAN: Two stints as a U.S. Attorney, right? She worked in private practice in the middle there?

PEREZ: Right. She did. She was a lawyer with Hogan and Hartson, which is a big white collar firm. She's very well liked. I saw her just the other day when she was down here for some awards ceremony, and the attorney general basically just went up to her and grabbed her and hugged her in front of everyone.

She's a very, very well-liked person. She's a big fitness buff. She likes to jog and so on. So she's somebody that frankly is just going to be well-liked inside the department, which is a big deal. You have a hundred thousand employees to oversee, and she comes from the department, so that's going to be a big deal for them.

PEREIRA: Of course, the president's decision is not final until the White House officially announces it. Do you know when they're going to make that announcement?

PEREZ: Well, as I said, the president is expected to -- he's on his way to Asia on Sunday. We had thought maybe that this announcement might come today, but it looks like the president has a lot of things on his plate. He's got that meeting at the White House.

BERMAN: Well, he's got a lot going on today. He's got that cabinet meeting that we showed you the messed up photo of, a second ago. We're going to hear what he said there in a minute.

There is a press briefing, a White House, regular press briefing at 11:30. Who knows if he'll come there. And then of course he meets with the new congressional leadership later this afternoon, so he has plenty of opportunities to talk.

Evan, Loretta Lynch, the name started surfacing more over the last week. People saw her in Washington with the current attorney general, Eric Holder, and I think people started talking well, hey, maybe this might be the pick.

Any whispers from Capitol Hill about how this nomination might be received?

PEREZ: You know, there was a lot of concern about some of the other people that the president was looking at, including Tom Perez, who's the labor secretary.

And so this name was one that a lot of people said, look, this is not one that Republicans would try to oppose, and that's one of the other things that everybody knew that -- I think everyone was predicting that the Republicans were going to have a big day on election day, and so the president was going to have to figure out someone who was not going to get hung up on any fights or any controversies.

So she is a very safe bet, but she's also someone who's very accomplished so he gets to have both things at the same time.

PEREIRA: But, yeah, I was going to say, I think when you look at the appointments of certain people to lead these organizations and these administrations, you get so much more respect from people if they have been on the front lines, as this woman certainly has.

She has a great deal of respect here in New York, She's got a great deal of respect and accomplishments. That kind of thing goes a long way.

And you talk about the fact that it's not going to be controversial, but I think that other aspect will win over a lot of hearts and minds.

PEREZ: Exactly. The one thing that she has more recently is this prosecution of Michael Grimm, who's the congressman, the Republican congressman from Staten Island who, by the way, just won reelection despite the fact that he's under indictment. So talked to voters down there in Brooklyn and Staten Island, right?

She was prosecuting that case. She's leading that case, and she was very -- she did a press conference in which she had some very strong words about the congressman. He is calling the prosecution politically motivated, so expect that line of attack to come from his people probably in the next few weeks.

BERMAN: Evan, great reporting on this, breaking the news that President Obama's choice to head up the Justice Department -- he will nominate Loretta Lynch, 55 years old, currently the U.S. Attorney here in Brooklyn.

I want to bring in Dana Bash, our chief congressional correspondent. Dana, this will be a confirmation process. We don't know yet the timing of it if the president -- I assume he will try to figure out a way to get this through in some kind of lame duck. Any sense how the Senate will deal with it?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's a good question. Unclear if Republicans in the Senate will allow it to happen in the lame duck. It really depends on how they view her.

Evan is right. She doesn't appear to be somebody who is highly controversial, but the problem for the Obama administration is the Obama Justice Department has done controversial things, and it has been under the microscope, particularly on the House side.

They don't get a role in the confirmation process, but on the House side, Darrell Issa's oversight committee has been tough on Attorney General Eric Holder, on the Fast and Furious issue and so many other issues.

So, because of that, it's probably going to be a discussion about whether they really want to do it in the Democratic-controlled lame- duck session, which starts next week, or they're going to wait until the next Congress which starts in six or seven weeks.

PEREIRA: It's so interesting in light of the midterm election results. We have been talking about what next, what happens.

Now we see a choice that the president is making, and we have an example we'll see played out before our very eyes about whether or not you're going to get a fight between the president and the Congress, the president and the majority. It's a very interesting example, case in point.

BASH: It is. Even though I just said that there has been a lot of tension between many Republicans in Congress and the Obama Justice Department, the flip side, you also have Republicans in Congress -- in the Senate, I should say, who -- several of them are making very clear they want to be president, who are being a lot more liberal, for lack of a better way to say it, on some criminal justice issues. Rand Paul is a perfect example. He's been working with Democrat Cory Booker on dealing with doing away with -- changing some of the mandatory-minimum sentences for drug use.

So while you on the one hand have some hard feelings --

BERMAN: All right, Dana, hang on one second. Dana, stand by for a second here because the president as we said is meeting with his cabinet right now, and we're getting our first look at the tape at the top of that meeting. Let's listen.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: ... our businesses added 209,000 new jobs. The unemployment rate fell again. Our private sector has now added 10.6 million new jobs over the last 56 months and this is the strongest job growth that we have seen since the 1990s.

And all this is a testament to the hard work and resilience of the American people. They have been steady and strong digging themselves out of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

And what we need now to do is make sure that we build on this momentum, because we recognize that despite the solid growth, despite the drop in unemployment, there's still a lot of folks out there who are anxious about their futures, who are having trouble making ends meet at the end of the month or saving for their kids' college education, or being able to make sure that they're able to retire with dignity and respect.

And so everything that we do over the next two years is designed and geared towards ensuring that folks who work hard in this country are able to get ahead.

Now, obviously we've had a significant mid-term election. As I said at the press conference, my attitude has been and will continue to be that good ideas don't necessarily come from just one party, and I'm looking forward to seeing the leaders of both Democratic and Republican caucuses this afternoon to have a chance to share with them both what I think we need to be doing to build on the economic momentum that we already have and make it even stronger.

But I'm also going to be interested in listening to them in terms of areas where we think it's possible to work together, whether that is putting people back to work through stronger manufacturing here in the United States and selling more to countries around the world -- one of the major topics that we're going to be discussing during my Asia trip next week, whether it's figuring how we can build on some modest new investments that we've been making in early childhood education. We know that works. And there's strong bipartisan support around the country for some of those investments. Let's see if we can do more.

You know, all these issues are ones in which there is a strong possibility of bipartisan cooperation, as long as we set politics aside for a moment and focus on the people who actually sent us here.

In the meantime, in these regular meetings that I'm having with my cabinet, I've been emphasizing to them from day one, and will reiterate in this meeting, the fact that separate and apart from legislative activity, we have the capacity to continually improve how we deliver services to the American people. And part of what's happened over a course of several decades is that people sometimes feel as if the federal government is distant, that it's not customer friendly, that there's too much bureaucracy.

And because of the fine work of many of the members of this cabinet, what we've been able to do is start chipping away at some of the old ways of doing business and start instituting new ways of doing business that improve customer service, that make sure that people are getting the help they need.

You know, this week I had the chance to welcome our -- and have a conversation with our new secretary of veterans affairs, Bob McDonald, who is coming from the private sector, but also is coming from West Point, and an extraordinary legacy of service in our armed forces.

And what we're already seeing is that Bob is able to start skimming down the wait-times for people in terms of getting appointments that they need, but also building on successes that have been taking place over the last several years -- reducing homelessness, for example. With our HUD Secretaries Donovan and now Castro, we've reduced veterans' homelessness by 30 percent. And a lot of that's not by virtue of new legislation. It's just by us focusing more on these problems and managing them better and continually listening to the American people to see how we can be more helpful.

So, there are a lot of opportunities for us to do that here today and we're going to I think take an inventory of the progress that's being made in various departments. We're also going to focus on the fact that between now and the end of the year, there's still some immediate work that needs to be done.

We have made progress in building the kind of public health infrastructure that we need to deal with any eventualities with respect to Ebola, but it is still a concern both here domestically, but most importantly still a concern internationally. So, we'll get reports from Sylvia Burwell, as well as Susan Rice and others who've been actively involved in that fight, and Ron Klain, who's here, will tell us how the work we need to be doing with Congress can help advance and ultimately stamp out this epidemic overseas, to make sure that the American people are safe.

We also have some significant national security issues. We've got to make sure that our efforts against ISIL are properly funded, and so there'll be an opportunity for Secretary of Defense Hagel to brief us on the progress in our campaign against ISIL in Iraq and some of the work we're doing in Syria.

So bottom line is that, as I've told my White House staff and I've shared in the past with many of my Cabinet, we are extraordinarily privileged to be in a position where every single day we can have a positive impact in some way on the lives of the American people. And when I started out on this journey with Joe Biden and we

traveled around the country, you know, we were constantly reminded of the hard and the sense of community, the sense of family, that exists in every pocket of every corner of this country -- the same kinds of values that Joe grew up on and I grew up on.

And what we want to do is to make sure that between now and the time that our next administration takes over, that every single day in every single agency we are constantly finding ways to build on those values and to make sure that we are making this country safer and more prosperous.

And I know that, based on the conversations I've had with this Cabinet, there is no lack of enthusiasm or energy in achieving that goal. All right. Thank you very much, everybody.

PEREIRA: That was moments ago, the president speaking ahead of a cabinet meeting. Obviously, a lot on the plate for the president and his cabinet. Coming off a bit like a pep talk. The team's down by half at the -- down by 30 at the half and trying to reinvigorate these conversations that he feels need to be had. Obviously, a lot of things pressing on them, the situation overseas with ISIS, the economy here at home.

BERMAN: Yeah, one thing he did not discuss? The news that our Evan Perez broke moments before we played you that video, that the president has settled on his choice to be the next Attorney General. He will nominate Loretta Lynch, 55-year-old U.S. attorney, currently in Brooklyn, a Harvard Law graduate. We don't know when the president will officially announce it. He didn't do it just then and he had the chance to.

I want to bring in the anchor of "THE LEAD." Jake Tapper joins us now. Jake, this is in some ways is really the first move of the rest of the president's life. His first nomination, his first big decision after the midterm election, which did not go well for him. Looking at it, what do you make of it?

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR, "THE LEAD": Well, it's interesting for a number of reasons. First of all, there were -- the other contenders for the job, the Solicitor General Don Verrilli and the Secretary of Labor Tom Perez. The fact that he reached outside his comfort zone and went with U.S. attorney Lynch, or will, is anticipated to pick her, it says something about reaching outside his comfort zone. Also, it says something about wanting to pick somebody that, perhaps, there will not be a contentious confirmation hearing about.

There was Perez, when he was nominated and then confirmed to be Secretary of Labor, that was very contentious. He drew a lot of opposition. Verrilli, while a low-key and respected as Solicitor General, is somebody who has been part of the Obama team, and so that would be an opportunity to revisit decisions made under President Obama's watch, ones that Republicans oppose. U.S. Attorney Lynch is somebody who is really not part of Obama's world at all. She was somebody that was a U.S. attorney during the Clinton administration. She was tapped by Obama and picked and she won by voice vote in the Senate in 2010, but she's not part of the Obama campaign the way Eric Holder was, not part of the Obama team, not somebody that he knows well.

So I think that's an interesting pick. She's obviously somebody that's built a fairly well-known -- pardon me, fairly respected reputation for herself in New York as the U.S. attorney in Brooklyn. Although, it's the U.S. attorney in Manhattan who gets a lot of headlines. She has a more low-key reputation, even though, as Evan pointed out, she's prosecuting Michael Grimm, the Staten Island Congressman. She's also been involved in the prosecution of Citigroup. She was involved in the prosecution of the police who assaulted Abner Louima years ago. So it's an interesting pick for that reason. It's not the kind of decision President Obama has made in a lot of ways because it's outside his comfort zone, somebody who's not been a part of his team. Not a huge bold-face name.

There is -- I've talked with a lot of Obama administration people in the past about whether or not he was going to pick Chuck Hagel to be Secretary of Defense or Hillary Clinton to be Secretary of State, Leon Panetta. And there is part of the president that likes to go for those bold-faced names. Loretta Lynch is not one of them, although, obviously, this would be a historic appointment because she would be the first black woman in that role.

PEREIRA: Yeah, significant. To be sure, again, we're not sure when that announcement is going to be made, but the choice is expected to be Loretta Lynch. Jake, since we have you, I want to ask you about this -- a lot being made about this meeting today with congressional leaders, the lunchtime summit, if you will. I don't think any bourbon will be served at that lunch, but I'm curious what you're hearing on the Hill and what your sources are saying about the tone and the expectations, even, ahead of that meeting.

TAPPER: Well I think, first of all, both Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, the expected incoming Majority Leader in the Senate and the expected House Speaker in the new Congress, both of them are legislators. Both of them are guys who want to cut deals. Both of them are people who have cut deals with the Obama administration when it comes to taxes or other issues. President Obama does not want the last two years of his presidency to be disastrous and to be full of no accomplishments, to be full of gridlock.

So while I think that there is going to be a lot of that, there's certainly going to be a lot of disagreement when it comes to the pending executive action by President Obama on immigration or the pending attempts by the Republican majority in the House and Senate to overturn Obamacare, I think you're going to see and hear a lot of attempts, at least initially, to find some common ground to do some accomplishments. Now obviously, the public is not going to be excited when they hear about the compromise, you know, everybody coming together to repeal the medical device tax. I mean, that's not something that's going to, like, rally the crowds. But --

BERMAN: (INAUDIBLE).

TAPPER: Right. Or a bumper sticker. But at the same time, I think you are going to see some attempts and some calls for comity and for agreement.

BERMAN: Jake, stand by one second here. Again, Evan Perez breaking a short time ago that President Obama is expected to nominate Loretta Lynch, 55 years old, currently U.S. attorney in Brooklyn, expected to nominate her to be the next Attorney General. This news broken, as I said, just minutes ago. The question is, how is it being received on Capitol Hill? What do they or did they know about it?

Dana Bash has some news on that. Dana?

BASH: Now, I'm not sure if this speaks to the fact that the White House is still not communicating properly with Capitol Hill or just how incredible our own Evan Perez is at his job as a reporter, maybe a combination of both. But, we're already hearing from Republicans on Capitol Hill and this comes from our colleague, Ted Barrett, rumblings that they didn't get a heads up about this, they didn't know it was coming and they don't know much about her.

Now, the latter part surprises me a little bit since she has had, not a prominent role for the public, but a prominent role in legal communities being the federal prosecutor, the U.S. attorney in Brooklyn, never mind the fact that there were no problems when she was nominated by the U.S. Senate a couple of years ago -- four years ago, I believe. It was by voice vote, meaning everybody didn't have to say yea or nay, but it wouldn't have happened had there been problems. But that's kind of a sense of how it's being received, with surprise on Capitol Hill, at least initially.

PEREIRA: So I'm curious, is that like sour grapes or does that make you believe that there -- that there's concerns about a potential appointment?

BASH: Probably more the former. Probably more just that they didn't know that this was coming. It's definitely too early to say that there are problems with her for sure because it doesn't seem like she has anything on her resume, anything in her background, again, considering the fact that the Senate has already confirmed her for a different post to stop it. It would be much more, again, about the politics of the Obama Justice Department and so forth and her as a person and her credibility and abilities.

PEREIRA: Dana, we're going to need you to stand by. We want to bring in our Jeffrey Toobin, he joins us on the phone here in New York. And I understand that you know Loretta Lynch, maybe you can tell us a little bit more what you know of this woman and what you make of a potential appointment as Attorney General.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, in 1990 we started at the U.S. Attorney's office as junior prosecutors together within weeks of one another and we spent three years as colleagues and I have to say we've been friends ever since. I have to say, I'm pretty flabbergasted. She's a low-profile figure, not only in the United States, but in New York. She is, by far, the second-best known prosecutor in New York, after Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney in the Southern district. So it is a pretty surprising choice. But certainly, her own record is impeccable. She is not known as a

political figure, she has spent the vast majority of her career as a lawyer, as a federal prosecutor. Either as an assistant U.S. attorney, when we were colleagues, or as a U.S. attorney under president Clinton and now under President Obama. I don't think there is anything controversial in her background. She's just a career prosecutor who has done a variety of cases. She was the head of the Long Island office in the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's office for awhile before she became the U.S. Attorney. She was first assistant for awhile. This is just a classic government prosecutor. Her views on policy issues, which the Attorney General has to address, I think, are largely unknown to most people, but certainly, in terms of credentials and background, she is an uncontroversial person.

BERMAN: Well, congratulations to you, Jeffrey, on having a new high- placed source in Washington, perhaps. Let me ask you, one of her job experiences that we do know about is she worked on the prosecution of the Abner Louima case, the officers there, one of the more notorious cases of police brutality ever in the country. How do you think that might inform what she may do going forward with so many issues on the table, including in Ferguson?

TOOBIN: Well, it is true that some of her career, probably more than most federal prosecutors, has involved official misconduct. In the Long Island office she prosecuted some police misconduct cases. She supervised the Louima case, in which people probably don't remember in the broader country, was just a horrendous case involving a police officer in Brooklyn who abused a young immigrant named Abner Louima with a toilet plunger. Just a horrendous, horrendous case.

There were several trials involving the police officers and ultimately, Alan Vinegrad, who was the main prosecutor, won that case. But, she stuck with it throughout her tenure. It was important to her. I think that will be a priority for her, just as it's been under Attorney General holder. But, again, it wasn't really a political issue in those days, she handled it as a legal matter, and she handled it very successfully.

PEREIRA: You know, I'm kind of struck by the fact of what you keep talking about, this notion of, Jeffrey, somebody that puts the work in, that isn't the best known prosecutor in the city, that isn't the person that's necessarily out front, but rather, the person that, you know, does the hard work, the tough work behind the scenes. I think we've got to count one for the little guy, in that respect.

TOOBIN: Well, I think that's the idea behind this pick. Loretta Lynch is not going to get -- is not going to pay big political benefits, I don't think. It's not like she's a political figure with a constituency. She is someone who has just worked hard and done a good job for the people of Brooklyn. For people who don't know, the U.S. Attorney in Brooklyn also covers Queens, Nassau and Suffolk. So it's actually a fairly diverse jurisdiction. Suffolk County, the far eastern end of Long Island, is a very different place from inner city Brooklyn, but she's been the U.S. Attorney in charge of all of it and she's remained popular, she is very well-regarded by law enforcement. W ith the job of the U.S. Attorney, in many cases, involves dealing with the FBI, dealing with the Drug Enforcement Administration, and she's very well-regarded by those agencies. But as you say, she is not a well-known person. Not in the United States and not even in New York. So I guess that's why a job of this magnitude, frankly, is surprising. There's just no doubt about that.

BERMAN: Again, the news broken by our Evan Perez about 20 minutes ago, the president is expected to nominate Loretta Lynch, 55 years old, currently the U.S. Attorney in Brooklyn, expected to nominate Loretta Lynch to be the next Attorney General. We're going to stay on this, bring you any developments, let you know if the president actually says anything about it in the coming minutes.

Meanwhile, ahead @THISHOUR, under attack. He says he fired the shots that killed Osama bin Laden, but is a Navy Seal breaking the long- cherished code of silence? Think about this, how is his take different from, say, a retired general?

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