What Biden initially expected to be announced on Christmas Day stretched into the new year. It breaks with recent norms for an incoming president to make attorney general under his first cabinet election. It also heightened calls for Biden to address issues of diversity and racial injustice through his choice to lead the department.
Not only is this the most important task for Biden to fulfill, but the Attorney General also has an appeal on many of the issues that raise racial injustice.
The tension is particularly high because three of the leading frontrunners to lead the Department of Justice, despite all the lobbying from outside groups, are all white, and two of them men.
Transitional officials told CNN that they are in regular contact with civil rights groups about their Attorney General and the Department of Justice, and that they appreciate their perspectives and advice on both topics.
The diversity pressure comes from a wide range of civil rights activists from organizations such as the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the National Association of Latino Elected and Nominated Officials (NALEO), and the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBEL) . Everyone told CNN that they were in constant contact with the Biden transition team to hand out hundreds of recommendations from people who had selected them for positions throughout the administration.
“We recommend more than 80 people for various (leadership) positions” at the Department of Justice and Secret Service among other law enforcement agencies, NOBLE president Lynda Williams told CNN.
Williams admitted that the next Attorney General may not have to be a colored person, but if he or she is, that would be a bonus.
Finally, Williams said that the nominees need to understand ‘they represent something bigger than themselves’ and that there are major issues regarding race in this country, ‘even if it does not sit right at their feet.’
Rev. Al Sharpton, founder of the National Action Network, is among the key voices for a culture change at the DOJ. In an early December meeting with Biden, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and their team, Sharpton expressed his preference that the next Attorney General should be Black and that he has experience in the federal government with a focus on civil rights issues. .
However, Sharpton recently gave Jones an implicit nod when he followed up on comments in mid-December urging a black attorney general to say he could also accept a white candidate with a proven civil rights background which is going to deal with this heightened racist atmosphere. . ”
Jones was the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama under President Bill Clinton when he successfully prosecuted members of the Ku Klux Klan responsible for the 1963 16th Street Baptist Church bombing.
A year of strife
After a year marked by racial protests and strife, calls for federal charges and investigations into the police’s widespread shooting incident over the summer were left largely unanswered. Just days after George Floyd’s death, then-Attorney General William Barr said Floyd’s death had “made home” a years-long collapse in the criminal justice system, and Barr promised to “find constructive solutions” in the coming weeks. and months’ so that Mr. Floyd’s death will not be in vain. ‘
But little reform has taken place.
This investigation, along with several other probes launched this summer, is likely to be one of the first issues that many expect the next Attorney General to confront immediately.
Long-term issues
Last week, the Department of Justice shouted anew when it announced there was insufficient evidence for federal charges surrounding police shooting at 12-year-old Tamir Rice, a black child in Cleveland who was holding a shotgun in 2014 when he was shot by a shot. an officer who believed it was a real gun.
That case is a reminder that much of the controversy over police brutality against minorities is before the Trump administration, and that DOJ staff members have been campaigning for internal change for years.
Darlene Brooks has been working for the Department of Justice for 33 years and she will require more than just a few divergent voices to change the White-centric culture embedded by many administrations.
“Even with Attorney General (Eric) Holder, I was excited for him, but it was like it stopped there,” Brooks said. “If the department is littered with career people who do not adhere to diversity and only do a paper exercise, then it is useless and there is no change.”
Brooks serves as president for the DOJ chapter of the group Blacks in Government, where she leads a team that strives for equal opportunity and professional development for black government personnel. Brooks hopes that new leadership at the Department of Justice will usher in greater diversity in the workforce, that it will refocus on civil rights and place a priority on police reform.
“It’s not about taking money away from the police or taking it away. It’s how people misinterpret it,” Brooks explained. “It’s really about going into these police departments and informing them of their practices.”
Restoring a commitment to equal justice
To do so, Sharpton said it was the federal government’s duty to take the lead immediately.
“The reason we were unable to deal with local law enforcers and prosecutors is because of the intrinsic relationship between the local police involved in those situations and the prosecutors in the counties,” Sharpton told CNN. ‘Someone who is sensitive to that understands why the federal government and the Department of Justice need to intervene. … So there is a sensitivity practice and an experienced practice that can bring in colored people who have been completely absent for the past four years. ‘
Kristen Clarke, chairwoman of the Law Committee on Civil Rights under legislation, said the Department of Justice should prioritize federal civil rights enforcement, the application of the Voting Rights Act, and the handling of police atrocities and cases in the education space to be investigated.
“I think this is one of the most important decisions President Elect Biden will have to make to find the right Attorney General, who can restore a commitment to equal justice under the law for all, which protects racial justice and civil rights. These are incredibly important principles and values that the country currently needs in its next Attorney General, so I’m glad that the next government does not want to announce a decision and that I am really considerate and careful. ‘is to decide who they’re ahead for this important position,’ ‘Clarke said.
National Urban League President Marc Morial was at the December 8 virtual meeting with Biden, Harris and six other civil rights groups. “We have generally talked about the diversity of the cabinet and the need for a maximum number of African Americans to serve in the cabinet so that the president can be successful with the emphasis on racial justice and to address the issues. speak, “Morial said.
“The most important thing is that the leadership team should be diverse and have a strong commitment to civil rights and racial justice. In this environment, it goes beyond just the attorney general and it goes to the other key position. President of the elected Biden has clearly told to us, and it goes without saying, that racial justice is going to be a part of everything he does.Racial justice is going to be a part of everything he does, whether it is an agricultural or commercial industry, or it is now an economic policy, ‘he continued.
“We know that the police’s community relations are the tip of the iceberg. The police issue will not stop. The police relationship with black communities has been systematically broken and it costs people their lives. ‘
CNN’s Dan Merica contributed to this report.