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2nd LD: Loretta Lynch confirmed as U.S. Attorney General in Senate vote

Xinhua, April 24, 2015 Adjust font size:

Five months after she was nominated by U.S. President Barack Obama to serve as the country's Attorney General, Loretta Lynch got a confirmation vote in the Senate of Congress on Thursday.

The vote was 56-43. Lynch is replacing Attorney General Eric Holder, who has served in the job since Obama took office in 2009. She is the first African-American woman to hold the position.

After Obama nominated Lynch on November 8 last year, a confirmation vote was held up in part because Republicans insisted on first resolving a dispute with Democrats over an unrelated bill.

The wait is one of the nation's most protracted cabinet-level confirmation delays, marked by partisan fights and Republican arguments that she won't be independent enough from the President.

Republicans have found themselves in a quandary. They longed to replace Holder, and they agreed that Lynch was qualified for the job. But they opposed her because Lynch defended President Obama's executive actions on immigration.

What's more, Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and majority leader, had held up the nomination until the Senate voted on a human trafficking bill, a process that dragged on for weeks.

In the end, several Republicans, including McConnell, surprised many of their own colleagues and voted aye for Lynch.

Analysts pointed out that Thursday's vote also served as a lens on the 2016 elections. Endite