our first amendment is, in my experience, reasonably unique amongst countries in that it is an absolute prohibition on government doing certain things. the full text is congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press or of the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for the redress of grievances. all of this went back to the period of regulation in the 1700s and was a reaction to the things the british government had done in the american colonies. but if you listen carefully, you did not hear anything about the government regulating or not regulating the spending of money in elections. what has happened over time and it has been incremental is that

the u.s. supreme court has interpreted the piece of that that says, "congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech to encompass spending money in elections or giving money to candidates or parties as a version of speaking." the theory being that clearly speech is standing on a street corner and speaking. it might be standing on a street corner and speaking with a microphone, although you would have to pay money for the microphone -- you have to buy it somewhere -- and certainly if you are speaking by taking out television advertisements in a system where we do not have government television, it is all commercial and you have to pay for advertising or mailings or phone calls or staff, all of that costs money. so the supreme court has said there are circumstances in which

government may regulate the spending of money. there are others in which it may not. which is which, we are going to decide when those cases come to us. it makes figuring out what to do and what the government may do in this area very complicated, particularly because the population, the members of the supreme court, change over time. so, as an example, congress passed in the 2002 -- in 2002, the mccain-feingold campaign reform act, which was designed to deal with problems that congress thought had arisen since the watergate lost 30 years before. those laws were challenged in

the court. they were almost entirely upheld by the supreme court. then there was a change of one justice who retired. a replacement felt differently, and the court since then has gone back and struck down important pieces of the law they had just upheld. so if you're congress -- so if you are congress writing a law, you do best, but you're not sure what the court is going to do, and the court itself may not depending who is on it at that point. the final piece of the structure that complicates life is that we have, as i am sure all of you do, administrative agencies whose job is to interpret, to explain and to enforce the laws passed by congress and upheld by the supreme court. in our case, the principal agency in this area is the federal election commission, which i was a commissioner of some time ago. commissioner weintraub is now. that agency is essentially evenly balanced between the parties, not more than their six commissioners, not more than three, which has meant three republicans, three democrats of both major parties.

that requires four votes of the six to adopt regulation or enforce the law. the good news is that no one party has control and can use it against the other party. that was the design. but it requires the commissioners have to be conceded -- have to be sincere about wanting to do the work because you have to be compromised and agree. what has happened in the last five years ago or so with the current federal election commission, which again depends who is on it, is that the commission has split 3-3, 3 republicans and three democrats, on most major votes. an important piece of our system, which is the agency that

is supposed to say you have to disclose your funding, you cannot do that, you violated the law, has not been able to function. there is no policeman on the beat, and the result is that things get wilder and wilder because nobody is there to stop them. that is our structure, in terms of how we get laws, who interprets them, the fec's job, and what it does and what it does not. let me summarize the system that we currently have as part of that structure. congress has said that there is a limit to how much individuals may contribute to political candidates and political parties. those limits have been upheld by the supreme court, and they are not particularly high. it is $2600 for an individual giving to a candidate, more if that individual wants to give to a party committee, but not a

great deal more. the practical limit of what you can give to the party committees, the three party committees directly, is going to be about $100,000. a lot of money in any country, but not enormous given what is being spent in our elections. congress said, and the supreme court has agreed so far, that corporations and unions may not give directly to candidates or parties, only individuals, only u.s. citizens and permanent residents, so not foreign governments, foreign countries, foreign individuals. that money is required to be fully disclosed so that every citizen will know who is giving to the candidates and the parties over a very low threshold, $200. above that, their contributions are going to be disclosed. parallel to that, though, the

u.s. supreme court said it is permissible to limit how much individuals give directly to candidates and party committees, but it is not permissible under our first amendment right of free speech to limit how much individuals can go out and spend on their own to advocate the election and defeat of a candidate. so you have two different systems here. you have the give money to candidates and parties that can be limited, spend it on your own, go out and take your money by television advertisements and save vote for obama, vote for romney, defeat so and so they are terrible, reelect so-and-so, they have done a great job for our state. that cannot be limited in terms of what individuals spend, and after a case called citizens

united, which you will hear referred to, it cannot be limited as to what corporations and unions can spend very congress had said about 100 years ago corporations and unions cannot spend money in elections. that had been the case in this country until citizens united in 2010. so there has been a significant change in our system with the supreme court saying that corporations and unions, again, u.s. corporations and unions, have the same rights as u.s. individuals to spend unlimited amounts of money. what the supreme court said, though, is that that money should be disclosed and is required to be disclosed under the law reads so if i give to a candidate or a party committee, the candidates and party committees disclose it. if i as an individual spend the

money on my own -- so i take out an ad that says vote for smith -- it could say paid for by trevor potter, and i would be required to file with the government something that says i took out this ad to reelect smith, and it cost me $2 million. that would be legal, but i would have to disclose it. a new development would -- a new development has occurred -- which sounds confusing, so bear with me -- instead of my taking out an ad in my own name, paid for by trevor potter, or a corporation or a union -- which, according to the supreme court, can now do the same thing -- doing that and saying paid for by general election -- by general electric -- committees have formed called super pac's, which are political committees that disclose their donors, and they can take all of this corporate and individual money and run the ads in their name

prince of the individuals and corporations who have an unlimited right to speak can put their money into a super pac. it will run the ad, and it will say paid for by americans for a better tomorrow. now, when you watch the ad, you may not know who americans for a better tomorrow is, but it is public information. the press can go to the fec and find out who the donors were, and it can say most of the donors were corporations were labor unions. there is another type of group that is spending money this year. that is called by the press dark money, which means money that is not disclosed as to its source. so those are not super pacs, they are ngo's. they are nonprofit organizations that are created by individuals or corporations.

their principal purpose is not supposed to be to engage in politics, because otherwise they would have to file with commissioner one trauma's -- with commissioner weintraub's agency. their disclosure should be regulated by a different agency, the internal revenue service that focuses on taxes. but for a variety of reasons, it is not doing anything about those groups. so we have ended up in a situation which was never envisioned by congress, which passed the laws, and, confusingly, was apparently never envisioned by our supreme court when he changed the laws because the supreme court said that even though corporations and unions can spend an unlimited amount in elections, it will be disclosed. what happened is that corporations, unions, and

individuals who are willing to disclose who they are, give to a super pac, which reports at the federal election commission, spends an unlimited amount, and you know who the donors are. if they want to hide who they are, they give to one of these ngo's. they are referred to by their designation under the tax code, so you will hear 501(c)4, 501(c)6, 501(c)7. do not worry about it. what it is is an organization that spends money in politics and for a variety of reasons that are peculiar to our administrative system, do not have to -- do not end up disclosing their donors. now, personally, i think they are required to disclose their donors by law. i think that is what the law says. that is what the supreme court said it says. but my friend commissioner weintraub's agency does not have four votes to enforce that law. now, i will say commissioner weintraub is one of the three

votes who has been trying hard to enforce that law, but there is not a majority. so we have a peculiar administrative failure, where an administrative agency is not doing its job, and the only way in our system to get it to do its job is to sue it in court. and people who do not like their failure to enforce the law and provide disclosure have sued it in court. but the case is still stuck in court, the agency is still not ordered by a court finally to enforce the law, and the result is we have a great deal of money being spent, which commissioner weintraub is going to tell us about, and a lot of it -- literally hundreds of millions of dollars -- is not as disk -- is not disclosed as to the source of the funding. as a result of citizens united and the introduction of corporate and union money to our elections, we have also a great deal more money being spent in

elections than we traditionally historically have, in a system which does not have public funding for house and senate candidates. so the election you are seeing this year is totally privately funded if the money is by candidates and parties, it is limited and disclosed. if it is by these outside groups which are supposed to be independent of candidates and parties, it may or may not be disclosed, depending on whether it is through a super pac or one of these ngo's. >> thank you very much. >> with that, commissioner 112 will tell you how bad the system is in practice, in terms of the amount -- commissioner weintraub will tell you how bad the system is in practice in terms of the amount spent. >> republicans and democrats frequently disagree on issues of campaign finance and the first amendment in this country. however, trevor and i frequently agree.

so you are not getting a representative sample of the debate that usually takes place between democrats and republicans on these issues. i want to take a step back. i think there are really important principles at play here. one issue that is really important in this country is that our courts in particular have been extremely protective of the right of every citizen to criticize the government and to do so without fear of any kind of penalty or reprisal. that is a bedrock principle. it is an important principle. and it is important to remember that, because if you watch the tv ads -- and they are often ugly and unpleasant to watch -- i think one has to take a step back and say, why do we allow this? the court sees this as a form of protecting the rights of citizens to criticize their own

government and the candidates and the officeholders. there are different ways one might go about doing that. it is particularly interesting, particularly in international group, to take a look at some of the different ways that one could come to these issues. in this country, our courts have very libertarian perspectives. they believe strongly that the best way to encourage the most robust debate on issues of public concerns is by having no limits on spending that goes behind these political ads. that way this side can spend all they want, the other side can spend all they want, and in the end all the issues will be fleshed out and we will have a great, robust debate. that is not the only way one could look at this. if one travel a little bit to the north -- and i understand we have some canadians in the room -- their courts believe they are protecting free speech rights,

they look at it in a different way, and they say when you have no limits, that allows wealthy people to dominate the debate and drown out the voices of others. so the way to protect the most robust debate and make sure that everybody has a chance to get their points across is in fact to have some kind of limit on spending. so you have two countries side-by-side with similar histories and similar legal backgrounds, and yet their courts and laws have evolved in a did -- have evolved in very different ways, and there are different conclusions on the regulating of campaign finance, money and politics. i agree with what magnus said earlier, that enforcement is a key component of campaign finance regulation or any system of civil enforcement of laws.

if you are going to have laws and nobody is enforcing them, you might as well not have the laws because you are left with a system of allah terry compliant -- of voluntary compliance, and some people will voluntarily comply. particularly candidates themselves will be most motivated to comply with the laws because they have a reputation interest at stake. they do not want people out there saying they are lawbreakers because then people will not want to vote for them. but the further you get from the candidates, the less that constraint comes to bear. so when you have these groups that are removed from the candidates and are running ads, and it is not transparent who is behind them, no one is really accountable for the message, then you get into some political messaging that is very ugly and very negative and not necessarily reliable in its truthfulness because no one is being held accountable for the

message. so when we talk about money and politics, the first question everyone wants to ask is, how much money is being spent? there is a lot. this year we will probably end up spending close to $4 billion on this election. the presidential election, two years ago, we spent between $6 billion and $7 billion. the 2016 presidential race will undoubtedly be even more expensive. people listen to that number and it makes headlines, and they think, "wow, that sounds like an awful lot of money." in fact, we probably spent more money last week on halloween, a holiday where children dress up in costumes and we hand out candy and we have parties, then the $4 billion we will spend on this election. it is a very large economy. it is a big country with a lot

people and economic actors. the key is not how much money is raised and spent, but how is it raised and spent. is it done in a way that is transparent? is someone accountable for the money that is raised and spent and the messages put out there. when no one is accountable, the message becomes a lot less reliable. is it done in a way that there. when no one is accountable, the message becomes a lot less reliable. is it done in a way that promotes citizen participation? one of the problems with having all these negative ads out there, which is more likely and more prevalent when we have more independent spenders, when the money gets further from the candidates, is that the voters get turned off. sometimes they say that they are just not interested in participating. small donors are less interested in participating because they see the wealthy donors are giving so much.

why should i give $25 when there is a billionaire out there who is giving $25 million? what is my $25 going to do? voters say i see all these negative ads and i think i do not want to vote for any of these candidates. so i think there is that negative ramification that can discourage participation. and of course the bottom-line concern is, is this money being raised and spent in a way that is legal, that is not corrupting of the entire process? i think there are a lot of people in this country who have concerns about that. i should say that the 3-3 splits that trevor alluded to on our commission -- they are prevalent, but it does not work the way you think it might work.

it is not a question of the three democrats protecting democrats and the three republicans protecting republicans in enforcement matters. there is an ideological divide on the commission that the republicans on the commission believes in this more libertarian view. they believe that the first amendment protects all this money that is being raised and spent and that we should not be regulating it. the democrats believe that there are laws on the books -- particularly laws about disclosure -- that have been upheld, that should be given force. we should investigate groups that appear to be engaged in political activity and are not registering as political committees. although it sounds like a partisan dispute, it is really more of an ideological dispute about how the laws should function in terms of regulating politics. now, why does it matter who is behind these ads? as i said, part of it goes to

how credible they are. part of the rationale for disclosure goes to what information the voters come away with. i will tell you a story. in my own home state of maryland, in the last election we had a question on our ballot about whether to allow casino gambling in our state. this is something that is decided by state law on a state-by-state basis. there are as that started to be run about this from various officeholders that said yes, this will bring money into the state, it will be good for economic development, we will have more money for education. then an ad said, "paid for by a committee, vote no on proposition 6," or whatever number it was. these ads said there is no way of knowing that this money is going to fund education reform, and it will be a big of a way to the casino interests, so do not support this. because we have good disclosure rules, it it came out that the

sole funder behind the ads saying vote no was a competing casino in the next state of west virginia. they did not want the competition from maryland casinos, so they wanted us to vote against it. that affected how i view those ads and how i assessed what was going on in those ads. these were not people who really cared about the education of the children of maryland, they just wanted to protect their profits in west virginia. when the initiative passed, they came to maryland and filed a licensed application to try to open a casino in maryland. i think it is really important, and the supreme court has recognized this, that voters know who is behind these ads. what we have is a system where -- and it changes from one election to the next, it changes as we go along -- but increasingly since 2010 we have a system where more money is raised from fewer donors and with less disclosure. in the top 10 senate races in this country, because we do not

have the president on the ballot, so the senate is where a lot of attention is being focused. the senate may change in control from democrat to republican, depending on how the votes go tomorrow. in the top 10 races, most of them, there is more money, by a long shot, being spent by outside groups than the candidates themselves. the most expensive race, in north carolina -- which is not a big state, is not inexpensive media market, but it is the most expensive race so far. as of last week, over $112 million was spent in that one state, of which over $80 million came from outside spending groups. the candidates are taking on a

smaller and smaller role in their own campaigns. now, some of these spending groups are run by friends and associates of the candidates. and are funded by the same donors who support the campaigns. sometimes they are supported by family members of the candidates. yet these groups claim that they are independent of the candidates. so this issue of independence of campaign spending by outside groups has become very contingents -- has become very contentious. beyond that -- so we have the candidates and the party committees that are very

transparent and that function under contribution limits and file disclosure reports with us that tell everyone, every donor of over $200 and every expenditure of over $200. they are very detailed reports. then there is another category of the super pacs that trevor described. these are political committees, and they do file reports with us -- not as frequently as the candidates do -- and there is an article in today's paper about groups that have manipulated the process so that they held off their donors until after the last report was due before the election. as of october 15, that was the last reporting period for the super pacs, and all of a sudden we are seeing a flood of ads by this -- by these groups. one wonders how they can afford this, because in the last report they did not have much money, but obviously they are asking their donors to not transmit the money until after the reporting period. so there will be a flood of advertising and nobody knows who is paying for it. in the last week, the money has been coming from outside groups on the order of $20 million a day.

then there are groups that do not disclose at all, and we will eventually see the ads and we will be able to know from forms filed with the federal communications commission -- yet another commission in the federal government -- how much money was spent on ads. but we will not necessarily see all of the money that is spent by these groups. some of it will go to reaching out to voters and trying to bring them to the polls. there is a whole infrastructure that has developed by these groups that shadows the party organization. there are billionaires who are basically creating their own little party organizations that are mimicking what the parties do, except in a much less transparent way. we may never know how much money is being spent on those endeavors and where that money came from.

so this, to me, is a problem in our democracy, when we are moving away from disclosure because i think the voters have the right to know who is supporting the candidates. and the candidates need to be accountable for their own supporters. so we are moving towards a less transparent system, and also a system that is empowering more very wealthy people. we are seeing fewer donors, more money but fewer donors. because, as i said, some of the smaller donors are feeling less

encouraged to contribute when they see how much money is flowing, and a lot of the big donors are giving a lot of money. we are talking of -- we are talking about tens of millions, and in some cases billions of dollars from individuals. going back to whether this is a corrupting process, i think one has to ask, what will those donors expected return for those massive contributions? that is kind of where we are today and what some of my concerns are as someone who tries to enforce the law. >> thank you very much. we are grateful to both presenters. we will open the floor for questions, comments. if you could raise your hand so that we can give you a microphone. if you could please introduce yourself and your affiliation, and if you can keep the questions and comments very brief, that would be great so that many people can speak. yes, sir? >> i talk in arabic. excuse me. [speaking arabic]

>> this is impossible as i get it from the presenter. why the members of this commission are not independent who do not belong to either democrats or republicans? is there a penalty that will be imposed on those who are using the political money in a wrong manner, and has the commission the right to regulate the political money? thank you for listening.

>> [speaking native language] >> a political party -- where will they get the money from? because campaigning cannot be separated from money. what kind of violation has been done in campaign financing? how did you resolve that? >> let's take one more before we head over. >> [speaking native language] >> i am from haiti, and i would like very much to learn a little more about the financing of elections. i have heard it said that in fact they do not have public financing available to them. u.s. public members, do you have funds? are you a source of funding at

all? without public funding, how does that happen, i am wondering backup thank you. >> thank you very much. we have questions about appointing commissioners for the fec. would it be -- would it not be better to have independents? a couple of words about the international funding system. >> sure. let me start with your question about where the appointees to the federal election commission come from. like everything else in our system, it is a result of inevitable compromise, as laid out by our constitution. officials of the government entities, entities like the federal election commission, are called independent, but they are really people who have to be nominated by the president, so selected by the president, and then approved, confirmed by the senate.

so you have a compromise between the president and the senate. in reality, what has happened for the entire existence of the commission, is that the party that has the presidency picks its people, and the other party, which is represented in congress by leaders of that party, choose their people. even though they are all technically and presidential -- even though they are all technically a presidential nomination, if the president tries to nominate someone for one of the other party seats without their consent, the senate will not confirm them. so you have a compromise, as it has developed, and you end up in the current world with the democrats being appointed by the president, conferring with his party, and the republicans being

selected by the republican leaders in congress, and then the president officially nominates them, and both are confirmed together. i think i am right in saying that there have only been two commissioners confirmed in the last six years. the others were appointed before this presidency because there has been no agreement between the parties, another area where we have deadlocked. there have been no new commissioners. and the ones like commissioner weintraub, who were there before, remain there because nobody has been successfully appointed to replace them. it is the closest thing to perpetual life that we have in our government. [laughter] >> trevor, if you had not left of your own accord, you probably would still be there. trevor is exactly right. i was appointed by president

bush, a republican, although i am a democrat. i was recommended to the president by the democratic senate leaders at the time, and that is typical. >> if i could just say -- we should have some sort of an independent commission. that is clear. other countries do. our norms have not come up -- our norms have not caught up with that. you would have questions of who selects someone who is truly independent? our current deadlocked system is creating a serious problem.

>> we do have one commissioner now who is an independent. he is a person of no party. he is not democrat or republican, but he was selected to fill a democratic seat and he generally votes the same way as the two democratic commissioners, the cause that is what he believes is the right thing to do. it is complicated. it was set up to be a bipartisan commission so that one party could control, and at one point -- and at various points in its history, it has worked better than it is working today. the last five or six years, it has not been working very well together. there has not been a lot of common ground, a lot of meeting in the middle. but in the early part of my tenure, we did a much better job of that. i hold out hope that that could happen again. financing is largely private in this country. we have a system of public financing only for the presidential race, not for the house or the senate. various states may have their own system of financing, but they are state-level elections. but at the federal level, there

is only private financing, except for the presidency. the way our supreme court interpreted that law that allowed public financing, they said it could not be required. so it is a voluntary system. the way the system is set up, if one accepts the public funds, one also has to accept expenditure limits. what has happened over the last number of years, really since 2000, is that it has become clear that even -- that candidates even under contribution limits have been able to raise so much more money than the expenditure limits would allow them to spend if they took the public money, that they do not participate. so the system needs to be amended. there are bills in congress to fix it, but they are not going anywhere.

in response to -- i think there was a question about enforcement. yes, the commission has the authority to impose penalties or at most of what we do is to enter into negotiations and try to come to a settlement agreement once we agree there is a violation, but the problem of late has been getting to that agreement that the violation is a law. >> we have several hands in the air. this is what happens when you talk about campaign finance. you simply run out of time. people are waiting at the back of the room. to respect the agenda, we will have to continue the discussion during the break. we will try to grab our two presenters before they leave the building. trevor and i sat that trevor and ellen and i sat in this particular -- trevor and ellen and i sat in this particular

situation. we will in the 2016 election as well, which is when we will be electing a new president. two things that i heard -- things are getting wilder and while there and more money is being raised from fewer donors with less disclosure. there is a lot of work still to be done. on behalf of myself, i want to thank trevor potter and ellen weintraub. i want to thank all of you for your participation. if you are interested in campaign finance, please grab me at any point during this event. we will take a break and we will reconvene at 4:00 in this room for a session entitled, "more power to more people," for the americans with disabilities act and expanding political rights. thank you very much. [applause] >> loretto lynch also said look

briefly. prosecutions in brooklyn, queens, staten island, and long island involving terrorism and organized crime. commented on also the release of the two american detainees in north korea. >> have a seat, everybody. good morning. as president, i rely on my cabinet every day to make sure we are not just getting the job done, but we are making progress for the american people.

in a country that is built on the rule of law, there are few officers more important than that of attorney general. the attorney general is the people's lwayer -- lawyer. the president is position is responsible for enforcing our federal laws, including protecting our civil rights, working with the remarkable men and women of the justice department, the attorney general oversees the vast portfolio of cases including countered -- counterterrorism and voting rights, public corruption, and white-collar crime, judicial recommendations, and policy reviews, all of which impact on the lives of every american and shaped the life of our nation. as i said back in september, when he decided to step down, i'm enormously grateful to eric holder for his outstanding service in this position. he is one of the longest-serving attorney generals in american history, and one of our finest.

eric brought to this job a belief that justice is not just an abstract theory, but a living, breathing principle. it is about how laws interact with the daily lives of our people, whether we can make an honest living, whether we can provide for our families, whether we feel safe in our communities and welcome in our own country. whether the words the founders set to paper 238 years ago apply to everyone of us in our time. thanks to eric, our nation is safer and freer and more americans, regardless of race or religion or gender or creed or sexual orientation or disability receive fair and equal treatment under the law. i could not be prouder of eric. i could not be prouder that today i can nominate someone who shares that commitment to justice under the law is my nominee for the next attorney

general, u.s. attorney loretta lynch. [applause] i also want to thank the chair of the senate judiciary committee for being here on a saturday to show his support. [applause] it is pretty hard to be more qualified for this job than loretta. throughout her 30-year career, she has distinguished herself as tough, as fair, an independent

lawyer who has twice headed the most prominent offices in the country. she has spent years in the trenches as a prosecutor, aggressively fighting terrorism, financial fraud, cyber crime, all while vigorously defending civil rights. a graduate of harvard college and harvard law school, loretta rose from assistant u.s. attorney in the eastern district of new york to chief of the long island office, chief assistant u.s. attorney, and u.s. attorney. she successfully prosecuted the terrorists who plotted to bomb the federal reserve bank and the new york city subway. she has boldly gone after public corruption, bringing charges against public officials in both parties. she has helped secure billions in settlements from some of the world's biggest banks accused of fraud and jailed some of new york's most violent and notorious mobsters and gang members. one of her proudest achievements was the civil rights prosecution of the officers involved in the brutal assault of the haitian immigrant.

loretto might be the only lawyer in america who battles mobsters and drug lords and terrorists and still has a reputation for being a charming people person. [laughter] that is probably because loretta does not look to make headlines. she looks to make a difference. she is about substance. i could not be more confident that loretta will bring her signature intelligence and passion and commitment to our key priorities, including important reforms in our criminal justice system. she has consistently proven her leadership and earned the trust and respect of those she serves. since 2010 she has been a member of the committee of the u.s. attorneys across the nation who advise the attorney general on matters of policy, and she has served as chair of that committee since 2013.

it is no wonder that the senate unanimously confirmed her to be the head of the u.s. attorney's office in two separate situations, once under president clinton and once under my administration. it is my hope that the senate will confirm her a third time without delay. at every stage in her career, loretta has followed the principles of fairness, equality, and justice that she absorbed as a young girl. she was born in greensboro, north carolina, the year before students there sat down at a whites only lunch counter, helping to spark a movement that would change the course of this country. the daughter of a school librarian and a fourth-generation baptist minister, which meant she knew when to be quiet. [laughter] that is a little intimidating, being the daughter of a librarian and a minister. loretta rode on her father's shoulders to his church, where students would meet to organize anti-segregation boycotts. she was inspired by stories about her grandfather, a sharecropper in the 1930's who helped folks in his community who got in trouble with the law and had no recourse under the jim crow system. i know if he were here today, he would be just as proud of her as i'm sure her husband, stephen,

is. i want to thank stephen, loretta's stepson, ryan, stepdaughter kia, and her other family members who came here today. we appreciate you guys agreeing to share her with the american people little bit longer. loretta has spent her life fighting for fair and equal justice. i can think of no better public servant to be our next attorney general. let me introduce to you ms. loretta lynch. [applause]

>> thank you, everyone. thank you, mr. president, for that kind introduction. most importantly, thank you also for your faith in me and asking me to succeed and attorney general whom i admire and to lead the department that i love. no one gets to displace -- this place, this room, this podium, this moment by themselves. i also must thank attorney general eric holder for your support and your friendship over the years, as well as by leading by example and always pushing this department to live up to its name. i went to thank chairman leahy, senior officials of the department of justice, and members of the cabinet for being here today. to my colleagues in the u.s. attorneys committee and throughout the department, on whose strength and wisdom eileen every day, thank all of you as well -- wisdom i lean on every day, thank all of you as well. to my beloved office, you have twice now given me the privilege of being able to serve you and

to focus on nothing but the protection of the american people. it has been a joy. it has been an honor. i will carry you with me wherever i go. of course, to my wonderful family. several of whom are here with me today, all of whom are always with me in love and support. most especially my parents, who could not be here today but are watching, whose every thought and sacrifice is always been for their children. they have supported me in all of my endeavors as i strive to live up to their example of service. the department of justice is the only cabinet department named for an ideal. this is actually appropriate, because our work is both

aspirational and grounded in gritty reality. it is both ennobling and both profoundly challenging. today i stand before you, so thrilled and frankly so humbled to have the opportunity to lead this group of wonderful people who work all day and well into the night to make that ideal a manifest reality, all as part of their steadfast protection of the citizens of this country. mr. president, thank you again for the faith you have placed in me. i pledge to show to you and the american people that if i have the honor of being confirmed by the senate, i will wake up every morning with the protection of the american people my first thought. and i will work every day to safeguard our citizens, our liberties, our right, and this great nation which has given so much to me and my family. i thank you again, mr. president and mr. attorney general and all of you for being here. [applause] [indiscernible] [inaudible]

>> we are very grateful to see them return. it was a challenging mission. [applause] >> next, your calls on "washington journal."

>> veterans day coverage begins tuesday morning at 8:30 a.m. eastern during "washington journal." a discussion on health issues and selections from this year's medal of honor ceremonies. this morning, peyton craig hill looks at the demographics and attitudes that shaped this year's election results.

james thurber examines how divided government can work. we will mark the 25th anniversary of the fall of the at u.s. andand look german relations and the impact of unified germany. we will take your calls and you can join of the conversation on facebook and twitter. ♪ >> a live view of the u.s. capital -- capital. renovation is underway at the capitol dome. the president is in route to beijing for the start of a weeklong trip that includes the apex summit then on to burma and finally australia. a weekp comes less than after his party saw significant losses in the midterm elections. it is sunday morning, november the ninth. carrying aers, common theme. what the result means for republicans as the party prepares to take control of the