Attorney General Loretta Lynch yesterday took the stage at the historic 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Al., to deliver her final planned speech, NPR reports. “We can’t take progress for granted,” Lynch told the congregation. “We have to work. There’s no doubt that we still have a way to go — a long way to go.” In an interview with NPR, asked about her regrets as she prepares to leave office, Lynch cited her unscheduled meeting last year with former President Bill Clinton, a conversation that raised questions about whether she could remain impartial about Hillary Clinton’s email investigation. She later said she would accept the FBI’s findings in the probe.
The Justice Department is “more than the work of more than one group of people and the work of more than one administration,” Lynch said. “The work that we do spans time, it spans generations and we build on it.” She added: “We have to admit that change is hard and policing is changing a lot in this country. That being said, I still believe that the work that we have done has been positive.”