President Barack Obama will announce his nomination of Loretta Lynch, the Brooklyn, New York-based U.S. Attorney, to be the next Attorney General of the United States, succeeding Eric Holder, on Saturday. If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Lynch would be the first black woman to be the nation's top prosecutor.

In nominating U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch, 55, the president is selecting an attorney experienced in cases involving police brutality, terrorism plots, mortgage securities fraud, and money laundering.

"Ms. Lynch is a strong, independent prosecutor who has twice led one of the most important U.S. Attorney's Offices in the country. She will succeed Eric Holder, whose tenure has been marked by historic gains in the areas of criminal justice reform and civil rights enforcement," said the White House Press Secretary in a statement announcing the nomination.

A spokesman for Lynch said she wouldn't discuss her prospects, but her supporters were vocal.

"She has everything that we would want in an attorney general," Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson told the New York Daily News. "She has intelligence, dignity and the ability to be fair, but also tough. I have the utmost respect for her."

Lynch, who grew up in Greensboro, North Carolina, began her career as a federal prosecutor in 1990. While a chief assistant U.S. attorney, she was on the trial team in one of the most sensational police brutality cases in New York's history, the broomstick torture of Haitian immigrant Abner Louima in a Brooklyn precinct bathroom.

She originally served as U.S. attorney in Brooklyn from 1999 to 2001 before entering private practice. She returned to the position in 2010, and was appointed to the Attorney General's Advisory Committee, causing her to spend more time in Washington, D.C.

During her second tenure as U.S. attorney, Lynch's office has won convictions in an al-Qaida-sanctioned plot to attack New York City subways, and charged the head of a Mexican drug cartel with 12 murders. She also helped investigate Citigroup over mortgage securities sold by the bank, which resulted in the bank agreeing to a $7 billion settlement, and was also involved in the $1.2 billion settlement with HSBC over lapses in the bank's anti-money laundering controls. More recently, her office brought tax evasion charges against Republican Congressman Michael Grimm, which is scheduled to go to trial next year

Lynch's selection comes when the U.S. Justice Department is investigating the practices and policies of police departments in Baltimore, Philadelphia and Spokane, Washington. The agency has recently completed multi-year investigations in police departments in Albuquerque, Newark and Las Vegas. The Department is also investigating whether the civil rights of African-Americans Michael Brown (Ferguson, St. Louis) and John Crawford III (Ohio) were violated in their shooting deaths by police.

If confirmed, she would become the nation's first black female to hold the job, and the second woman after Janet Reno.