US: Janet Reno, first woman attorney general, dies at 78

Janet Reno, the first woman US attorney general who served eight tumultuous years with President Bill Clinton, has died aged 78.

Reno’s goddaughter, Gabrielle D’Alemberte, said she succumbed to complications of Parkinson’s disease early on Monday in Miami.

The blunt-spoken lawyer worked as the top US law enforcement official under Clinton from 1993 to 2001, becoming the longest-serving attorney general of the 20th century.

Just weeks into the job, she authorized the deadly 1993 raid on the Branch Davidian cult compound at Waco, Texas.

Reno later authorized federal agents to seize six-year-old Cuban shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez from relatives in Miami in 2000, and headed the Justice Department during the government’s huge antitrust case against Microsoft.

The former Miami prosecutor, picked by Clinton after his first two choices for the job ran into trouble at the confirmation stage, exhibited an independent streak and a brusque manner that often upset the White House.

Full Content: am New York

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