Inside Pam Bondi's aggressive push to crack down on animal cruelty crimes
A politically connected nonprofit animal shelter helped steer Bondi on DOJ's approach on animal cruelty crimes and their prosecution.
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Sarah N. Lynch is the senior Justice Department reporter for CBS News. She previously worked as the Justice Department correspondent at Reuters in Washington where she covered everything from the criminal cases stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol to former special counsel Jack Smith's investigations into Donald Trump for his retention of classified records and his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Lynch has covered a variety of high-profile trials of public figures including Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro. In 2025, she documented the Trump administration's dismantling of its Public Integrity Section tasked with prosecuting public corruption, and the massive shift in the mission of the Civil Rights Division, leading to the exodus of approximately 75% of its staff. Prior to covering the Justice Department, Lynch covered the Securities and Exchange Commission and Wall Street regulations at both Reuters and the Wall Street Journal. The collapse of Lehman Brothers took place two weeks into her tenure at the Wall Street Journal, and she worked on a reporting team covering bank bailouts, the role that over-the-counter derivatives played in the housing crisis, and the passage of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act.
Lynch holds a bachelor's degree from Barnard College and a Master's Degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism where she studied investigative reporting at the Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism. She enjoys running, biking, lifting weights, cooking, theatre, music of all kinds and film. She lives in Washington, D.C. with her husband, their daughter and their dog Chewbacca.
A politically connected nonprofit animal shelter helped steer Bondi on DOJ's approach on animal cruelty crimes and their prosecution.
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