Doug Jones is reportedly Biden's leading candidate for attorney general

Doug Jones.
(Image credit: Alex Edelman-Pool/Getty Images)

Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.) is at the top of President-elect Joe Biden's list of attorney general contenders, three people familiar with the matter told NBC News.

Jones, who lost his bid for re-election in November, was appointed the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama in 1997, and prosecuted two Ku Klux Klan members for the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, an attack that killed four Black girls. In 1988, Jones was the Alabama co-chair of Biden's presidential campaign, and in 2017, Biden campaigned for Jones when he ran for Senate.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.