Any attempt to ram a new nominee for attorney general through a post-election session of the lame-duck Congress would be a politically motivated act of desperation, Sen. John Barrasso said Sunday.
Though no one has been picked to replace Eric Holder, who announced Thursday he is resigning as the nation’s top law officer, Republicans are concerned President Obama may rush through a nominee for confirmation after the November election, where Republicans hope to regain control of the Senate.
A post-election confirmation would allow Democratic senators to vote in favor a potential Holder successor without having to deal with the political fallout. That is particularly true if Obama picks a controversial replacement and Democrats lose control of the Senate, Barrasso said.
“This shows the desperation and how the Democrats feel threatened that they are going to lose control of the Senate,” Barrasso, a Wyoming Republican, said on “Fox News Sunday.” “If they try to do this in the lame-duck session, this will clearly poison the well and define what we’re going to see in the next two years, the final two years in the presidency of Barack Obama.”
Barrasso also blasted Holder, who in 2012 was held in contempt by the Republican-led House of Representatives for stonewalling the congressional investigation into the botched “Fast and Furious” gun-running scheme.
“He has been a political protector, a partisan protector of the president,” Barrasso said. “We need an attorney general for the people, not a presidential protector and a puppet of the administration.”
Sen. Angus King, the Maine independent who caucuses with the Democrats and appeared on the program with Barrasso, said he sees nothing wrong with the lame-duck Senate voting on confirmation of a new attorney general nominee.
No one has been named, and the president may select a replacement for Holder that wins bipartisan support, King said.
“The last time I looked, we are still at work and being paid until next January,” King said. “Let’s see what the president does. He may not even put someone forward, or he may put someone forward, or he may put someone forward that everyone, Republicans included, say is a good, solid candidate.”
