[caption id=”attachment_117354″ align=”aligncenter” width=”5184″] Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2015, before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing on her nomination. Lynch defended President Barack Obama’s decision to shelter millions of immigrants from deportation though they live in the country illegally but she said they have no right to citizenship under the law. If confirmed, Lynch would become the nation’s first black female attorney general. It is the first confirmation proceeding since Republicans took control of the Senate this month. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
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Loretta Lynch won approval from a key Senate committee Thursday to serve as the nation’s next attorney general, as divided Republicans clashed over her support for President Barack Obama’s immigration policies.
The 12 to 8 vote in the Judiciary Committee sent Lynch’s nomination to the full Senate. Three Republicans joined all committee Democrats in voting “yes.”
“The case against her nomination, as far as I can tell, essentially ignores her professional career and focuses solely on about six hours that she spent before this committee,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, as he criticized fellow Republicans for using Lynch’s testimony in support of Obama’s executive actions on immigration as a reason to oppose her nomination.
GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Jeff Flake of Arizona joined Hatch in voting to support Lynch.
In a roundtable interview with reporters and bloggers at the Conservative Political Action Conference Thursday Sen. Ted Cruz said her testimony was the reason he voted against her and chastised any Republicans not standing with him.
“We’ve seen the Senate move forward with nominating an attorney general who told the Senate Judiciary Committee she will continue President Obama’s lawlessness. I think this is wrong and I think it’s heartbreaking,” Cruz said.
“For six years Eric Holder has been the most partisan Attorney General we have ever seen. He has abused the office. He undermined its bipartisan tradition of faithfulness to the law and I had hoped that Ms. Lynch would prove to be a relatively no-nonsense prosecutor. I would have happily voted for a nominee who fit that mold. At the hearing, however, Ms. Lynch’s answers were brazen. When asked how she would differ from Eric Holder, Ms. Lynch could identify no way whatsoever. When asked if she would implement President Obama’s illegal and unconstitutional executive amnesty, she said, ‘Absolutely.'”
Cruz went on to name several other ways from using drones to kill Americans on American soil to her potential handling of the IRS investigation that concerned him about Lynch.
“When Eric Holder has engaged in lawlessness, he did so after being confirmed. He did so after being attorney general,” Cruz told reporters.
“In this instance, Ms. Lynch has looked us in the eye and she’s told us this is what she’s going to do. She’s told us that she will implement no restrictions whatsoever, no limits on the president. And I urged my Republican colleagues, ‘Anyone of you that votes yes, you have no grounds to come back complain if the president grants amnesty to 12 million people next time because she’s told you she will rubber stamp that.'”
Despite the disagreement, Lynch is all but assured approval by the full Senate, under new rules that will require only a majority vote instead of the 60-vote margin required for most legislation. Timing for a floor vote is uncertain.
But unlike Obama’s defense secretary nominee, Ash Carter, who was approved by an overwhelming bipartisan vote of 93-5 earlier this month, Lynch is unlikely to win approval by a resounding margin. As Thursday’s debate illustrated, GOP opposition to Obama’s immigration policies has become entwined in a variety of issues in the newly Republican-run Congress, and it has cut into Lynch’s support at the same time it is holding up funding for the Department of Homeland Security.
