President Obama’s nominee to succeed Eric Holder as the next U.S. attorney general promised the GOP Senate majority she would foster “a new and improved relationship” with Congress if confirmed.
Loretta Lynch arrived on Capitol Hill on Wednesday flanked by close family members and friends and was introduced with effusive praise from New York Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kristen Gillibrand, both Democrats.
But Republicans, in charge of a confirmation proceeding for the first time in eight years, set a different tone.
After years of acrimony between GOP lawmakers and Holder’s Department of Justice, which Republicans say acted as a political arm of President Obama, they demanded to know whether Lynch planned do things differently.
“Over the last few years, public confidence in the Department’s ability to do its job without regard to politics has been shaken, with good reason,” Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, told Lynch.
Lynch, in her opening remarks, promised lawmakers that she is committed to upholding the constitution.
“It is that document and the ideals embodied therein to which I have devoted my professional life,” said Lynch, who is currently the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.
“If confirmed as attorney general, I pledge to you and the American people that the constitution, the bedrock of our system of justice, will be my lodestar as I exercise the power and responsibility of that position.”
Lynch’s confirmation is all but assured, Republicans have signaled. Lynch is widely respected by both parties and has already been confirmed twice by Congress for lower appointments. If confirmed, Lynch would become the first black female U.S. attorney general.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., a longtime member of the Judiciary panel, called Lynch’s opening statement “the best” of any she has heard.
While lawmakers found little to criticize about Lynch’s own record, Republicans zeroed in on their frustrations with the current Justice Department and with Obama’s recent executive actions on immigration, which they believe are unconstitutional.
Grassley asked Lynch if she believed Obama has “the legal authority” to carry out a November executive action that provides millions of illegal immigrants legal access to work permits and some federal benefits.
Lynch told Grassley she viewed it as a matter of “enforcement discretion” within the Department of Homeland Security, which due to limited resources can only deport a small fraction of every the illegal immigrants now living in the United States.
“I viewed it as a way in which the Department of Homeland Security was seeking legal guidance on the most effective way to prioritize the removal of large numbers of individual,” Lynch said, “given that their resources would not permit removal of everyone who fell within the respective category.”
Lynch was pressed the hardest on immigration by Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., who has been a staunch opponent of Obama’s directive.
“Who has more rights to a job,” Sessions asked Lynch, “a lawful immigrant, or a person who has entered the country unlawfully?”
Lynch said she that preferred all people living here are “part of the workforce,” regardless of whether they are here legally, but added that the Justice Department needs to “look at” whether employers have an obligation to hire those allowed to work here under Obama’s recent executive action, rather than giving preference to a U.S. citizen.
Democrats defended Lynch from the GOP line of questioning and said it was not appropriate to target a nominee for matters in which she played no role.
“Today we’ve already heard, and will hear a lot more, about issues completely unrelated to Ms. Lynch’s experience and her qualifications,” Schumer said. “If anything, that just goes to show how qualified she is. No one can assail Loretta Lynch and no one has, who she is, what she has done and how good an attorney general she would be.”
Lynch didn’t need defending. She struck a conciliatory tone with Sessions and other GOP lawmakers who took aim at the Obama administration, promising to consult with GOP lawmakers on areas where they disagree.
She also pledged to act independently from the Obama administration, which Republicans say Holder, who once declared himself Obama’s “wingman,” failed to do.
“I pledge to you that I take that independence very seriously,” Lynch said.
The promise appealed to Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, a longtime critic of Holder’s tenure at the Justice Department.
“You’ll be a great attorney general if you do that,” Hatch told Lynch.
