Loretta Lynch poised to clear key panel
Loretta Lynch has enough votes to clear a key committee on her confirmation as the nationâs next attorney general, as two Senate Republicans said Thursday that theyâll back her and another one indicated his potential support. Republican Sens. Orrin Hatch of Utah and Jeff Flake of Arizona both said after Lynch testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that they would vote to confirm the federal prosecutor, believing she is qualified to succeed Eric Holder. Story Continued Below Hatch announced his decision during the second day of Lynchâs confirmation hearing, where a panel of witnesses testified on her qualifications and on the broader controversies involving the Justice Department under Holder. âFor too long, [the Justice Departmentâs] decisions have been politicized and its leaders have facilitated executive abuses by this president rather than upholding the rule of law,â Hatch said. âThroughout her confirmation hearing, Ms. Lynch has demonstrated her qualifications and made specific commitments to work with Congress.â Later Thursday, Flake said he supports her too, adding: âI think the president ought to get his people, unless thereâs some disqualifying thing.â Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), another member of the Judiciary Committee, said he was âinclinedâ to back Lynch. Presuming that all nine Democrats on the Judiciary Committee back Lynch, she would need only two GOP votes to clear the panel. A committee vote is not expected until after the mid-February congressional recess. The committeeâs chairman, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), said he still has several questions for Lynch and wants to know how she would mend a Justice Department that he viewed as âpoliticized and otherwise brokenâ before he decides how he will vote. âNothing about her qualifications. Theyâre outstanding,â Grassley said when asked if he considered anything Lynch said during her hearing disqualifying. âThe question is, is she willing to take an independent point of view and turn things around?â Four of the committeeâs Republicans â Jeff Sessions of Alabama, David Vitter of Louisiana, Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah â are expected to oppose her nomination. Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) is still undecided, a spokeswoman said. Also unknown are how the two freshman Republicans on the committee will vote. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said he is undecided, noting that he is âtaking in all the information.â Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) declined to comment. Though they were split on whether they would support Lynch, Senate Republicans had a clear strategy on Day Two of her confirmation hearing: Make it all about Holder and the controversies that have lingered during his six-year tenure as President Barack Obamaâs attorney general. Former CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson blasted the Obama administrationâs behavior toward the press, accusing the Justice Department of stonewalling access. Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke testified that the attitude at Justice, under Holder, âhas been almost hostilityâ toward local law enforcement officials. And Jonathan Turley, a constitutional scholar who is representing House Republicans in their Obamacare lawsuit, told senators: âThe Justice Department is at the epicenter of a constitutional crisis.â The witnesses called by Republicans said little about Lynch herself, who had sat through nearly eight hours of grilling on Wednesday by the committeeâs 20 members. Meanwhile, Democrats tried to steer the focus of Thursdayâs second round to the Brooklyn federal prosecutorâs own record. âMany of these [witnesses] will speak to the many ways the Department of Justice, under its current leadership, has failed to fulfill some of the most basic aspects of its mission,â said the committeeâs chairman, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). âThe question for me and lot of members on this side is whether Ms. Lynch is committed to leading the Department of Justice in a new direction.â Democrats spent much of the second day of Lynchâs confirmation hearings â which she did not attend â trying to make the case that she deserved to be confirmed based on her record and legal expertise. Three of the Democratic witnesses knew Lynch personally, including David Barlow, a former federal prosecutor from Utah who has also served as legal counsel for Lee. Barlow testified about his time working with Lynch on the attorney generalâs advisory committee â roughly a dozen U.S. attorneys who advise Justice Department leadership on various policy matters. âThrough these experiences, my initial impressions of Loretta Lynch were fully confirmed: She is tough, fair, gracious, smart and independent,â Barlow told the committee. When Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) asked the nine witnesses to raise a hand if he or she opposed Lynchâs nomination, none did. And Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) complained that the Holder-bashing was âfrankly beneath the dignity of this committee,â saying the hearing was becoming a âsound bite factory for Fox News and for conspiracy theorists everywhere.â