The usual RINO’s Orrin Hatch of Utah, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Jeff Flake of Arizona voted with the Dems.
Via National Journal
Loretta Lynch had a lot to prove before her nomination for attorney general could make it to the Senate floor—chiefly that she is not like Eric Holder, the man she’d be succeeding.
She withstood lengthy lines of questioning at a two-day Senate Judiciary Committee hearing at the end of January, and her nomination passed the committee Thursday in a 12-8 vote to send the confirmation to the Senate floor. Despite initial Republican opposition and a months-long battle to prove her commitment to fostering a renewed relationship with Congress, the Senate is expected to approve her nomination.
“I will be myself, Loretta Lynch,” the nominee said at a hearing last month.
Three Republicans senators—Orrin Hatch, Jeff Flake and Lindsey Graham—voted for the nomination.
Initial opposition stemmed from GOP criticisms of Holder and of the Obama administration’s policies, particularly the president’s unilateral actions on immigration. Obama nominated Lynch to succeed Holder in early November. But Republicans have since held up her confirmation as a consequence of President Obama’s immigration programs to provide temporary work permits and deportation deferrals to more than 4 million undocumented immigrants, actions the GOP say are lawless and unconstitutional.
“I’ve been here for 40 years, and no attorney general—no attorney general—has ever had to wait this long for a vote,” Sen. Patrick Leahy, the committee’s ranking member, said at Thursday’s Judiciary Committee executive session.[…]
Hatch fiercely defended Lynch’s prosecutorial record during Thursday’s executive session, saying the case against her has ignored her professional career. He blasted a Feb. 19 letter sent from at least 50 House Republicans to the Senate Judiciary Committee urging a vote against her nomination to “register your disapproval with this administration’s persistent, lawless conduct.”
“That is ridiculous on its face,” said Hatch, a former Judiciary Committee chairman.
But Lynch will serve as the top law-enforcement officer in America, Sen. Jeff Sessions said, and an attorney general is required to uphold the Constitution.
HT LA Mom