WASHINGTON Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, staked out a hard line today against Loretta Lynch, the Obama Administration’s nominee to replace Eric Holder as attorney general.
Already an announced “no” vote against her in Thursday’s scheduled Senate Judiciary Committee vote, Cruz challenged fellow Republicans not to let the nomination proceed.
“It is entirely within the power of the newly elected Republican majority in the Senate not to confirm Ms. Lynch. The only question is whether the GOP majority will exercise its constitutional authority to do so,” Cruz wrote in an op-ed in Politico.
“Personally, I wanted to support Ms. Lynch’s nomination. Six years of Eric Holder has done enormous damage, and Ms. Lynch’s service as the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York has earned her a reputation as a relatively no-nonsense prosecutor. However, the answers she gave at her confirmation hearing are, in my view, disqualifying for serving as our nation’s chief law enforcement officer.”
Cruz acknowledged that enough Republicans in committee may support Lynch, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, for her nomination to proceed. And that Senate GOP leaders would be unwilling to withhold a floor vote.
Nonetheless he said:
“Senate Republicans have the power to stop this nomination. And we have a choice. We can honor our oaths to the Constitution—we can defend liberty and the rule of law—or we can confirm an attorney general who has candidly admitted she will impose no limits on the president whatsoever.”
Correction: an earlier blog post misspelled Eric Holder’s first name.