Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) called on his fellow Senators to oppose President Obama’s nominee for attorney general, pointing to her support for the president’s executive amnesty.
“What I want to say, colleagues, is the attorney general played a key role in this presidential overreach,” Sessions said on the Senate floor Monday. “It was the attorney general’s office that approved this overreach and so this nominee says she believes this was correct. She indicated and I’m sure will defend it in every court around the county and advocate for it.”
According to the Alabama conservative, while people argue the attorney general works for the president, the nation’s top law enforcement official in fact works for the people.
“Her salary comes from the taxpayers of this country. Her duty, on occasion, is to say ‘no’ to the president. To try to help him accomplish his goals like a good corporate lawyer would — but at some point you have to say, ‘Mr. Corporate CEO, Mr. President of the United States, this goes too far, you can’t do this.’ So she has indicated she is unwilling to do that.”
Sessions pointed to one of his major issues with President Obama’s executive amnesty, specifically the issuance of millions of work permits to illegal immigrants and how that could serve to undermine the job prospects of Americans and legal immigrants.
He highlighted a portion of Lynch’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in which she said that illegal immigrants had a right to work in the United States.
“I believe that the right and the obligation to work is one that is shared by everyone in this country, regardless of how they came here,” Sessions quoted Lynch. “And certainly if someone is here regardless of status. I would prefer that they be participating in the workplace than not participating in the workplace.”
Sessions points out how “stunning and breathtaking that is for the top law enforcement officer in America to say that a person has a right to work in this country, regardless of how they came here.”
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Sunday that the Lynch nomination would receive a vote only after the Senate clears a human trafficking bill that Democrats are holding up due to opposition to an abortion restriction provision.
Democrats have cried foul at the delay. The Lynch confirmation vote is expected to be very close.
“We’re dealing with huge constitutional issues. I wish it weren’t so, it’s not anything personal I would have to complain about this nominee. But in truth we need to use the means that this Congress has to defend its legitimate constitutional rights, the powers it’s been given to legislate,” Sessions said reiterating that the president is there to executive the laws and the attorney general is a key player on the president’s team.
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