Sen. Mike Lee: Loretta Lynch Shouldn’t Be Confirmed in Lame Duck Session
KELLY: “Senator Lee, good to see you tonight. So when she goes before this committee? I understand that some of you have already written a letter saying that, first of all, she should not be confirmed in the lame-duck session meaning over the next two months while the Democrats still control the Senate. Why? They don’t lose their power just because they’re lame ducks, why shouldn’t they put her before that body?”
LEE: “They don’t lose their power until January in the sense that the new Congress isn’t sworn until January. But, Megyn, you have to remember that the voters just voted. The voters voted for a very different type of leadership than we have in place right now and we need to respect that decision. It’s important to point out, it’s been over a hundred years since we’ve confirmed an attorney general during a lame-duck session. I think we owe it to the voters to respect their decision in November.”
KELLY: “And it’s been I think equally long if not longer add since we’ve ever elevated somebody from the post of U.S. Attorney, right, to Attorney General. She’s skipping several steps in going right up. But, this would be the first black woman we have ever had as Attorney General. President Obama only has two more years to serve out his term, and obviously this post will change after. Shouldn’t he have who he wants unless she’s extremely confidential, which it doesn’t seem like this particular candidate is. Am I wrong?”
LEE: “The president’s certainly entitled to choose whomever he wants to fill that spot, but we have discretion to decide whether or not to confirm that person. Now, one of the important things to remember here, Megyn, is that we’re not saying that she’s not going to be confirmed. What we are saying is that she needs to be confirmed the right way, at the right time, and most importantly we want to find out where she stands on this critical legal issue and whether or not she will defend the president the United States in believing that he may extend amnesty to illegal immigrants in violation of the law. We don’t think the president constitutionally or statutory has that power, and if she believes he does have that power, we’d like to know where she gets that theory.”
KELLY: “Can you do that? Can you ask her for her specific positions on issues that are right now being debated in the country?”
LEE: "We can ask her. It doesn't mean she'll answer, but we can ask her. I think we have an affirmative obligation to ask questions like this, especially where the president's come out with this theory, but has yet to explain it. I'd like to know how she would approach such a theory. I'd like to know whether she thinks in the abstract the president United States has the authority to rewrite the U.S. immigration and naturalization code, contrary to law. I don't think he does. Nothing in the Constitution gives him that power and there's nothing in statute that gives him that power."
