Loretta Lynch, Obama’s nominee to replace Attorney General Eric Holder, held her own at Wednesday’s eight-hour confirmation hearing before the Senate, Al-Jazeera reports. Lynch lobbied back “measured answers” to questions from Republicans who were hell-bent on attacking Obama and Holder for how the Justice Department, they argue, has become “politicized.”
Senate Republicans pressed Lynch on several issues, including Obama’s deportation-relief actions for undocumented immigrants, to which she responded, “I don’t see any reason to doubt the reasonableness of those views.”
One Republican senator got super blunt, driving home the point that he did not want Lynch to be Holder reincarnated.
“You’re not Eric Holder, are you?” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) asked.
“No sir, I’m not,” she responded.
In Lynch’s opening remarks, she referenced the contentious relationship between Holder’s Justice Department and Congress, vowing to mend the rift.
“I look forward to fostering a new and improved relationship with this committee, the United States Senate and the entire United States Congress—a relationship based on mutual respect and constitutional balance,” Lynch said.
Lynch said that, if confirmed, she hopes to focus the Justice Department’s efforts on counterterrorism, cyberattacks, “predatory financial institutions” and human traffickers.
Read more at Al-Jazeera.