Flake, McCain split on Loretta Lynch nomination for AG

U.S. Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake are split over President Barack Obama's nomination of Loretta Lynch for U.S. attorney general.

Flake, R-Ariz., told The Arizona Republic he will vote to confirm Lynch, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, to replace outgoing U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. McCain, R-Ariz., has gone on the record opposing Lynch's nomination and has encouraged his fellow Senate Republicans to voted against her.

With Flake on board, Lynch is believed to have secured the minimum 51 votes needed for confirmation in the Republican-controlled Senate. However, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has tethered her nomination to a human-trafficking bill that Senate Democrats have blocked. It is unclear when the stalemate will be resolved.

"I supported her in (the Senate Judiciary) Committee and I'll support her on the floor," Flake said. "And I hope we'll bring her to the floor soon."

Generally, Flake said believes the president should pick his own Cabinet unless there is something disqualifying a nominee.

"She is by all accounts qualified," Flake said. "Those who worked with over the past 30 years have nothing but positive things to say about her balance and her fidelity to the law."

Meanwhile, McCain has made it clear that he will vote against her on the grounds that she told the Judiciary Committee that she believed Obama's November executive action to shield millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation was "reasonable." Obama said he took the far-reaching steps only after the U.S. House of Representatives made it clear that it would not act on comprehensive immigration reform. McCain and Flake were two of the Republican negotiators on a bipartisan immigration bill that passed the Senate in 2013 but went nowhere in the House.

"Loretta Lynch has said the president's unconstitutional executive orders are, quote, reasonable," McCain said last month on conservative radio commentator Hugh Hewitt's program. "If that is the case, no Republican should vote for her confirmation, because she is going to implement what the president himself said 22 times would be unconstitutional actions."

McCain backs McConnell's decision to delay Lynch's confirmation. After Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., accused Republicans of forcing Lynch, who is Black, to sit in "the back of the bus," McCain ripped Durbin in a floor speech.

"What is beneath the decorum and dignity of the United States Senate, I would say to the senator from Illinois, is for him to come to this floor and use that imagery, and suggest that racist tactics are being employed to delay Ms. Lynch's confirmation vote," McCain said. "Such inflammatory rhetoric has no place in this body and serves no purpose other than to further divide us."

Flake said he supports Lynch despite her view that Obama's executive action is legally reasonable.

"I don't agree with that, but I don't expect to agree with all of the president's appointments," Flake said.

In a Feb. 25 letter, Flake and fellow Senate Judiciary Committee members Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, asked Lynch if she would abide by a U.S. district court's temporary injunction against implementation of Obama's executive action on immigration and if she would commit to following it nationwide, not just in Texas where the legal challenge was filed. Lynch responded to the senators that her answer was yes in both cases.

"If I am confirmed as attorney general, I commit to follow the injunction as it is worded unless and until the injunction is stayed, lifted, or altered by the district court itself, by the Fifth Circuit, or by the Supreme Court," Lynch wrote.

The disagreement over the Lynch nomination is one in a series of recent issues that have found McCain and Flake on opposite sides.

Flake supported Obama's move to reestablish diplomatic ties with Cuba, while McCain opposed the policy shift.

Flake also was one of seven Senate Republicans who declined to sign a GOP letter warning Iranian leaders that the 47 Republican signatories would not consider a nuclear deal with the Obama administration binding.

Flake said the letter was not appropriate.

McCain signed the letter, defending it as a valid reaction to Obama's threat to veto any legislation that would give Congress a say over an agreement with Iran.

Nowicki is The Republic's national political reporter. Follow him on Twitter at @dannowicki and on his official Facebook page.