ICYMI: Obama DOJ in “Very Dramatic” Fashion Pressured FBI to End Investigations into Hillary Clinton

The politicization of the FBI is not good for the country and a sad day in the FBI’s proud history. Overlooked amidst the turmoil and allegations surrounding the firing of James Comey and Andrew McCabe, an important new detail has come to light on an old theme: the Obama Justice Department put unprecedented pressure on the FBI to not investigate or end its investigations of Democrat Party Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton (emphasis added):

The [Justice] department’s inspector general exposed just how deep the feuding ran in a new report last week investigating the actions of former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. The report recounted an August 2016 phone call from a high-level Justice Department official who complained the FBI had taken “overt” actions to investigate the Clinton Foundation, potentially embarrassing then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

Mr. McCabe said he got the sense the Obama Justice Department was telling him “to shut down” the probe. Later he called the exchange [ ] “very dramatic” and said he’d never had a confrontation like that with the Justice Department.

The reason for the pressure was that the FBI, among other things, had found “suspicious activity” between the Clinton Foundation and a foreign donor:

The inspector general (IG) confirmed in its long-awaited report released Friday that in 2016 the FBI had ongoing field investigations of the Clinton Foundation in New York, Los Angeles, Little Rock, Arkansas and Washington, D.C. The multi-city investigation was launched when agents found “suspicious activity” between a foreign donor and Clinton Foundation activity in the Los Angeles area, as TheDCNF reported in August 2016.

Although both the Obama-appointed Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz and the non-partisan FBI Office of Professional Responsibility recommended McCabe be fired, in the media liberals’ defend McCabe from politicization accusations for leaking in part because the information “hurt” Hillary Clinton.  According to the IG, McCabe’s leaking was for self-preservation as he seemed worried about the strength of the narrative that the FBI's handling of the investigations into Hillary Clinton was unduly biased in her favor:   

McCabe was worried about an Oct. 23, 2016, Wall Street Journal article, which appeared to have damaged his reputation for impartiality because the journalist, Devlin Barrett, reported McCabe’s wife received a campaign donation of nearly a half million dollars from Clinton friend and political ally Terry McAuliffe for her run for a Virginia state seat.

In an alleged attempt to show he wasn’t impartial to the Clintons, McCabe leaked information to Barrett a week later that claimed he personally fought the Justice Department’s attempt to shut down the FBI’s investigation, according to the Inspector General’s report. Barrett’s article appeared Oct. 30 and was titled, “FBI in Internal Feud Over Hillary Clinton Probe.”  . . . 

McCabe authorized bureau officials to leak the information about the Aug. 12 call, the IG claims. “Specifically, McCabe stated that he authorized Special Counsel and AD/OPA to provide to Barrett the account of his August 12 call with PADAG because McCabe thought it was the ‘best example’ to counter the “incredibly damaging” narrative in Barrett’s intended story,” the report reads.

Comey and McCabe were concerned about the evidence or appearance of evidence that Obama’s Department of Justice and Clinton allies had successfully influenced FBI investigations into Hillary Clinton.  They were concerned that might taint her victory because at the time they thought her election to be certain.  Their actions just showed why they should have been fired.  The larger question is who in the Obama Department of Justice (or even the White House) was trying to pressure the FBI and why are they not facing consequences? 

Another op-ed on the topic is here. 

Why Did Former AG Lynch Use an Email Alias at the DOJ?

RNLA Executive Director Michael Thielen wrote today in the Daily Caller about the recent revelations about former Attorney General Loretta Lynch's use of an email alias account at the Department of Justice:

Compare this with former Attorney General Loretta Lynch and her tumultuous tenure. Lynch did not recuse herself from the investigation into Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s illegal use of a private email server that handled classified information.  Like her predecessor, Eric Holder, Lynch set up an alias DOJ email account under the name Elizabeth Carlisle to handle official business. 

She secretly met with Bill Clinton at a crucial moment in the investigation.  When a reporter discovered the clandestine meeting, the Lynch DOJ went into crisis mode — strategizing, preparing talking points, and working with the mainstream media to bury the story.  Lynch was involved in the response effort, but under her “Elizabeth Carlisle” alias. 

Why set up an alias email account?  The official version is the alias account avoided people guessing the Attorney General’s email address and flooding her inbox.  It is common practice for CEOs and other high profile leaders to have an email address that does not fit the organization’s customary formula. . . . What is not common practice is to use an entirely different name altogether.  Why would Lynch, and Holder before her, adopt such a strange practice?  One reason might be to avoid Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.  A person would request the Attorney General’s correspondence on a certain topic, but because the Attorney General had used her alias account, none of her emails would show up on a search for emails sent to or from Loretta Lynch.  As the email alias was unknown until last week, the Attorney General’s emails on sensitive subjects were largely kept from public release under FOIA.

This would be entirely in conformity with the Obama Administration’s practice of avoiding transparency whenever possible, despite claiming to be the “most transparent administration in history.”  Last July, the American Center for Law and Justice filed a FOIA request for documents relating to the Lynch-Clinton airplane meeting and the Obama FBI responded that no responsive documents existed.  After a lawsuit, over 400 pages of responsive documents were produced last week.  This is just one example of the Obama DOJ’s lack of transparency.

Mr. Thielen compared Lynch's actions with Attorney General Jeff Sessions' ethical behavior in recusing himself from the investigation into Russian interference with the 2016 election to avoid even an appearance of impropriety.  The Trump Department of Justice has important work to do to restore a culture of ethics, responsibility, and respect for the rule of law in the law firm for the American people.

Does the Real Election Interference Involve the Democrats?

In May, RNLA Executive Director Michael Thielen recounted the Obama administration’s long held propensities for election tampering, the latest effort being the DHS’s bid under former Secretary Jeh Johnson to infiltrate numerous state election voter databases during the 2016 election cycle.

Johnson testified last week before the Senate Intelligence Committee, however, that, even though he did not believe that “votes were altered or suppressed in some way,” his organization did not report on potential Russian hacking for the sake of non-partisanship.

David Warrington, RNLA Vice President for Election Education, highlights the Democratic Party’s herculean attempt during this hearing to scapegoat anyone else for its own illegal forays into elections:

Leaving aside for a minute that Russia ‘hacking’ the 2016 election is a wildly inaccurate portrayal of Russia's digital meddling — which to date are only allegations, nothing proven — there's likely another reason Johnson wasn't quick to cry foul: some of the known, legitimate attempts to hack into state election databases were perpetrated by Johnson's own organization, the Obama-led DHS.

DHS is not alone.  As we detailed Friday, even Democrats are raising questions of interference with the election regarding Obama Administration Attorney General Loretta Lynch. What does all this mean?  As Warrington concludes the continued fixation on Russia:

They are little more than an attempt to protect the previous administration from being exposed as election meddlers, albeit unsuccessful ones. But Hillary Clinton's leaked emails, which showed the Democratic National Committee colluding with her campaign to ensure she won the nomination over Bernie Sanders, have already proven that meddling in democratic processes is a strategy the left employs to win. 

Partisan politics in the end is driving this Russia hacking myth. And as Michael Thielen put it, “the reality is that there’s more evidence linking a US federal agency under Obama to state election hacking than there is linking Russia to the presidential election.”

The Post-2016 Election Investigation Expands: Former AG Lynch Questioned

Today, news broke that the U.S. Senate is going to turn their post-2016 election investigation towards former Attorney General Loretta Lynch. A bipartisan letter signed by a pair of leading Republican and Democratic Senators requested Ms. Lynch to answer a series of questions related to her Department of Justice investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails and server use.

The Daily Caller reported:

A bipartisan group of Senate Judiciary Committee members, [signed by Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein, Subcommittee Chairman Lindsey Graham, and Ranking Subcommittee Member Sheldon Whitehouse] sent a letter to former Attorney [General] Loretta Lynch Friday seeking to confirm if she attempted to stifle the FBI investigation into the Hillary Clinton email probe.  Members gave Lynch a deadline to answer their questions by July 6.

Citing May 3, 2017 testimony from former FBI Director James Comey — who expressed concern about the Obama Justice Department — and the June 2016 meeting between Lynch and Bill Clinton, the lawmakers asked the former attorney general to answer further questions about her relationship with not only the Clintons but also the Democratic National Committee. 

The Washington Times provided additional context as to why the actions by Ms. Lynch were concerning to the Senate:

In a letter to Ms. Lynch, the committee asks her to detail the depths of her involvement in the FBI’s investigation, including whether she ever assured Clinton confidantes that the probe wouldn’t “push too deeply into the matter.”

Fired FBI Director James B. Comey has said publicly that Ms. Lynch tried to shape the way he talked about the investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s emails, and he also hinted at other behavior “which I cannot talk about yet” that made him worried about Ms. Lynch’s ability to make impartial decisions. . . . Mr. Comey said that was one reason why he took it upon himself to buck Justice Department tradition and reveal his findings about Mrs. Clinton last year. . . . Mr. Comey said the language suggested by Ms. Lynch was troublesome because it closely mirrored what the Clinton campaign was using. Despite his discomfort, Mr. Comey said, he agreed to Ms. Lynch’s language.

Finally, this investigation by Congress might uncover something, instead of harping on some phantom Russian hacking of votes--to date, there has been NO EVIDENCE of any votes being changed by the Russian government or any other hackers. Perhaps now, they might uncover some actual, new findings.

New York Times Shows Its Political Bias in Ignoring Actual Voter Intimidation

Over the weekend, the New York Times editorialized the following:

Jeff Sessions, the new attorney general, is hardly likely to be as proactive as the Obama administration was in investigating complaints of voter suppression by the states. 

This claim is laughable if it were not a serious matter.  President Obama’s Department of Justice did little or nothing on actual voter intimidation while acting as partisans.  We will limit ourselves to two examples at the beginning and end of President Obama’s term.  

In 2009, the new Obama Department of Justice was handed a “slam dunk” case of violations of Voting Rights Act as the result of the intimidation in the infamous “New Black Panther Party” video outside a polling place.  Yet, Obama political appointees at the Department of Justice overruled career staff in a partisan decision and the case was largely dismissed.  (Jerry Jackson, one of the two in the video, was later rewarded with election to a seat on the Philadelphia Democratic City Committee.)

Late in 2016, Presidential Electors in the state of Michigan received death threats before they cast their ballots for President Thump in the Electoral College.  These crystal clear efforts at intimidation or worse did not merit a peep out of the Obama Justice Department. 

There are other examples.  However, the Obama Administration Department of Justice seemly ignored voter intimidation and many other voting matters and did their job on a partisan basis.  The New York Times' proclamations that the Trump Department of Justice will behave worse when Attorney General Sessions has been on the job only a few days, shows the Times’ political basis.  

Sessions as Attorney General Would End the Politicization of DOJ

Senator Sessions said in his opening statement in his hearing to be Attorney General yesterday:

I revere our Constitution and am committed to the rule of law. And you know that I believe in fairness, impartiality, and equal justice under the law

Compare this to President Obama’s first Attorney General Eric Holder.  Eric Holder often acted more like a counsel to the DNC than United States Attorney General.  He even called himself Obama’s “wingman.” As Senator Grassley stated during Lorretta Lynch’s hearing:

Grassley accused the department of becoming “deeply politicized” under Holder at the opening of the confirmation hearing.

“But that’s what happens when the attorney general of the United States views himself, in his own words, as the president’s 'wingman,’ ” Grassley said.

Unfortunately, that politicization did not end with Lynch replacing Holder.  Obama’s next Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, met with Bill Clinton while his wife and the Democrat nominee to take Obama's place, Hillary, was under Department of Justice investigation.  Even former Obama campaign manager David Axelrod said this was “foolish”.  Yet while some talked of her recusing over the Clinton email scandal, in the end Lynch refused:

Lynch has come under criticism after she met privately on board an aircraft in Phoenix with former President Bill Clinton. She described the encounter as a purely “social” occurrence that won’t “have a bearing” on the e-mail investigation and said: “I certainly would not do it again.” But she emphasized that she wouldn’t recuse herself from her role in reviewing and acting on prosecutors’ findings.

Compare this approach with Senator Sessions' answer on the Hillary Clinton investigation:

Attorney General nominee Jeff Sessions said at his confirmation hearing Tuesday that if confirmed he plans to recuse himself from all issues related to any investigation into Hillary Clinton. He said his rhetoric on the issue during the campaign could lead people to doubt he’d be fair in considering the matter. “I do believe that that could place my objectivity in question… I believe the proper thing for me to do would be for me to recuse myself from any questions regarding those kinds of investigations,” Sessions declared.

The contrast could not be greater.  After 8 years of Attorney Generals that acted like DNC Counsels and politicized the Department of Justice, Senator Sessions would represent a return to ethics and the rule of law.  Everyone should support Senator Sessions to be the next Attorney General.

Democrats Plan to Delay Trump's Nominees; Demanded Speedy Confirmations for Obama's

Newly anointed Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer insists that the rules of the confirmation process are different for President-elect Trump's nominees than they were for President Obama's nominees:

According to reports, Schumer is demanding that hearings for multiple nominees not be held on the same day, severely limiting the ability of committees to have nominees confirmed by inauguration on January 20. 

Schumer is also demanding “reams of personal financial data” from Trump’s nominees. It’s quite a change in approach and tone for Schumer, who in 2009 insisted that then-Treasury Secretary nominee Tim Geithner be confirmed “as quickly as possible,” despite Geithner openly admitting to not paying his full taxes while working at the International Monetary Fund from 2001-2004. 

Apparently unconcerned by the appearance of partisan politics, Schumer’s disinterest in scrutinizing Democratic nominees in 2009 matches closely with his insistence on dragging out the nomination process, potentially into March 2017, for Republicans this time around.

Here are three reasons Democrats gave for needing speedy confirmation of President Obama's nominees:

1. “As Quickly as We Possibly Could” During previous confirmation processes under President Obama, Democrats were eager to point out that “we have always had the tradition of moving these nominees as quickly as we possibly could,” as Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) said in 2015 about Loretta Lynch. 

2. “For the Good of the American People” Democrats in 2008 couched their insistence on a swift confirmation process as something “for the good of the American people,” as Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT) did regarding Department of Justice nominees. Leahy insisted on getting nominees in place “before the inauguration.” 

3. “Prior to the President Actually Taking Office” Former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) praised the idea of holding hearings “prior to the president actually taking office,” which he argued was important in allowing an administration “to get up and moving as quickly as possible.”

All of those reasons could apply to 2017 and President Trump's new administration as well, but Democrats have experienced a change of heart with the new administration and will drag out the process as long as possible.  They have once again failed to learn one of the lessons of 2016: the American people are tired of obstructionism in Washington and have demanded new leadership.

Will Lorreta Lynch Be the Next DNC AG?

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted today to report Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch out of committee and to the floor.

The vote was 12-8 with all Democrats voting in favor of Lynch and all Republicans voting against, except that Senators Hatch, Graham and Flake voted in favor of Lynch.  The Senators voting against were Chairman Grassley, and Senators Sessions, Cornyn, Lee, Cruz, Vitter, Perdue, and Tillis.

Chairman Grassley explained his vote in detail here.  Chairman Grassley is concerned that she will continue to politicize the Justice Department.  As he stated:

Now, I’m confident that if she had demonstrated a little more independence from the President, she would’ve garnered more support here today.  To illustrate why, we need to look no further than the recent confirmation of Secretary Carter to the Department of Defense.  When he testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Secretary Carter demonstrated the type of independent streak that many of us were hoping we’d see from Ms. Lynch.

Most of the media reporting on the two nominations seemed to agree.  Consider these headlines from several major news outlets regarding the Carter nomination:

•    “In Ashton Carter, Nominee for Defense Secretary, a Change in Direction,” The New York Times•    “New Defense Secretary airs differences with Obama over Ukraine, Gitmo,” Washington Times•    “Obama Pentagon pick Carter says he won’t bend to White House Pressure to release Gitmo prisoners,” Fox News•    “Defense nominee Carter casts himself as an independent voice,” The Washington Post

Compare those headlines to these regarding Ms. Lynch, from some of the very same news outlets:
•    “Lynch Defends Obama’s Immigration Action,” The New York Times•    “Loretta Lynch Defends Obama’s Immigration Actions,” Huffington Post•    “Loretta Lynch Defends Obama’s Executive Action, NSA Surveillance,” Newsweek•    “Attorney General Nominee Loretta Lynch defends Obama Immigration policies,” Washington Times

Secretary Carter was confirmed with 93 votes.  Only 5 Senators voted against his nomination.  That lopsided vote was a reflection of his testimony before the Senate, which demonstrated a willingness to be an independent voice within the administration.

I suspect Ms. Lynch will be confirmed, but I doubt she’ll garner 93 votes in support of her nomination.  And to the extent her support isn’t as broad as Secretary Carter’s, it will reflect a reluctance to take the department in a new direction, and her unwillingness to identify meaningful limitations on executive power.

Eric Holder was the DNC Attorney General, let’s hope Ms. Lynch is not as well.  

Is Senator Whitehouse Just a Hypocrite or Something Worse

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse attacked the second day of the Loretta Lynch hearings for examining the record of Eric Holder.  Holder’s Justice Department is one of the most political in history and we have only scratched the surface of what may be going on during his tenure.  It seems relevant to examine if Lynch has the ability and desire to address these many serious and deep problems.  As Chairman Grassley responded:

And the Department of Justice under its current leadership has failed – failed – to meet some of its most basic responsibilities. Every single one of these witnesses – every single one of them – speaks directly to Ms. Lynch’s nomination.  And the question is whether she takes these issues seriously.  Will she work to fix them?And I’d note that it wasn’t too long ago that Democrats agreed it was perfectly appropriate to call witnesses to address what they viewed as problems at the Department. I’d note to the naysayer on the other side, it wasn’t beneath the dignity of the Committee when they were in charge.  So why would it be now?

Chairman Grassley went on to cite one specific area. 

So, for instance, maybe it doesn’t bother you that the IRS targeted conservatives, and the Department doesn’t seem to have taken the issue seriously. But it bothers me a great deal.  And I want to know if Ms. Lynch is committed to tackling this problem, and a range of others. 

Ironically this is an area where Senator Whitehouse was involved.  Briefly:

[Disgraced former IRS Commissioner Lois] Lerner’s agenda was clear. Days after the meeting with Pilger, she addressed the Citizens United decision in a talk at Duke University. “They want the IRS to fix the problem,” Lerner said. “So everybody is screaming at us right now: ‘Fix it before the [2010 midterm] election. Can’t you see how much these people are spending?’”. . .
Three years later, [DOJ’s] Pilger and Lerner were still at it. In a May 2013 e-mail uncovered by Judicial Watch, Lerner discussed with a colleague a call from Pilger on the thoughts of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) about building “false-statement cases” against tax-exempt groups. Whitehouse’s “idea,” Lerner wrote, was “that DoJ could piece together false-statement cases about applicants who ‘lied’ on their [tax-exempt applications].” She added, “DoJ is feeling like it needs to respond.”

Senator Whitehouse’s complaints are seemingly at a minimum hypocritical considering past Democrat actions and may be efforts to protect himself from his own ties from one of DOJ’s scandals.

Questions Arise Whether Ms. Lynch Will Enforce the Law on Immigration

While generally appearing smooth and composed, the substance of some Ms. Lynch's answers were very troubling.  

For example, on immigration, she appear to say all illegal aliens have a right to work.  Later the always crafty politician Schumer tried to help her walk back that answer.  

"I believe that the right and the obligation to work is one that's shared by everyone in this country regardless of how they came here. And certainly, if someone is here, regardless of status, I would prefer that they would be participating in the workplace than not participating in the workplace," she said early in the hearing, under questioning by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.)

However, later in the day, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) gave her the opportunity to clarify her statement and she said she didn't mean to suggest that it's legal for everyone in the U.S. to be employed.

More troubling on immigration was an answer she did not try to walk back:

At another point during the early exchange with Sessions, Lynch also seemed to suggest that employers needed to verify U.S. citizenship during the hiring process, even though that practice is generally prohibited.

"We have in place at this point in time a legal framework that requests — requires employers to both provide information about citizenship, as well as not hire individuals without citizenship,” Lynch said.

The Attorney General is the chief Federal law enforcement official and needs to uphold the law regardless of his/her policy preferences.  Her answers on these and related issues have caused Senator Sessions to announce his opposition to her confirmation:

“President Obama’s executive amnesty represents one of the most breathtaking exertions of executive power in the history of this country. After Congress rejected the President’s favored immigration legislation, the White House met with the interest groups who had crafted that bill and implemented the major provisions of the legislation that Congress had rejected through executive fiat.

The legal opinion attempting to justify this circumvention of Congress was issued by the Attorney General’s Office of Legal Counsel. At the outset of this nomination process, I said that no Senator should vote to confirm anyone for this position—the top law enforcement job in America—who supported the President’s unlawful actions. Congress must defend its constitutional role, which is clearly threatened.

Unfortunately, when asked today whether she found the President’s actions to be ‘legal and constitutional,’ Ms. Lynch said that she did. I therefore am unable to support her nomination.

Ms. Lynch gave troubling answers on other topics as well.  We will detail these in future blog posts as we continue to watch the hearings and hope that Ms. Lynch will give us confidence that she will be a US Attorney General representing all Americans.  

Lynch Must Answer Questions and Prove She Will not be Another DNC AG

Today at 10 a.m. eastern begins the hearings to replace arguably the most partisan Attorney General in History.  Loretta Lynch should be highly scrutinized to ensure she will not continue the shameful practices of Eric Holder.  A number of questions that she should answer.

Jonathan Keim of National Review has a list of questions for Lynch including:

4. Will you adopt changes to the principles of federal prosecution that would eliminate prosecutions based on political considerations?  The current Attorney General, Eric Holder, has been criticized for running a Department of Justice that is oriented toward partisan politics. Urgent action is needed to ensure that the Department of Justice will enforce the criminal laws against lawbreakers across the political spectrum, not just those who happen to be out of power.

As Hans Von Spakovsky and Christian Adams write:

Lynch has an obligation to answer questions about the decisions made by Eric Holder on a host of issues not only to provide guidance on how she would act as attorney general, but also because she has been a member of Holder’s advisory committee of U.S. Attorneys. It is entirely appropriate to ask her what advice she gave Holder on his many questionable decisions and whether she agrees with the legal positions and actions he has taken over the past six years. . . . .

Bias in Hiring

A devastating report by the Department of Justice inspector general in 2013 found deep polarization, mismanagement, and harassment of conservative employees as well as a litmus test imposed in hiring attorneys in the Civil Rights Division — namely, experience with liberal civil-rights organizations, which translates to experience working for the institutional Left. In short, only ideological allies need apply. As a result, the inspector general’s report found that the Civil Rights Division “passed over candidates who had stellar academic credentials and litigation experience with some of the best law firms in the country” and recommended that this litmus test be abolished.

Keim also asks a series of questions on the Constitution, one of which RNLA spent some time fighting.

 

6. Do you agree or disagree with the Obama Administration’s expansive view of its recess appointment powers? In NLRB v. Noel Canning, the Obama Administration expansively interpreted the recess appointments power to allow presidential recess appointments without Senate confirmation when the Senate was, by its own rules, not even in recess.  The administration argued that the power provided a “safety valve” in the face of Senate “intransigence.”But even Justices Kagan and Ginsburg, perhaps the two most liberal justices on the Supreme Court, criticized the government’s position and joined the Court’s opinion rejecting President Obama’s lawless recess appointments

.

These and many more questions are important in the hearing today.  Ms. Lynch needs not only to answer these questions but she needs to prove she will be the United States Attorney General and not the Democrat Party Attorney General as Holder was.  

Would Loretta Lynch be an Extension of Eric Holder’s Tenure as AG?

Eric Holder has used his tenure as U.S. Attorney General to racially and politically divide our country. When the news of his resignation broke, one might have thought that since Eric Holder’s tenure required this administration to deal with one embarrassing mistake after the next, Obama would have selected someone more suited, and maybe even more versed in constitutional law, to lead our country’s Department of Justice (DOJ).

President Obama selected Loretta Lynch, a little-known U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York to replace Eric Holder as Attorney General. With each passing day, we learn more about Ms. Lynch and how her appointment to Attorney General might not be the solution our country needs to restore public confidence inthe DOJ.

Ms. Lynch has made it clear that she would continue the attempts to dismantle election integrity laws that this administration has started. At a speech in Long Beach, NY, Ms. Lynch opined:

Fifty years since the civil rights struggle we stand at a time when we see people trying to take back what Martin Luther King Jr. fought for. People try and take over the State House and reverse the gains made in voting in this country.

It’s not just voter ID laws that Ms. Lynch believes to be “racist,” either. She believes school discipline policies might be racist, stating,

The dream is still continuing not only in the courts but in our schools. And we all know, education is the key. And we understand that discipline is important. We understand that rules are important but we also know that when we sit and look at schools that have the zero tolerance programs, they are often used, and they take our babies, minority children, black children, Hispanic children, and they put them out of school before they have a chance to learn.

And so the Department of Justice, this past year, has gone into the South, although we’re looking further, and brought the first prison, school-to-prison pipeline cases against school districts in Alabama.

Ms. Lynch rounds out her ideas that certain policies are “racist” in being opposed to the death penalty: "Because you can be as fair as possible in a particular case, but the reality is that the federal death penalty is going to hit harder on certain groups."

It appears it isn’t just Eric Holder who views many longstanding reasonable and non-discriminatory policies as “racist,” but Loretta Lynch as well. We do not need an extension of Eric Holder’s divisive tenure as Attorney General.