PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Attorney Loretta Lynch testified Wednesday in front of Congress as part of her confirmation hearings to become Eric Holder’s successor as Attorney General.
Cornell University Clinical Professor, Director of the Securities Law Clinic, contributor for Legalinsurrection.com, and Harvard classmate of Lynch, William Jacobson told WPHT morning host Chris Stigall that he is troubled by her testimony, specifically with regards to her answers — or non-answers — on President Obama’s immigration policy.
“I’m about 95% of the way saying that it should be a deal breaker on her nomination, because it’s the concept that knowing full well that the main opposition to her is going to come on immigration, for her to come up there and say that she hasn’t studied enough or she’s not familiar enough with it is very troubling. It’s more troubling than what she actually answered, because that does tell me that this is somebody just trying to get through the nomination process as opposed to legitimately answering the questions — that to me is extremely troubling.”
While Lynch did share opinions on some issues, such as the legalization of marijuana (which she does not support), what particularly worried Jacobson is how she responded to questioning on immigration and how she feels that it had to do with prosecutorial discretion.
“I think that she was evasive, deliberately, on the immigration issue, and to the extent that she expressed an opinion, it was an opinion supportive of the Holder position that the Obama administration is justified in the sweeping non-application of immigration laws, which is not prosecutorial discretion. Prosecutorial discretion would be like deciding that we’re only going to pull over on the highway people who go 20 miles an hour over the speed limit, but what they’ve done is they’ve said there is this whole class of four to five million people who are now not subject to the speed limit.”
While he feels that her statements on immigration should get her appointment denied, saying that “the Senate needs to take a very serious look at her answers and non-answers on the immigration issue, since that is the number one law enforcement issue we’re facing right now,” Jacobson is confident that she will be confirmed anyway.
