Barrasso: AG nominee will face questions on immigration

Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said President Obama’s nominee for attorney general will have to tell lawmakers if “executive amnesty” is legal.

Last week, Obama announced that he was nominating Loretta Lynch to replace Eric Holder as head of the Department of Justice. 

{mosads}“She is going to have to specifically come to the Hill, talk about trying to get better relations between the departments and the Hill, and specifically answer questions about executive amnesty. Is it legal? Is it constitutional?” Barrasso said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Senate Democrats could try to approve her nomination in the lame-duck session, but Barrasso warned against it.

“We have not done an attorney general confirmation in a lame-duck since 1906 — and that was in the same party,” Barrasso said. “The last time we’ve done one with a change of party was when James Buchanan was leaving the White House and Abraham Lincoln was coming in. So as I say, what the president does in two months is very consequential for the next two years.”

Other Republicans, such as Sens. Jeff Sessions (Ala.), Ted Cruz (Texas) and Mike Lee (Utah) have also said the nominee should rebuke Obama’s planned executive order on immigration policy.

The administration had announced that after the midterm election it would issue an executive order allowing nearly 5 million immigrants to stay in the United States on worker visas — many of the immigrants have U.S. children. But Republicans have blasted the idea, calling it “executive amnesty.”