{"id":8235,"date":"2015-02-17T03:26:06","date_gmt":"2015-02-17T03:26:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=8235"},"modified":"2015-02-17T03:26:06","modified_gmt":"2015-02-17T03:26:06","slug":"lets-try-to-define-ags-independence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=8235","title":{"rendered":"Let&#039;s try to define AG&#039;s &#039;independence&#039;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley wants the next attorney general to show some &#8220;independent&#8221; thought if she&#8217;s confirmed to run the Justice Department.<\/p>\n<p>So far, Attorney General-designate Loretta Lynch isn&#8217;t demonstrating the requisite independence to suit Chairman Grassley&#8217;s taste.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"VyBJMQKf47\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/232854-gop-cools-on-loretta-lynch\/\">GOP cools on Loretta Lynch<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;GOP cools on Loretta Lynch&#8221; &#8212; The Hill\" src=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/232854-gop-cools-on-loretta-lynch\/embed\/#?secret=Ah8nsqUWXS#?secret=VyBJMQKf47\" data-secret=\"VyBJMQKf47\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The committee, which has to sign off on her nomination before the full Senate votes on her confirmation, delayed the vote for a couple of weeks. The reason? Lynch hasn&#8217;t put sufficient distance between herself and President Obama on the issue of immigration and the president&#8217;s executive actions that delays deportation of some 5 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll admit to being a bit slow on the uptake at times, so I don&#8217;t quite understand this &#8220;independence&#8221; concern being expressed.<\/p>\n<p>The president nominates Cabinet officers because he wants them to be on the same page as the person who nominates them. How can a member of a president&#8217;s Cabinet exhibit sufficient independence without undermining the overall goals that the administration seeks to achieve?<\/p>\n<p>As The Hill reported: &#8220;I think [Attorney General Eric] Holder is running the Justice Department like a wing of the White House,\u201d\u00a0(Grassley) added. &#8220;That\u2019s not right, and I want her to show us that she can be independent.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So, is the chairman asking Lynch to buck the president on an issue he deems critical enough to take executive action?<\/p>\n<p>How does, say, a defense secretary demonstrate independence when he or she assumes command of the Pentagon, which falls under the ultimate purview of the commander in chief? How does a treasury secretary oversee fiscal policy independent of the president who might have a clear set of economic principles he wants the country to follow?<\/p>\n<p>Maybe there&#8217;s some kind of middle ground that Grassley and other Senate Republicans are seeking from the next attorney general.<\/p>\n<p>I stand by my belief that the president&#8217;s prerogative should carry greater weight if he nominates someone who&#8217;s qualified to do a job.<\/p>\n<p>Accordingly, Loretta Lynch is supremely qualified to be the next attorney general &#8212; even if she happens to support the policies of the president who appoints her.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley wants the next attorney general to show some &#8220;independent&#8221; thought if she&#8217;s confirmed to run the Justice Department. So far, Attorney General-designate Loretta Lynch isn&#8217;t demonstrating the requisite independence to suit Chairman Grassley&#8217;s taste. GOP cools on Loretta Lynch The committee, which has to sign off on her &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=8235\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Let&#039;s try to define AG&#039;s &#039;independence&#039;<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,13],"tags":[502,540,920,1617,2617,2827,4213],"class_list":["post-8235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-news","category-national-news","tag-attorney-general","tag-barack-obama","tag-charles-grassley","tag-eric-holder","tag-justice-department","tag-loretta-lynch","tag-senate-judiciary-committee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8235\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}