McConnell links vote on AG nominee to trafficking bill

Fredreka Schouten | USA TODAY

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Sunday that he will not schedule a vote to confirm Loretta Lynch as the nation's next attorney general until the Senate breaks its impasse on a human trafficking bill.

"If they want to have time to turn to the attorney general next week, we need to finish up this human trafficking bill," the Kentucky Republican said on CNN's State of the Union.

McConnell said he was not issuing a "threat," but by linking the two issues he is pressuring Democrats drop their objections to a provision in the trafficking bill that would prohibit money in a victim's compensation fund from being used to fund abortions.

Adam Jentleson, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., called on McConnell to "keep his word" and schedule a vote on Lynch's long-pending confirmation this week.

"There is nothing stopping the Senate from confirming Lynch and continuing to debate the trafficking bill this week, except Sen. McConnell's unwillingness to bring her nomination up for a vote," Jentleson said in a statement Sunday.

The Senate Judiciary Committee last month voted 12-8 to advance Lynch to the full Senate, but a confirmation vote there is expected to be close. Republicans have raised increasing objections to her support of President Obama's executive action on immigration.

On Sunday, McConnell said Lynch's confirmation "is suffering from the president's actions -- there's no question about it." McConnell said he has not decided how he will vote.