Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch by any account has the highest legal and educational pedigree imaginable to succeed Eric Holder as U.S. attorney general. From the first moment her name was dropped weeks ago as a possible replacement for Mr. Holder, the accolades were non-stop about her accomplishments prosecuting an assortment of crooked politicians, drug cartel heads, terror suspects and, most importantly, winning a conviction against the New York cops that beat and sodomized Haitian emigrant Abner Louima in 1997. 
An added plus is that she can’t be tagged as one of President Obama’s inner circle cronies, as the GOP repeatedly slandered Mr. Holder.

In the mold of Mr. Holder, she was been outspoken that a lock em’ up and throw the key away approach to crime fighting won’t work, especially when those who are most likely to have the key thrown away are young black males. Ms. Lynch went even further in February 2013 and told a symposium on “Smart Justice: Changing How We Think About Crime and Punishment” at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City that simply dumping more young black males in jail cells is a vicious cycle that ensures they have nowhere to go and no support to break the crime and arrest cycle.

But that forward thinking, and her impeccable legal credentials and unsullied political ties, are likely to count far less if the GOP is tempted to use her as yet another of their foils to hammer President Obama. The first light hint that the GOP may well be poised to follow this well-worn script came from GOP Senators Chuck Grassley and Ted Cruz, both of whom sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee. They were peeved that President Obama would tap Ms. Lynch when many Democrats are lame ducks, and thus curtail the say of the incoming wave of GOP Senate members on Ms. Lynch’s nomination.

Another even more ominous hint that Ms. Lynch could be the GOP’s latest whipping person came with the harp that she is supposedly close to Al Sharpton, and met with him during the protests around the death of Eric Garner by New York police. This quickly morphed into the wild, irresponsible, and politically loaded question, “Did Sharpton pick the next attorney general?”

But that was less the issue than the fact President Obama made the pick — any pick. The GOP could latch on to this in its relentless drive to tar President Obama as an imperial president who thumbs his nose at Congress at every turn and chooses partisan handmaidens to do his bidding.

A brief look at how that ploy played out against Mr. Holder is in order. It began during Mr. Holder’s Senate confirmation hearing in 2009. He was grilled over his role as Deputy Attorney General in President Clinton’s administration in a handful of controversial decisions. Mr. Holder was overwhelmingly confirmed as attorney general. Yet, the flack he took was only the start. The GOP viewed him as a pawn in their relentless attack plan on President Obama. If they could discredit, taint, and tarnish Mr. Holder for even the most picayune act, it would be another slap at the president.

In quick succession the GOP dithered and delayed confirmation of former Sen. Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense and Thomas Perez, as secretary of labor. It did the same with a slew of judicial and administration picks which have been frozen in limbo, withdrawn their names or President Obama has withdrawn them.

The GOP has another compelling reason to try and figure out a way to brush aside Ms. Lynch’s sterling credentials and make her a target. She almost certainly would carry on the fight Mr. Holder waged against voter registration discrimination through aggressive enforcement of the voting rights laws. This poses a major threat to the GOP’s push to undermine the Voting Rights Act with a rash of voter ID laws and restrictions, topped by the lawsuit before the U.S. Supreme Court to scrub the Act.

This is even more important with the opening gun of the 2016 presidential elections around the corner. The GOP’s shellack of Democrats in the recent mid-term elections ultimately would be wiped out if there is an upsurge in black and Latino voters’ dash back to the polls in 2016. They made a huge difference in President Obama’s election and re-election victories, and in ensuring Democratic gains in many state elections in 2008 and 2012. The full enforcement of the Voting Rights Act is a strong safeguard that those gains could be made again in 2016. This is the last thing the GOP wants. This would virtually ensure the continued Democratic hold on the White House.

The GOP may well dig to find any real or manufactured alleged impropriety by Ms. Lynch to toss at her during the confirmation proceedings. The GOP’s dogged vow to hamstring President Obama and further straightjacket his presidency poses the real likelihood that Ms. Lynch could be on the GOP’s hot seat. If so, the issue again will not be Ms. Lynch, but President Obama.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst.