Appearing Wednesday on CNN, North
Carolina Governor Pat McCrory dismissed comments made by the federal
government's top prosecutor, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
Rather than repeal a law that targets
the LGBT community, North Carolina Republican officials, including
McCrory, sued the federal government. The lawsuit was met with a
countersuit by the Department of Justice and harsh words from Lynch.
The agency had determined that a
provision of the law that limits the bathroom choices of transgender
people violates the Civil Rights Act and asked the state not to
enforce it.
“It was not so very long ago that
states, including North Carolina, had signs above restrooms, water
fountains and on public accommodations keeping people out based upon
a distinction without a difference,” Lynch said, referring to Jim
Crow laws that segregated based on race.
“It's an insult,” McCrory
told Jake Tapper. “And it's a political statement instead of a
legal statement.”
“Whether a boy can go into [a] girls
restroom, to correlate that to the civil rights movement is totally
irresponsible for the chief legal officer of the United States of
America,” he added.
McCrory went on to blame Democrats for the
law – which was a response to an LGBT protections bill in Charlotte
– approved by GOP leaders.
“North Carolina has, for whatever
reason, become the target of the left on this issue. This is an
agenda of the far left,” he said.