Sessions Attorney General Nomination Roundup

Here are some of the notable articles about Sen. Jeff Sessions' nomination as Attorney General from the last week.

Confirm Jeff Sessions as attorney general, 12/16:

Would a racist introduce a bill - the Fair Sentencing Act - that rectified disparities in sentencing for drug crimes, and then work across the aisle for nine years to get it passed and signed into law? As U.S. Senator, Jeff Sessions did precisely that. In a similar vein, would a racist work to desegregate schools in Alabama? As U.S. Attorney, Jeff Sessions successfully desegregated Alabama’s schools. Or would a racist prosecute and seek the death penalty for Henry Francis Hays, a Klansman, on charges of murdering a teenage African American? That conviction was one of Jeff Sessions’ greatest accomplishments, and later, once elected as Alabama’s Attorney General, he ensured that Hays received the death penalty. These are hardly the accomplishments of a racist, of course, and Senate Democrats know the charge that Sen. Sessions is racist is ridiculous.

Attorney General Luther Strange urges confirmation of Jeff Sessions as U.S. Attorney General, 12/16:

Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange joined 24 other state attorneys general in urging the leadership of the Senate Judiciary Committee to confirm the nomination of Senator Jeff Sessions as United States Attorney General. 

“Few positions are more important than our nation’s attorney general,” Attorney General Strange wrote in a joint letter to Senators Chuck Grassley, R-IA, and Patrick Leahy, D-VT, Thursday. 

“The person who fills that role is not only charged with keeping our streets safe, but upholding the legal principles that are the bedrock of our republic. Senator Sessions has proven over a long and distinguished career that he has the character to serve as United States Attorney General for all Americans. We urge his confirmation.”

Trump’s un-PC cabinet matches his campaign promises to a T, 12/17:

President-elect Donald Trump is assembling a Cabinet designed to govern exactly as he promised he would during the campaign. Naturally, the left is freaking out. . . . 

Nor is Attorney General-to-be Jeff Sessions any kind of racist. He got blindsided by such charges during confirmation hearings decades ago, but his public record since then includes successfully prosecuting the Alabama head of the Klan — which set up a civil suit that bankrupted the state branch of that hate group.

Smear Campaign Against Sessions Ignores the Facts, 12/18:

After all, the smear that Sessions is, or was, a racist has come up against a mountain of hard evidence to the contrary. Sessions opposed race-baiting George Wallace when he attended college. In Alabama. In the 1960s. As U.S attorney for the Southern District of Alabama, Sessions prosecuted the Klan and its murderous thugs, and worked to desegregate public schools. Later, as Alabama’s attorney general, he went after the perpetrators of a series of black church arsons in the 1990s. . . . 

What is evident in Sessions’ record is a public servant whose humble background and color-blind concern for everyday Americans made him a principled advocate of working-class people long before Donald Trump ever thought of public office. It animated his pursuit of real racists in Alabama, and his hard-line stance on immigration in Washington, D.C. Sessions was working to “drain the swamp” before draining the swamp was cool, convinced that that the “masters of the universe” from Washington, D.C., to New York City have been stacking the deck for themselves and their connected friends, while conditions stagnated or deteriorated for the rest of America in all its colors. This is the Sessions record, and it’s an admirable one.

Why They Oppose Jeff Sessions as Attorney General, 12/19:

When hearings for attorney general nominee Jeff Sessions start next month, prepare for a trip back in time to 1986. Three decades ago, his nomination for a seat on the federal bench was wrecked because Jeff Sessions fought voter fraud as a United States attorney. 

The same group of far-left activists are again opposing Jeff Sessions because Jeff Sessions will fight voter fraud as attorney general.

Clinton FBI Director Backs Trump's Attorney General Pick Jeff Sessions, Defends His Records on Civil Rights, 12/21:

The campaign to rally support for Donald Trump’s pick to head the Justice Department is growing, with former FBI Director Louis Freeh, who served under President Bill Clinton, now joining the effort. 

In a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Freeh offered his “strong recommendation” that Senators confirm their colleague Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., as the next attorney general, defending his record on civil rights, which has become a key concern for critics. 

“I have known Jeff since 1989 when we worked together as prosecutors on one of the most important civil rights cases investigated and prosecuted by the United States Department of Justice,” Freeh wrote. “[I] have always been greatly impressed with his commitment to the rule of law, his fair and balanced prosecutorial judgment, and his personal dedication to protecting civil rights.”

“Unreliable and Misleading” Charges against Sessions, 12/22:

As I’ve written before, much of the reporting on Senator Sessions’ bid for Attorney General has failed to dig deeper than the top-level talking points of his opponents. New reports ​are out digging up a decades-old lawsuit Sessions was involved with in which a state judge wrote that “the misconduct of the Attorney General in this case far surpasses in both extensiveness and measure the totality of any prosecutorial misconduct ever previously presented to or witnessed by this court.”  

Sounds pretty damning, at least until you learn that the order quoted above itself was found “particularly unreliable and misleading” by a unanimous panel of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. The appellate court faulted the judge below for simply cutting and pasting his order from the opposing lawyer’s briefs, which explains the over-the-top language. Far from finding prosecutorial misconduct, the Eleventh Circuit held that there had been probable cause for prosecution. And it found the trial court’s order to be sufficiently misleading that the $7.2 million verdict in a related civil case was thrown out because the jury had been read that order.