Jeff Sessions

Sen. Baldwin Explains Why She Won't Vote To Confirm Sessions For Attorney General

... expansion of hate crimes law , it gives me great concern,” she said. “It’s at a time when I believe we actually need to increase resources and focus on that part of the department of justice.”. You can listen to the full interview here. Baldwin is also concerned about how Sessions might investigate and prosecute hate crimes such as the massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando last June, which left 49 people dead, most of them queer Latinx. “The aftermath of the massacre at the Pulse nightclub that targeted LGBT Americans, Latinos was a hate crime where we saw at that moment, that tragic, tragic moment, we saw people unwilling to speak of it as a hate crime, and to acknowledge that it was a crime that was perpetrated against the LGBT community, the Latino community,” she said. “It just says to me: we need to be increasing resources for prevention of hate crimes and ...

Scandal Complicates Replacing Jeff Sessions

... an impeachment probe into the governor, who’s been accused of misusing state funds and having an affair with a former aide. While the governor has kept his cards close to the chest, Alabama strategists consider Strange to be the front-runner for both the appointment and the 2018 election, which he has already declared plans to run for. But some have noted his chances could be hurt by the attention the governor’s scandal would draw to his appointment, since appointing Strange to the seat would give Bentley a chance to appoint the next attorney general. The state’s Ethics Commission is reportedly wrapping up an investigation into possible ethics violations by Bentley and a former political adviser, Rebekah Caldwell Mason. Complaints were filed against them last year after allegations that Bentley had an affair with Mason. The two have denied the affair and any illegal activity, despite the release of salacious recordings of the governor discussing his relationship with Mason. Still, Bentley apologized for making inappropriate comments to Mason after the recordings of his calls were released. In November, Strange asked Alabama’s House Judiciary Committee to end an investigation ...

Trump’s Hard-line Actions Have An Intellectual Godfather

... policy adviser Stephen Miller, a Sessions confidant who was mentored by him and who spent the weekend overseeing the government’s implementation of the refu­gee ban. The tactician turning Trump’s agenda into law is deputy chief of staff Rick Dearborn, Sessions’s longtime chief of staff in the Senate. The mastermind behind Trump’s incendiary brand of populism is chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, who, as chairman of the Breitbart website, promoted Sessions for years. Then there is Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, who considers Sessions a savant and forged a bond with the senator while orchestrating Trump’s trip last summer to Mexico City and during the darkest days of the campaign. [ Trump lays groundwork to change U. S. role in the world ]. In an email in response to a request from The Washington Post, Bannon described Sessions as “the clearinghouse for policy and philosophy” in Trump’s administration, saying he and the senator are at the center of Trump’s “pro-America movement” and the global nationalist phenomenon. “In America and Europe, working people are reasserting their ...

Five Myths About Sen. Jeff Sessions

... Congress won’t go along with mass deportations of undocumented immigrants who don’t have criminal records. Myth No. 4. Sessions would revive an ’80 s-style war on drugs. “The war on drugs is coming back” under Sessions, Slate predicted in November. Similar warnings have appeared in Politico and Newsweek. As a U. S. attorney, Sessions had a reputation for aggressive prosecution of drug offenses. And in the Senate, he has pushed for tougher enforcement of drug laws. Federal drug enforcement may become a higher priority under Sessions than it was under Obama’s attorney generals. But bringing back a full-scale war on drugs — a la Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign — isn’t likely. Critics fear that Sessions would go after the marijuana industry in the states that permit medical marijuana (28 states and the District) or recreational uses (eight states and D. C.). Under the Obama administration, the Justice Department chose not to pursue most individual recreational users in states that had legalized marijuana, instead focusing on preventing distribution to minors or across state lines. ...

5 Fast Facts You Need To Know

... June 28 th, 2016. (Getty). On Monday night, Yates ordered the Justice Department not to defend President Trump’s executive order, saying that she does not believe it is lawful. “I am responsible for ensuring that the positions we take in court remain consistent with this institution’s solemn obligation to always seek justice and stand for what is right,” Yates said in her letter, according to The New York Times. “At present, I am not convinced that the defense of the executive order is consistent with these responsibilities nor am I convinced that the executive order is lawful.”. Yates went on to say, “For as long as I am the acting attorney general, the Department of Justice will not present arguments in defense of the executive order, unless and until I become convinced that it is appropriate to do so.”. She was fired from her position hours later. 5. The White House Says She ‘Betrayed’ the Department of Justice. President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House on January 24, 2017. (Getty). In a statement released on Monday night, the White House said that Sally Yates has betrayed the Department of Justice. The ...

Why Jeff Sessions Is Important To Donald Trump's White House Staff

... cities.". Advertisement - Continue Reading Below. "Cosmopolitan elites"? Didn't know I was living in Weimar. At least he didn't say it from atop a banquet table in a beer hall. Getty Drew Angerer. That is the straight stuff. From the top now, right from the Oval Office, the Republican Party is attaching itself to contemporary white nationalism the world over. (Here, from Think Progress , is my old TV pal Congressman Steve King, going around the world to kiss jackboots of many lands.) If the Republican Party doesn't like the way that sounds, it can distance itself from its president and from his handlers. Or, it can own this particular political strategy lock, stock, and armbands. Most Popular. The party is daring the country to stand by the progress it has made on its founding principles ever since the ink dried at Appomattox. It is trying to bluff a self-governing republic into committing suicide just the way those renegade CBP ...

Delay Sessions Confirmation Vote Until ‘muslim Ban’ Is Stopped

... published. You’ll receive free e-mail news updates each time a new story is published. You’re all set. By David Weigel By David Weigel January 30 at 9:16 AM Follow daveweigel. Protesters sit in the international terminal at San Francisco International Airport on Jan. 29. (Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images). On a call organized by Move __link__ on Sunday night, ACLU political director Faiz Shakir encouraged activists to demand a slowdown in the Senate until President Trump’s executive orders on immigration and refugees were tacked back. “We’ve got [attorney general nominee] Jeff Sessions, who we’re told was involved somehow in the drafting of these executive orders,” said Shakir. “If they want to press this through, say: You don’t get an attorney general until you overturn the Muslim ban.”. Currently, the Alabama senator’s nomination for attorney general is scheduled for a Tuesday morning vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee, and is expected to be recommended with every Republican voting in favor and every Democrat voting against. In the full Senate, only one Democrat , Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W. Va.), has ...

As Attorney General, Jeff Sessions Would Be A Threat To Civil Rights

... host of ways. He could support a federal voter-ID law as well as a proof-of-citizenship law for voter registration, which would disenfranchise millions of eligible Americans. He could pressure states to purge their voting rolls in discriminatory and inaccurate ways and force US Attorneys to prosecute bogus cases of voter fraud , as happened during the George W. Bush administration. He could switch sides in cases that the Justice Department is arguing under the Voting Rights Act and question the constitutionality of its remaining parts. The stakes are higher now than ever. Get The Nation in your inbox. Sessions will be the most dangerous on issues where the Obama administration has been the most successful, such as voting rights and criminal-justice reform. As a US senator, he “is one of few Republican legislators who does not ...