Attorney General: Jeff Sessions

Summary

The confirmation hearing for Attorney General (AG) Jeff Sessions centered around his opinions about race, specifically his rejection to a district court appointment in 1986 due to allegations of racism. Democrats argued anyone unfit for district court is unfit to be an AG. Republicans claimed the allegations were a smear campaign. While his racist comments are difficult to substantiate, his xenophobia and homophobia are well established, as are his backwards and failed stances on drugs and drug policies. Socially moderate conservatives or libertarians are most likely to be convinced that Sessions is a bad choice for AG. People who share his narrow-minded perspectives will not be convinced by any points below. 

Background

Position of Attorney General

1. The Attorney General (AG) of the United States is the chief law enforcement officer, lawyer, and legal counsel to the president.
2. The AG supervises and directs the administration and operations of the Department of Justice which includes the FBI, the DEA, the ATF, Bureau of Prisons, US Attorneys, and US Marshals.
3. Historically, AGs have played a significant part in legitimizing presidential policies by defending them legally.
   • John Ashcroft, George W. Bush’s first AG, helped legitimize the Patriot Act and the CIA’s use of torture.
   • Eric Holder, Obama’s first AG, helped legitimize Obama’s use of drone strikes.  

SENATOR Jeff Sessions

1. Sessions got his law degree in Alabama, where he was born and served in the Army Reserve.
2. Reagan appointed Sessions to the position of US Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama in 1981. He served until 1993 and then served as Attorney General of the state of Alabama from 1995 to 1997. Sessions has served as a US Senator since 1997.
3. Sessions is considered to be one of the most conservative senators in congress.
4. Sessions was a policy advisor to Trump on issues like immigration.
5. He officially endorsed Trump in February 2016, one of the first senators to do so.  

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THE BEST DEFENSES: JEFF SESSIONS

Response 1: Sessions was appointed AG of Alabama in the eighties and his opinion on drug policy hasn’t changed since. Most Democrats and Republicans have learned from their mistakes in the “War on Drugs.” Not Sessions. When Trump appointed Sessions to become our next AG, he appointed the biggest proponent of decades of failed drug policy to the highest criminal justice position in the country.

• Sessions views the “War on Drugs” as a success despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Check out the Drug Policy Alliance if you need more info on the failures and casualties of the war on drugs.
• He defends the severe sentencing and mandatory minimums that other Republicans and Republican leaders have criticized.
  • Fellow Republicans like Chris Christie, Rick Perry, and Jeb Bush argue for the treatment rather than the imprisoning of non-violent drug offenders.
  • Sessions played a key role in blocking the bipartisan sentencing reform that fellow Republican Paul Ryan tried to enact in 2016.
• Sessions still supports Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign on drugs even though it has been shown to be a complete failure.
• At a time when marijuana is becoming more socially acceptable, Sessions remains the biggest opponent to legalization.
• Sessions has such an outdated perspective that he still thinks marijuana is a gateway drug and that weed is more dangerous than alcohol. Both these claims have almost universally been accepted as not true.

Response 2: Sessions’ version of “upholding law and order” includes enforcing extreme anti-immigration policies. Sessions isn’t just the least empathetic senator to the plight of undocumented immigrants, he opposes legal immigration and has accepted awards from anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim hate groups.

• When members of his own party tried immigration reform Sessions spearheaded the opposition.
  • Sessions opposed the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007, a bill which then-President Bush and important Republicans in Congress supported.
    • The bill included compromises like stricter border control but any path to citizenship for Sessions was a deal-breaker.
• Trump’s extreme immigration platform was crafted, in part, by Sessions who acted as a policy advisor to Trump on immigration.
• He supported Trump’s “Muslim immigration ban.”
• Sessions has been praised as “the instrumental force in quashing repeated attempts to pass comprehensive immigration reform.”
• In 2015, Sessions argued to reduce legal immigration claiming even legal immigrants increase unemployment and drive down wages. Studies have proved this wrong over and over again. The truth is:
  • By taking low-skilled jobs, immigrants actually free up comparatively higher-skilled, native-born workers for higher paying jobs that are more productive for the economy overall.
  • Additionally, research shows that immigrants and native-born workers do not typically compete for the same jobs.
• Sessions has gone so far as to criticize the 14th Amendment’s definition of a citizen as it includes birthright citizenship, which he says wasn’t intended for the children of undocumented immigrants.
• Sessions regularly attends events, has received awards, and draws on the of work controversial anti-immigration and anti-muslim groups including The Federation of American Immigration Reform, The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), NumbersUSA, The David Horowitz Freedom Center, and The Center for Security Policy (CSP).
  • All of these groups have been labeled hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a legal nonprofit that works on civil rights issues.

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Response 1: While there is debate about his racism toward African Americans, no one questions his hostile views on immigrants.

• Sessions regularly attends events, has received awards, and draws on the of work controversial anti-immigration and anti-muslim groups including The Federation of American Immigration Reform, The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), NumbersUSA, The David Horowitz Freedom Center, and The Center for Security Policy (CSP).
  • All of these groups have been labeled hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a legal nonprofit that works on civil rights issues.

Response 2: The accusations of racism that lost him his appointment in 1986 weren’t a liberal smear then and aren’t now.

• J. Gerald Herbert, a civil rights lawyer who knows Sessions and testified against him in 1986, reiterated after the election of Trump that:
  • Sessions implied that maybe a federal judge was a “traitor to his race” for defending black clients.
  • Sessions referred to the NAACP and the ACLU as “un-American” for “trying to force civil rights down the throats of people who were trying to put problems behind them.”
  • He charged three civil rights activists (one of which was an advisor of Martin Luther King jr.) with mail fraud and voting fraud for helping elderly, black voters cast their mail-in ballots.
• Sessions is a supporter of voter ID laws which discriminate against minorities.
• Sessions described the voting rights act as “intrusive” in 1986.
• Sessions supported the removal of section 4 of the voting rights act in 2013.

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Response 1: Unfortunately, one of Sessions’ strong convictions is that the LGBTQ+ community shouldn’t have equal rights. There’s no debate as to whether Sessions is a man of principle. The debate is whether the principles of the man who will be the highest American law enforcement agent includes equal treatment of gay Americans.

• As attorney general of Alabama, Sessions fought to limit the LGBTQ+ community's constitutional right to assemble.
  • In 1996, Sessions aggressively fought to prevent an LGB conference from occurring at the University of Alabama based on the fact that a LGB conference “fosters or promotes a lifestyle [sic] or actions prohibited by the sodomy and sexual misconduct laws.”
  • After a federal judge declared that shutting down the conference would be against the First Amendment, Sessions doubled down, saying “I intend to do everything I can to stop that conference.”
• In 2002, Sessions voted against adding sexual orientation and gender identity to existing hate crime law. 
• In 2006, Sessions co-sponsored and voted in favor of a constitutional amendment known as the Marriage Protection Amendment. By limiting marriage to a union between a man and a woman, this amendment discriminated against same-sex couples seeking equal civil rights and social acceptance that marriage provides to heterosexual couples.

Response 2: His convictions, while honestly held, are wrong about drug policy. His principled stances on drugs will lead us to make the same mistakes over and over.

• Sessions views the War on Drugs as a success despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Check out the Drug Policy Alliance if you need more info on the failures and casualties of the war on drugs.
• He defends the severe sentencing and mandatory minimums that other Republicans and Republican leaders have criticized.
  • Fellow Republicans like Chris Christie, Rick Perry, and Jeb Bush argue for the treatment rather than the imprisoning of non-violent drug offenders. 
  • Sessions played a key role in blocking the bipartisan sentencing reform that fellow Republican Paul Ryan tried to enact in 2016.
• Sessions still supports Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign on drugs even though it has been shown to be a complete failure.
• At a time when marijuana is becoming more socially acceptable, Sessions remains the biggest opponent to legalization.
• Sessions has such an outdated perspective that he still thinks marijuana is a gateway drug and that weed is more dangerous than alcohol. Both these claims have almost universally been accepted as not true.

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Response 1: What defines a career politician if not being a politician for twenty years?

• Sessions has represented Alabama in the Senate since 1997. He’s currently serving his fourth term.
• It’s true he doesn’t receive much corporate money, but his salary as a US senator has earned him over three million dollars.

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Warnings

If you intend to go after Sessions for his racism, be prepared. The evidence to back up his prejudice toward African Americans is harder to come by than his anti-immigrant positions. Additionally, conservative media outlets like Town Hall, Milo, and Breitbart have all jumped to his defense, bringing up examples of civil rights legislation Sessions supported.

Sessions is, by all accounts, a nice guy. Even his opponents describe him as such. Try to avoid talking about him personally.

He has been consistently critical of corporations in his speeches. He doesn’t have a lot of corporate sponsorship. Don’t criticize him as a corporate stooge.

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