Patty Murray is publicly opposing Sessions. Read her statement in The Hill and call Murray's office to express appreciation.
Ask Senator Cantwell to speak out, lobby, whatever, against Sessions.
WA
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Cantwell (D-WA)
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(206) 220-6400
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(202) 224-3441
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WA
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Murray (D-WA)
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(425) 259-6515
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(202) 224-2621
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TODAY, Jan 25: SESSIONS REFUSING TO RECUSE HIMSELF:
“Attorney general nominee Jeff Sessions won’t commit to recusing himself from potential Justice Department investigations into controversies involving Trump — from Russia to business conflicts of interest — despite his vigorous campaigning on behalf of Trump during the 2016 election season,” Politico’s Seung Min Kim reports. “In written responses to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sessions said repeatedly that he is ‘not aware of a basis to recuse myself’ from issues surrounding Trump such as potential violations of the Emoluments Clause, a constitutional ban on officials accepting payments from foreign governments. That differs from Sessions’ vow to recuse himself from any ongoing issues involving the federal probe into Clinton’s use of a private email server. Sessions said during his confirmation hearing that he would step aside from any such investigations because his political rhetoric against Clinton during the campaign ‘could place my objectivity in question.”
The Post’s Editorial Board says the Senate should not confirm Sessions until he agrees to such a recusal: “Mr. Trump has tapped Rod J. Rosenstein, a respected career prosecutor, to be deputy attorney general. Mr. Sessions should have no qualms about entrusting him with these politically vexing issues. It would raise confidence in his Justice Department and save him plenty of headaches.”
Another reason this matters: Sessions could wind up being the point man on the investigation into voter fraud that Trump promised on Twitter this morning. As Matt Zapotosky and Sari Horwitz note, “Sessions has in the past asserted that voter fraud exists, though he has declined to endorse Trump’s assertion that millions of fraudulent votes were cast in the 2016 election. ‘I don’t know what the president-elect meant or was thinking when he made that comment or what facts he may have had to justify his statement,’ Sessions said at his confirmation hearing earlier this month, asked point blank by Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) whether he agreed with Trump. ‘I would just say that every election needs to be managed closely and we need to ensure that there is integrity in it. And I do believe we regularly have fraudulent activities occur during election cycles.’ …
“President-day civil liberties advocates fear Session’s and Trump’s views on voter fraud could serve as a basis for them to support voter ID laws that disenfranchise poor or minority voters, such as the one in North Carolina that was overturned by the Supreme Court last summer. Studies have shown in-person voter fraud, which the laws are designed to prevent, is exceptionally rare. They are also concerned that Sessions hailed as ‘good news, I think, for the South’ a Supreme Court decision that gutted a critical section of the Voting Rights Act. … One of Sessions’s early tests will be how — if he is confirmed — his Justice Department handles a voter ID law in Texas considered one of the strictest in the country.”
Sessions spent his time in
the Senate opposing any kind of immigration reform and supporting anti-immigrant
extremist groups. He supports mass deportation and building a wall
between the U.S. and Mexico. He has
no problem with a religious ban on Muslims
entering the U.S. He was
virtually alone in his legal conclusion that what
Donald Trump described in the Access Hollywood video was not technically sexual assault. He has vocally opposed marriage equality and
civil rights protections for LGBT victims of hate crimes. He praised the Supreme Court’s decision to
eviscerate the core of the Voting Rights Act. And of course as attorney general
in Alabama in the early 1980s, he prosecuted a group known as the Marion Three for alleged voter fraud. As Ari Berman has described it, Sessions spearheaded a 1985 effort to
charge three people, one of whom was 92 years old, with felony voter fraud for
helping elderly black Americans vote in Alabama. A jury later acquitted them on
all counts. Also he has advocated stripping funding from
sanctuary cities.
In the right-leaning Washington Examiner, Johnny
Kampis writes that abuse has “fueled calls for reform of civil asset
forfeiture, a practice that allows law enforcement officers to take property
when there is simply a suspected link to criminal activity.” Kampis notes:
An estimated $5 billion in cash and property was
seized in 2014. Some reforms have been made: A handful of states, including
Nebraska, now require a criminal conviction to seize property, while former
Attorney General Eric Holder put some restrictions in place to try to curb
state and local police’s use of the practice.
Now President-elect Trump has selected Sen. Jeff
Sessions, R-Ala., to be his attorney general. Sessions defended civil asset
forfeiture during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the topic in 2015.
Democrats and Republicans on the committee generally spoke against the
practice, including Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who went toe-to-toe with
the Fraternal Order of Police on the issue.
A good right-of-center condemnation of Sessions on civil forfeiture is
here - by
George Will. Other articles note that he
is a strong opponent of states legalizing marijuana.
NYRB recently published "Five Questions for Jeff Sessions."
The ACLU has published a major report: "Senator Sessions Has a Long History.
