begin quote from:
Donald TrumpAs Trump assails Justice Department, Sessions hangs in — and pushes the president's
As Trump assails Justice Department, Sessions hangs in — and pushes the president's hard-right agenda
President Trump and Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions have had a rocky relationship. (Evan Vucci / Associated Press)
Even
as President Trump has raged at Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions, calling his
actions "disgraceful" this week, Sessions arguably has done more to
deliver on Trump's hard-right agenda than any other member of the
Cabinet.
From
immigration enforcement to battling sanctuary cities, from opposing
marijuana legalization to stopping what Trump labeled "carnage in
America" in his inaugural speech, Sessions has proved a stalwart ally,
if only because the issues were already part of his own conservative
political agenda.
ADVERTISEMENT
After
months of silently enduring Trump's taunts and tweets — mocking the
attorney general as "very weak" and "beleaguered," and all but inviting
him to quit — Sessions raised eyebrows this week when he publicly pushed
back for the first time.
In
a Justice Department statement on Wednesday, Sessions suggested the
president had gone too far by questioning his decision to refer an
internal dispute over a surveillance warrant to the department's
inspector general, as regulations require, rather than to its
prosecutors, as Trump had demanded earlier that day on Twitter
Paid Post
What Is This?
This is what a single diet soda drink does
Report reveals what we have suspected all along — and worse… Watch Now
See More Sponsored Content by
See More Sponsored Content by
"As
long as I am the attorney general, I will continue to discharge my
duties with integrity and honor, and this department will continue to do
its work in a fair and impartial manner according to the law and
Constitution," he wrote.
Trump
has made no secret of his anger ever since Sessions stepped aside last
March from supervising the Russia investigation that has cast a dark
cloud over the White House, a decision that Trump apparently viewed as a
betrayal of Sessions' loyalty to him.
Despite
Sessions' hard-right bona fides — he was considered one of the most
conservative members of the U.S. Senate during his four terms in office —
other conservatives have begun to pile on. Even his one-time Senate
colleague from Alabama, fellow Republican Richard Shelby, hinted that it
might be time for Sessions to walk.
"I
wouldn't stay at all unless the president wanted me to stay, if he
appointed me," Shelby said Thursday on Fox News. "I wouldn't be
anybody's whipping boy."
White
House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders offered little in the way
of reassurance, saying, "The president has made his frustrations very
clear." Asked if Trump wants Sessions to resign, she said, "Not that I
know of."
Sessions
has shown no sign he's about to give in. Friends and associates say he
is willing to endure the abuse to stand up for the Justice Department
and the rule of law, and continue his mission of remaking its policies
to fit his deeply conservative, tough-on-crime philosophy.
"He's
decided he's not going to be run out by the president," said Armand
DeKeyser, Sessions' former chief of staff in the Senate. "He knows the
bullets are flying all around him, and at him — most of the time at him.
Nothing has been a mortal wound so far. I think he'll keep fighting the
good fight and keep doing the best he can to protect the Justice
Department."
A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment.
Sessions
spent six years as an assistant U.S. attorney in Alabama before
President Reagan nominated him in 1981 to be U.S. attorney for the
Southern District of Alabama, a job he held for 12 years. Over that
time, Sessions developed a strong affection for the Justice Department
and its traditions, friends and associates say.
Laurie
Robinson, now a law professor at George Mason University, said she grew
friendly with Sessions while she worked in the Justice Department and
he served on the Senate Judiciary Committee. When she was named an
assistant attorney general, Sessions came to her swearing-in and,
Robinson said, seemed delighted to be back in the Justice building.
"While
there are many areas where I don't agree with him, from a policy
standpoint, he's someone I believe is very committed to the mission of
the Department of Justice," Robinson said.
Sessions
was the first U.S. senator to endorse Trump's presidential campaign,
and he did so when most of his Senate colleagues and the GOP were openly
disdainful. As a key advisor, Sessions strongly supported the harsh
anti-immigration message that helped propel Trump to the White House.
"Immigration
is [Trump's] thing, it's what he sees as most important — and Sessions
is one of the people who is making that happen," said Mark Krikorian,
executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that
pushes for lower immigration, both legal and illegal.
As
a senator, Sessions was a fierce fighter for the anti-immigration
cause, playing a key role in the defeat of two major reform bills,
including an ambitious effort in 2013 that had bipartisan support.
"In
a sense, the president's attacks on him are the cross he has to bear in
order to bring about the changes he thinks are necessary," said
Krikorian, who grades Sessions an "A-plus" on immigration issues
important to his group.
Though
the Department of Homeland Security handles immigration enforcement,
Sessions has utilized nearly every tool available at the Justice
Department to support the widening crackdown under the Trump
administration.
He
has added 50 immigration judges to reduce a backlog that has clogged
courts and delayed deportations. He has applied increasing pressure on
so-called sanctuary states and cities that don't cooperate with
immigration enforcement.
And
he has provided Trump with the legal opinion to support the president's
decision to end the Obama-era program that deferred deportations for
more than 700,000 so-called Dreamers, undocumented migrants who came to
the U.S. as children. When Trump decided to rescind the program, it was
Sessions who announced it.
Like
Trump, Sessions speaks constantly of MS-13, the violent Salvadoran gang
that was born in Southern California, using it as an example of the
dangers of illegal immigration.
Sessions
also has moved aggressively to reverse Obama administration policies
that attempted to end the use of private prisons, pressure cities to
reform police practices and roll back long prison sentences.
He has moved to bring back the controversial practice of civil forfeiture, when law enforcement seizes property used in crimes.
With
an antipathy to drugs dating to his experience as a prosecutor in the
1970s, Sessions also canceled an Obama administration policy that
provided harbor for states that legalized recreational marijuana.
In
what could prove one of his most consequential changes, he told federal
prosecutors to once again file the toughest charges possible against
defendants in drug cases, scrapping an Obama-era policy by former Atty.
Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. that encouraged more discretion against
low-level offenders.
And
he has worked to scuttle a proposed bipartisan sentencing reform bill
in the Senate, drawing an angry rebuke from his former colleague, Sen.
Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), head of the Judiciary Committee.
"The
U.S. attorneys pay close attention to what the attorney general says,"
says Christy Lopez, a Georgetown Law School professor and former deputy
chief of the Justice Department's civil rights division.
"Eric
Holder made it known that he wanted every U.S. attorney to pay
attention to civil rights," she said, "This attorney general has made it
very clear that he believes marijuana possession and sales should be
punished to the greatest extent of law. That's going to be heard as
well."
Inside the department, Sessions' unusual first year has left many career employees uneasy, and conflicted.
"On
the one hand, a lot of people are concerned about the policies," said
Robinson. "But then they're even more concerned about the White House
attacks, because that really goes to the independence and integrity of
the department."
On
Wednesday, hours after Trump's latest attack on Sessions, Deputy Atty.
Gen. Rod Rosenstein, who is supervising the Russia investigation, and
Solicitor General Noel Francisco, the third-ranking official at Justice,
were photographed having dinner with Sessions at a restaurant across
the street from the Justice Department and the Trump International
Hotel, a move some interpreted as a public show of solidarity with their
boss.
In
a speech in San Diego on Friday, Rosenstein spoke up for Sessions and
the department's "ethics and professionalism." He also talked of working
under the portraits of past attorneys general — mentioning John
Ashcroft, who famously refused to sign off on a White House order to
authorize a secret surveillance program under President George W. Bush.
"History will reflect that the Department of Justice operated with integrity on our watch," Rosenstein said.
Twitter: @jtanfani
No comments:
Post a Comment