Jeff Sessions
Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (born December 24, 1946) is an American politician and attorney who served as the 84th United States attorney general from 2017 to 2018. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as United States senator from Alabama from 1997 to 2017 before resigning that position to serve as attorney general in the administration of President Donald Trump.
"Senator Sessions" redirects here. For other uses, see Senator Sessions (disambiguation).
Jeff Sessions
- Dana Boente (acting)
- Rod Rosenstein
William Kimbrough
Don Foster
3
United States
1973–1977
1184th United States Army Transportation Terminal Unit
From 1981 to 1993, Sessions served as the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Alabama. In 1986, President Ronald Reagan nominated Sessions to a judgeship on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama. After allegations of racism were made against him in testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, which Sessions denied, the committee voted against advancing his nomination to the Senate floor; the nomination was later withdrawn. Sessions was elected attorney general of Alabama in 1994. In 1996, he was elected to the U.S. Senate, and was re-elected in 2002, 2008 and 2014. During his Senate tenure, Sessions was considered one of the most conservative senators. His Senate voting record includes votes against comprehensive immigration reform (2006), the 2008 bank bailout, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the Affordable Care Act (2009) and criminal justice reform (2015).
Sessions was an early supporter of Trump's 2016 presidential campaign; he was nominated by Trump for the post of U.S. attorney general. He was confirmed and sworn in as attorney general in February 2017. In his confirmation hearings, Sessions stated under oath that he did not have contact with Russian officials during the 2016 presidential campaign and that he was unaware of any contact between Trump campaign members and Russian officials. However, in March 2017, news reports revealed that Sessions had twice met with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak in 2016. Sessions later recused himself from any investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. As attorney general, Sessions rescinded a memo issued by one of his predecessors, Eric Holder, that had sought to curb mass incarceration by avoiding mandatory sentencing for drug crimes; he ordered federal prosecutors to begin seeking the maximum criminal charges possible. A staunch opponent of illegal immigration, Sessions adopted a hard line on sanctuary cities and told reporters that cities failing to comply with federal immigration policy would lose federal funding. He also played a key role in the implementation of the Trump administration family separation policy. Trump issued an executive order revoking the cities' funding, but that order was overturned by a federal court. Sessions also supported Department of Justice prosecutions of medical marijuana providers.
On November 7, 2018, Sessions tendered his resignation at Trump's request following months of public and private conflict with President Trump over his recusal from investigations relating to Russian election interference. Sessions ran in the 2020 Senate election in Alabama to reclaim his old seat, but lost in the Republican primary to Tommy Tuberville, who was supported by President Trump.
Early life and early career[edit]
Sessions was born in Selma, Alabama, on December 24, 1946,[1] the son of Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, Jr., and the former Abbie Powe.[2] Sessions, his father, and his grandfather were named after Jefferson Davis, a U.S. senator and president of the Confederate States of America,[3] and P. G. T. Beauregard, a veteran of the Mexican–American War and a Confederate general who oversaw the Battle of Fort Sumter that commenced the American Civil War.[4] His father owned a general store in Hybart, Alabama, and later owned a farm equipment dealership. Both Sessions's parents were primarily of English descent, with some Scots-Irish ancestry.[5][6] In 1964, Sessions became an Eagle Scout, and later, he earned the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award for his many years of service.[7]
After attending Wilcox County High School in nearby Camden,[8] Sessions studied at Huntingdon College in Montgomery, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in 1969. He was active in the Young Republicans, the marching band and was student body president.[9] Sessions attended the University of Alabama School of Law and graduated with a Juris Doctor in 1973.[10]
Sessions entered the private practice of law in Russellville and later in Mobile.[11][12] He also served in the Army Reserve in the 1970s with the rank of captain.[11]
U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama (1981–1993)[edit]
Sessions served as an assistant United States attorney in the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama beginning in 1975. In 1981, President Reagan nominated him to be the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Alabama. The Senate confirmed him and he held that position for twelve years. In 1993, Sessions resigned his post after Democrat Bill Clinton was elected President of the United States.[13]
Sessions's office filed civil rights charges in the 1981 killing of Michael Donald, a young African American man who was murdered in Mobile, Alabama, by a pair of Ku Klux Klan members.[14][15] Sessions's office did not prosecute the case, but both men were arrested and convicted.[16]
In 1985, Sessions prosecuted three African American community organizers in the Black Belt of Alabama, including Martin Luther King Jr.'s former aide Albert Turner, for voter fraud, alleging tampering with 14 absentee ballots. The prosecution stirred charges of selective prosecution of black voter registration. The defendants, known as the Marion Three, were acquitted of all charges by a jury after three hours of deliberation. Historian Wayne Flynt told The Washington Post he regarded concerns about tactics employed in the 1984 election and by Turner in particular as legitimate, but also noted Sessions had no history of advocating for black voter rights before 1984.[17][18] Interviewed in 2009, Sessions said he remained convinced that he did the right thing, but admitted he "failed to make the case".[19]
Failed nomination for federal trial court judgeship (1986)[edit]
In 1986, Reagan nominated Sessions to be a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Alabama.[20] Sessions's judicial nomination was recommended and actively backed by Republican Alabama senator Jeremiah Denton.[21] A substantial majority of the American Bar Association Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary, which rates nominees to the federal bench, rated Sessions "qualified", with a minority voting that Sessions was "not qualified".[22] His nomination was opposed by the NAACP, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, and People for the American Way.[18]
At Sessions's confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, four Department of Justice lawyers who had worked with Sessions testified that he made racially offensive remarks. One of those lawyers, J. Gerald Hebert, testified that Sessions had referred to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) as "un-American" and "Communist-inspired" (Sessions said he was referring to their support of the Sandinistas[23]) and that they did more harm than good by trying to force civil rights "down the throats of people".[24] Hebert, a civil rights lawyer,[25] said that he did not consider Sessions a racist, and that Sessions "has a tendency sometimes to just say something, and I believe these comments were along that vein."[26] Hebert also said that Sessions had called a white civil rights attorney "maybe" a "disgrace to his race". Sessions said he did not recall making that remark and he did not believe it.[23]
Thomas Figures, a black assistant U.S. attorney, testified that Sessions said he thought the Ku Klux Klan was "OK until I found out they smoked pot". Sessions later said that the comment was not serious, but did apologize for it, saying that he considered the Klan to be "a force for hatred and bigotry".[27] Barry Kowalski, a prosecutor in the civil rights division, also heard the remark and testified that prosecutors working such a gruesome case sometimes "resort to operating room humor and that is what I considered it to be". Another DOJ lawyer, Albert Glenn, said, "It never occurred to me that there was any seriousness to it."[28][23][26][27] Figures testified that on one occasion, when the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division sent the office instructions to investigate a case that Sessions had tried to close, Figures and Sessions "had a very spirited discussion regarding how the Hodge case should then be handled; in the course of that argument, Mr. Sessions threw the file on a table, and remarked, 'I wish I could decline on all of them'", by which Figures said Sessions meant civil rights cases generally. Kowalski, however, testified that he believed "[Sessions] was eager to see that justice was done in the area of criminal civil rights prosecutions."[28]
Figures also said that Sessions had called him "boy", which Sessions denied. Figures testified that two assistant prosecutors had also heard Sessions, including current federal judge Ginny Granade. Granade denied this.[20][29] He also testified that "Mr. Sessions admonished me to 'be careful what you say to white folks.'" Sessions denied this.[30] In 1992, Figures was charged with attempting to bribe a witness by offering $50,000 to a convicted drug dealer who was to testify against his client. Figures claimed the charge was retaliation for his role in blocking the Sessions nomination. Sessions denied this, saying that he recused himself from the case. Figures was ultimately acquitted.[31][32][33]
Hebert, Kowalski and Daniel Bell, deputy chief of the criminal section in the Civil Rights Division, testified that they considered Sessions to have been more welcoming to the work of the Civil Rights Division than many other Southern U.S. attorneys at the time.[23][26] Sessions has always defended his civil rights record, saying that "when I was [a U.S. attorney], I signed 10 pleadings attacking segregation or the remnants of segregation, where we as part of the Department of Justice, we sought desegregation remedies."[34] Critics later argued that Sessions had exaggerated his involvement in civil rights cases. Michigan Law professor Samuel Bagenstos, reviewing Sessions's claims, argued that "[a]ll this shows is that Sessions didn't completely refuse to participate in or have his name on pleadings in cases that the civil rights division brought during his tenure ... These four cases are awfully weak evidence of Sessions's supposed commitment to civil rights."[35]
Coretta Scott King, the widow of Martin Luther King Jr. wrote to the Senate Judiciary Committee to oppose the nomination. In her letter, she wrote that "Mr. Sessions has used the awesome powers of his office in a shabby attempt to intimidate and frighten elderly black voters."[36]
On June 5, 1986, the committee voted 10–8 against recommending the nomination to the Senate floor, with Republican senators Charles Mathias of Maryland and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania voting with the Democrats. It then split 9–9 on a vote to send Sessions's nomination to the Senate floor with no recommendation, this time with Specter in support. A majority was required for the nomination to proceed.[37] The pivotal votes against Sessions came from his home state's Democratic senator Howell Heflin of Alabama. Although Heflin had previously backed Sessions, he began to oppose Sessions after hearing testimony, concluding that there were "reasonable doubts" over Sessions's ability to be "fair and impartial". The nomination was withdrawn on July 31, 1986.[22]
Sessions became only the second nominee to the federal judiciary in 48 years whose nomination was killed by the Senate Judiciary Committee.[27] He was quoted then as saying that the Senate on occasion had been insensitive to the rights and reputation of nominees.[38] A law clerk from the U.S. District Court in Mobile who had worked with Sessions later acknowledged the confirmation controversy, but stated that he observed Sessions as "a lawyer of the highest ethical and intellectual standards".[39]
When Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania left the GOP to join the Democratic Party on April 28, 2009, Sessions was selected to be the ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee. At that time, Specter said that his vote against Sessions's 1986 federal judicial nomination had been a mistake, adding that he had later found Sen. Sessions to be an "egalitarian".[40]
Attorney General of the United States (2017–2018)[edit]
Nomination[edit]
President-elect Trump announced on November 18, 2016, that he would nominate Sessions to be Attorney General of the United States.[61] Trump would later state in an August 22, 2018, interview with Fox News' Ainsley Earhardt that the only reason he nominated Sessions was because Sessions was an original supporter during his presidential campaign.[62] The nomination engendered support and opposition from various groups and individuals. He was introduced by Senator Susan Collins from Maine who said, "He's a decent individual with a strong commitment to the rule of law. He's a leader of integrity. I think the attacks against him are not well founded and are unfair."[63] More than 1,400 law school professors wrote a letter urging the Senate to reject the nomination.[64][65] A group of black pastors rallied in support of Sessions in advance of his confirmation hearing;[66] his nomination was supported by Gerald A. Reynolds, an African American former chairman of the United States Commission on Civil Rights.[65] Six NAACP activists, including NAACP President Cornell William Brooks, were arrested at a January 2017 sit-in protesting the nomination.[67][68]
On January 10, 2017, the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on his nomination began[69] and were interrupted by protesters.[70][71] The committee approved his nomination February 1 on an 11–9 party-line vote.[72] The nomination then went to the full Senate for a confirmation vote.[73] The vote on Sessions was delayed until after the vote on Secretary of Education nominee Betsy DeVos, because his confirmation – and subsequent resignation from the Senate – would create a temporary vacancy, which otherwise would have jeopardized DeVos's narrow confirmation.[74] On February 7, 2017, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell stopped Senator Elizabeth Warren from reading statements opposing Sessions's nomination as federal judge that had been made by Ted Kennedy and Coretta Scott King. Warren was then officially rebuked per Senate Rule XIX on a party-line vote for "impugning a fellow senator's character".[75] In silencing Warren, McConnell uttered the phrase "Nevertheless, she persisted"; the phrase was later adopted by the feminist movement in referring to women's persistence in breaking barriers.[76] A few hours later Senator Jeff Merkley read without interruption the same letter by King that Warren had attempted to read.[77][78]
On February 8, 2017, Sessions was confirmed as attorney general by a vote of 52 to 47.[79][80] The next day, he was sworn in into his new post.
Personal life[edit]
Sessions and his wife Mary have three children and as of March 2020, ten grandchildren.[305] The family attends a United Methodist church. Specifically, Jeff and Mary Sessions are members of the Ashland Place United Methodist Church in Mobile;[306] Jeff Sessions has taught Sunday school there.[307]
Sources[edit]
This article incorporates public domain material from the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
