If you thought for a second that "moderate" Republican and "moderate" Democratic senators would ever come together to stop one of their bretheren in the august body like avowed racist Sen. Jeff Sessions from becoming Trump's Attorney General, then you're a bigger fool than I can ever help you with.
Sen. Jeff Sessions is looking like a safe bet for Senate confirmation as attorney general — despite the Alabama lawmaker’s controversial past.
Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), a potential swing vote on the Senate Judiciary Committee, will support Sessions, a spokesman said Friday. That's a key pickup, given Flake's moderate views on immigration and social issues, and his opposition to Donald Trump during the campaign. Then moderate Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) said he would support Sessions as did moderate Republican Susan Collins of Maine, all but clinching his elevation.
If Sessions can clear committee, he’ll likely win a floor vote to become the nation’s top law enforcement official, GOP Senate insiders said. Republicans will likely have 52 votes in the next Congress, and Trump's Cabinet picks can't be filibustered because Democrats unilaterally changed Senate rules three years ago to eliminate the 60-vote threshold for most nominations.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said Sessions’ long history as a senior member of his committee bodes well for his confirmation prospects.
“He knows the Justice Department as a former U.S. attorney, which would serve him very well in this position. With this background, I'm confident he would be reported favorably out of the committee,” Grassley said in a statement.
The new top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, declined to take a hard line against Sessions despite their divergent views. She said the GOP senator will go through a “full and fair process.”
There will be no more than token resistance to Sessions being confirmed, and then the Department of Justice will become an extremely powerful weapon the Trump administration will use against people of color, Muslims, and LGBTQ-Americans at every opportunity.
An avowed racist like Sessions in charge of the DoJ's voting rights and civil rights division will set the country back decades.
Which, of course, was Trump's campaign promise from the beginning.
You have to admire Trump's strategy: making sure his first major cabinet choice is a twenty-year Senate veteran who has all sorts of favors to be called in, and will easily win confirmation from a sea of colleagues who have known him for years. That of course will make resistance to the rest of Trump's cabinet selections that much harder.
And make no mistake, nobody is more eager to make a truncheon out of the DoJ to be used against people like me than this vile chancre of an asshole.
After nearly a quarter-century away, Mr. Sessions — now known simply as Jeff — is poised to return to the department to clean house as President-elect Donald J. Trump’s nominee for attorney general, with a mandate to carry out the “law and order” agenda Mr. Trump promised on the campaign trail.
If he is confirmed, Mr. Sessions, who is considered one of the most conservative members of the Senate, will most likely push for wholesale changes and hard-line stances on immigration, terrorism, crime, drugs and guns. Democrats fear he could wipe away progress in civil rights, changes in sentencing and police accountability.
“The Justice Department is likely to be one of the most transformed departments in the cabinet in a Trump administration, and with an Attorney General Sessions, you’d obviously see a very strong law-and-order figure at the top,” said Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor.
“Much of his self-identity is as a prosecutor — a real, in-the-trenches prosecutor,” said Mr. Turley, who testified before Mr. Sessions at a Senate hearing last year about the Obama administration’s use of executive authority.
Mr. Sessions, 69, was the first senator to endorse Mr. Trump in February, when many Republicans were still shunning the businessman. He has since become a close adviser.
Expect his first target to be Obama-era criminal justice and sentencing guideline recommendations, followed by getting rid of those nasty restrictions on police using military equipment against citizens. In fact, I expect the first batch of citizens to find out the hard way will be Black Lives Matter protesters in 2017.
Don't expect Democrats to save us in 2017 from Trump. We'll have to save ourselves.
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