Tag: Jeff Sessions

y Justice Department plans new project to sue universities over affirmative action policies

The following article by Sari Horwitz and Emma Brown was posted on the Washington Post website August 1, 2017:

The Trump administration is targeting affirmative action policies at universities under a new initiative in the Justice Department. (Claritza Jimenez/The Washington Post)

Justice Department officials are planning a new project to investigate and sue universities over affirmative action admissions policies they determine discriminate against white applicants, according to a U.S. government official.

The project will be based out of the department’s civil rights division, which is now looking for lawyers interested in working on “investigations and possible litigation related to intentional race-based discrimination in college and university admissions,” according to a person familiar with an internal announcement in the civil rights division. Continue reading “y Justice Department plans new project to sue universities over affirmative action policies”

What Sessions Should Tell Trump About Pardons — Before It’s Too Late

The following article by Joe Conason was posted on the National Memo website July 27, 2017:

When Donald Trump issued a tweet reminding everyone that as president he has “the complete power to pardon,” did he mean to suggest that he can pardon himself? Or simply to boast that he can issue pardons without consulting any other authority or facing any consequences?

The impact of Trump’s provocative statement — along with news accounts suggesting he may issue a flurry of pardons to stonewall special counsel Robert Mueller — forced a denial from his lawyer Jay Sekulow. But whatever impulse propels him now, someone ought to tell Trump that while the pardon power is indeed a solo prerogative of his office, it isn’t quite absolute. And should he appear to use that power for a corrupt purpose, such as obstruction of justice, he could place himself in serious legal jeopardy. Not only could he be impeached, since the Constitution specifically prohibits pardoning any impeached official, but he might just be criminally prosecuted as well. Continue reading “What Sessions Should Tell Trump About Pardons — Before It’s Too Late”

How the Religious Liberty Executive Order Licenses Discrimination

The following article by Rebecca Buckwalter-Poza and Sharita Gruberg was posted on the Center for American Progress website July 31, 2017:

This column contains a correction.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions speaks during his interview with The Associated Press, July 28, 2017, at the National Police Headquarters in San Salvador, El Salvador.  Credit:  AP/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

The Trump administration’s draft religious liberty executive order, leaked in February, was explicit in its directives and sweeping in its implications. The order President Donald Trump signed in May—the “Presidential Executive Order Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty”—rather than formally codifying a view of religious liberty or instructing federal agencies on how to interpret the law, tasks the U.S. attorney general—currently Jeff Sessions—with advancing his interpretation of religious liberty through administrative guidance.* Sessions has already taken steps to oppose workplace protections against discrimination for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. Now he will begin extending protections for those seeking a license to discriminate.

In recent remarks to the Alliance Defending Freedom, classified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an anti-LGBT hate group in part for opposing LGBT rights and supporting a marriage equality ban, Attorney General Sessions suggested he will soon issue guidance dictating how agencies should interpret the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which was passed to protect people from being discriminated against on the basis of their religion. RFRA requires the government to provide a “compelling reason” to “substantially burden” religious exercise. Sessions will likely interpret the “compelling reason” requirement more strictly and the substantial “burden” requirement much more broadly, which would turn this protection against discrimination into an affirmative right to discriminate. Continue reading “How the Religious Liberty Executive Order Licenses Discrimination”

Senate Republicans have tolerated Trump’s controversies. His treatment of Sessions is different.

The following article by Paul Kane was posted on the Washington Post website July 26, 2017:

President Trump said he would have “picked someone else” had he known that Attorney General Jeff Sessions would recuse himself from the Russia probe. (The Washington Post)

Sen. John Cornyn counts Attorney General Jeff Sessions as one of his best friends in Washington, and their wives are even closer, making the couples regular double-date partners.

“We occasionally get together to break bread,” the Senate majority whip said Wednesday. One of those double dates came recently enough that Cornyn (R-Tex.) and Sessions could not avoid the elephant in the room: President Trump’s public taunting of his attorney general, in a manner that suggests he wants Sessions to resign. Continue reading “Senate Republicans have tolerated Trump’s controversies. His treatment of Sessions is different.”

Sometimes it’s ‘normal’ to meet with foreign officials. For Jeff Sessions and the Russian ambassador, it wasn’t.

The following article by Amber Phillips was posted on the Washington Post website July 22, 2017:

The accounts from Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak to his superiors, intercepted by U.S. spy agencies, contradict public assertions by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The Post’s Greg Miller explains. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)

As members of the Trump campaign team defend themselves from questions about contact with Russians, a common explanation has been: 1) It’s normal to meet with foreign officials and 2) We forgot about those meetings, because they were so normal.

To which former U.S. intelligence officials and security experts say: Those meetings are not normal, at least not in this extraordinary moment. Continue reading “Sometimes it’s ‘normal’ to meet with foreign officials. For Jeff Sessions and the Russian ambassador, it wasn’t.”

Sessions discussed Trump campaign-related matters with Russian ambassador, U.S. intelligence intercepts show

The following article by Adam Entous, Ellen Nakashima and Greg Miller was posted on the Washington Post website July 21, 2017:

Russia’s ambassador to Washington told his superiors in Moscow that he discussed campaign-related matters, including policy issues important to Moscow, with Jeff Sessions during the 2016 presidential race, contrary to public assertions by the embattled attorney general, according to current and former U.S. officials.

Ambassador Sergey Kislyak’s accounts of two conversations with Sessions — then a top foreign policy adviser to Republican candidate Donald Trump — were intercepted by U.S. spy agencies, which monitor the communications of senior Russian officials both in the United States and in Russia. Sessions initially failed to disclose his contacts with Kislyak and then said that the meetings were not about the Trump campaign. Continue reading “Sessions discussed Trump campaign-related matters with Russian ambassador, U.S. intelligence intercepts show”

Trump shows disdain for rule of law with new attacks on Sessions, Rosenstein, Mueller

The following article by James Hohmann with Breanne Deppisch and Joanie Greve was posted on the Washington Post website July 20, 2017:

THE BIG IDEA: President Trump laced into the attorney general, deputy attorney general, acting FBI director, former FBI director and the special counsel in an interview yesterday with the New York Times that, even by Trump standards, is remarkable.

Donald Trump listens during a roundtable at the White House. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

The transcript of the 50-minute session in the Oval Office oozes with brooding grievance and reflects the degree to which he has adopted a bunker mentality. It also underscores how much Robert Mueller’s escalating investigation bothers and preoccupies the president six months into his term.

Perhaps most importantly, Trump’s comments raise a host of new questions about his respect for the independence of the Justice Department, FBI and special counsel.

The president asserted his prerogative to order an FBI director to end any investigation for any reason at any time. He denied telling James Comey that he “hoped” the FBI could lay off its investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn. “I didn’t say anything,” Trump said. “But … even if I did, that’s not — other people go a step further. I could have ended that whole thing just by saying — they say it can’t be obstruction because you can say: ‘It’s ended. It’s over. Period.’” (He didn’t specify who he meant by “they.”) Continue reading “Trump shows disdain for rule of law with new attacks on Sessions, Rosenstein, Mueller”

Jeff Sessions wants police to take more cash from American citizens

The following article by Christopher Ingraham was posted on the Washington Post website July 17, 2017:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Monday said he’d be issuing a new directive this week aimed at increasing police seizures of cash and property.

“We hope to issue this week a new directive on asset forfeiture — especially for drug traffickers,” Sessions said in his prepared remarks for a speech to the National District Attorney’s Association in Minneapolis. “With care and professionalism, we plan to develop policies to increase forfeitures. No criminal should be allowed to keep the proceeds of their crime. Adoptive forfeitures are appropriate as is sharing with our partners.” Continue reading “Jeff Sessions wants police to take more cash from American citizens”

Jeff Sessions used our research to claim that sanctuary cities have more crime. He’s wrong.

The following article by Loren Collingwood and Benjamin Gonzalez-O’Brien was posted on the Washington Post website July 14, 2017:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions waits before speaking to federal, state and local law enforcement officials about sanctuary cities and efforts to combat violent crime on July 12 in Las Vegas. (John Locher/AP)

On Wednesday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions gave a speech in Las Vegas on sanctuary cities and local law enforcement. He announced, “According to a recent study from the University of California, Riverside, cities with these policies have more violent crime on average than those that don’t.” Almost certainly, the reference is to our study, which we first published here at the Monkey Cage in The Washington Post last October and later in the academic outlet Urban Affairs Review.

The attorney general’s summation of our study, however, is not true. In fact, our study suggests a different conclusion: Municipalities that chose to designate themselves as sanctuary cities for undocumented immigrants experience crime rates no higher than they otherwise would. We state this clearly throughout our study. Continue reading “Jeff Sessions used our research to claim that sanctuary cities have more crime. He’s wrong.”

Jeff Sessions finds a shield in executive privilege — but it might not be a strong one

The following article by Matt Zapotosky was posted on the Washington Post website June 13, 2017:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s repeated refusal to answer lawmakers’ skeptical inquiries Tuesday draws on a long legal and political tradition: Private deliberations involving the president and his top advisers often can be kept out of public view.

But analysts disagreed on whether the attorney general was appropriately using executive privilege to advance a worthy goal, or merely suggesting it as a shield to fend off questions he did not want to take. Continue reading “Jeff Sessions finds a shield in executive privilege — but it might not be a strong one”