Tag: Jeff Sessions

Twitter Facebook Comment Email Republish Donate 5 Trump Cabinet Members Who’ve Made False Statements to Congress

The following article by Eric Umansky and Marcelo Rochabrum was psoted on the ProPublica website March 2, 2017:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions isn’t alone.

Betsy DeVos, secretary of education, Jeff Sessions, attorney general and Steve Mnuchin, treasury secretary, listen as President Donald Trump speaks during a joint session of Congress Feb. 28, 2017 (Jim Lo Scalzo/Pool via Bloomberg)

As most of the world knows by now, Attorney General Jeff Sessions did not tell the truth when he was asked during his confirmation hearings about contacts with Russian officials.

But Sessions isn’t the only one. At least four other cabinet members made statements during their nomination hearings that are contradicted by actual facts: EPA Chief Scott Pruitt, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price.

The statements were all made under oath, except those of DeVos. It is a crime to “knowingly” lie in testimony to Congress, but it’s rarely prosecuted. Continue reading “Twitter Facebook Comment Email Republish Donate 5 Trump Cabinet Members Who’ve Made False Statements to Congress”

Do voter identification laws suppress minority voting? Yes. We did the research.

The following article by Zoltan L. Hajnal, Nazita Lajevardi and Lindsay Nielson was posted on the Washington Post website February 15, 2017:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions takes the oath of office in the Oval Office on Feb. 9. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

The Justice Department just got a new boss: Jeff Sessions. He is raising alarms in the civil rights community. The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights is concerned about his “record of hostility” toward the Voting Rights Act and the enforcement of civil rights. The NAACP-Legal Defense Fund lamented that it is “unimaginable that he could be entrusted to serve as the chief law enforcement officer for this nation’s civil rights laws.” No one knows for sure how Sessions will perform as attorney general — the former Republican senator from Alabama did, after all, once vote to renew the Voting Rights Act, in 2006 — but for many his record is deeply troubling. Continue reading “Do voter identification laws suppress minority voting? Yes. We did the research.”

Trump’s hard-line actions have an intellectual godfather: Jeff Sessions

The following article by Philip Rucker and Robert Costa was posted on the Washington Post website January 30, 2017:

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), President Trump’s nominee for attorney general, testifies at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Jan. 10. (Melina Mara/The Washington Pos1

In jagged black strokes, President Trump’s signature was scribbled onto a catalogue of executive orders over the past 10 days that translated the hard-line promises of his campaign into the policies of his government.

The directives bore Trump’s name, but another man’s fingerprints were also on nearly all of them: Jeff Sessions. Continue reading “Trump’s hard-line actions have an intellectual godfather: Jeff Sessions”

Trump sacking acting A.G. raises new questions about his respect for the rule of law

The following article by James Hohmann and Breanne Deppisch was posted on the Washington Post website January 31, 2017:

THE BIG IDEA: Back in 2015, when the idea of Donald Trump in the Oval Office seemed far-fetched, Jeff Sessions wanted to know whether Sally Yates was willing to stand up to the president.

“You have to watch out, because people will be asking you to do things you just need to say no about,” the Alabama senator told her during her confirmation hearing to become deputy attorney general. “Do you think the attorney general has the responsibility to say no to the president if he asks for something that’s improper? A lot of people have defended the [Loretta] Lynch nomination, for example, by saying: ‘Well, he appoints somebody who’s going to execute his views. What’s wrong with that?’ But if the views the president wants to execute are unlawful, should the attorney general or the deputy attorney general say no?” Continue reading “Trump sacking acting A.G. raises new questions about his respect for the rule of law”

How Jeff Sessions Helped Kill Equitable School Funding in Alabama

The following article by Ryan Gabrielson was posted on the ProPublica website January 30, 2017:

A lawsuit in the 1990s had Alabama poised to fund poor black school districts as fairly as wealthy white schools. As state attorney general, Sessions fought the effort passionately.

In the early 1990s, children across Alabama’s large rural stretches still attended faltering public schools, some with exposed wiring and rainwater leaking into classrooms. The education was in disrepair, too. Teachers couldn’t assign homework for lack of textbooks. A steel mill announced it would no longer hire local high school graduates because most tested below the eighth grade level. In short, Alabama’s most economically disadvantaged students, primarily black children and those with disabilities, were missing out on a basic education.

Then, for a moment, change seemed possible. A civil-rights lawsuit challenging the system for funding Alabama’s schools succeeded, and the state’s courts in 1993 declared the conditions in the poor schools a violation of Alabama’s Constitution. Gov. Guy Hunt, who had battled the litigation, accepted defeat, and vowed to work with the courts to negotiate a solution for equitably funding all of Alabama’s schools. Continue reading “How Jeff Sessions Helped Kill Equitable School Funding in Alabama”