Sessions’ path to remake Justice may be clearer

WASHINGTON — The political cloud over Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ decision to step back from any investigation touching the Trump campaign may have a silver lining for a law enforcement officer who appears preoccupied by violent crime, drugs and immigration.

Now that Sessions will no longer oversee any investigation into the 2016 election, his path to continue a refashioning of the Justice Department may be even clearer. Those efforts began almost immediately after he was sworn in last month. While Thursday’s announcement may have taken attention from trying to chip away at Obama administration priorities, Sessions seems poised to resume the mission he carried into the job. His early words and actions are consistent with the tough-on-crime reputation the former federal prosecutor cultivated as an Alabama senator, and they foreshadow an unmistakable pivot in critical areas of civil rights, criminal justice and drug policy.

New attorneys general routinely arrive with their own agendas. But the speed with which Sessions has moved to undo some of the legacy items of his Democratic-appointed predecessors has dismayed critics and caused observers to take notice. “There have been transitions before where the department headed off in new directions, but there is traditionally a period of new people coming in and studying and learning about issues before taking bold and dramatic new policy directions,” said William Yeomans, who spent nearly 30 years at the department. “This is probably unprecedented in the speed and dramatic change in course that’s happened.”