Sessions says he will fairly enforce law
Senator claims he would set aside his political views as attorney general
WASHINGTON — Sen. Jeff Sessions sought to assure the American public Tuesday that he could set aside campaign rhetoric and fairly enforce the law as the next U.S. attorney general, asserting repeatedly at his confirmation hearing that he would not let his personal views interfere with court precedent or the will of Congress.
Sessions, R-Ala., said, although his politics might indicate otherwise, that he would abide by the Supreme Court decision underpinning abortion rights, and that he would similarly follow the 5-to-4 ruling that legalized same-sex marriage.
He said he understands that the waterboarding of suspects to elicit information is “absolutely improper and illegal,” and, though he voted against a law that banned the government’s bulk collection of Americans’ phone records, that he would uphold it as attorney general.
He declared that he would recuse himself from any Justice Department investigations of Hillary Clinton’s email practices or her family’s charitable foundation — mindful that his previous comments “could place my objectivity in question.”
“We can never have a political dispute turn into a criminal dispute,” he said.
On the first day of his two-day confirmation hearing, Sessions came under tough questioning from Democrats about his conservative, often controversial views on immigration, hate-crimes legislation and national security matters. He answered politely, although often forcefully, and frequently referred to his decades of experience in the Senate. He is expected to be confirmed.
“You know who I am,” Sessions said. “You know what I believe in. You know that I am a man of my word and can be trusted to do what I say I will do.”
On some topics, Sessions, 70, held his ground. He said, for example, that he supports the continued operation of the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for terrorism suspects.
He said would not object if President-elect Donald Trump abandoned an executive action by President Barack Obama that allows people who came to the United States illegally as children to receive work permits and a reprieve from possible deportation, although he offered no solution for what to do with those who had received such reprieves.
He refused to agree to keep intact consent decrees prompting reform in police departments across the country, saying such agreements and the lawsuits that prompt them “undermine the respect for police officers” and should be approached with “caution.” Justice Department officials have been pressing to negotiate such reforms in Baltimore and Chicago
before the end of the Obama administration.
“I just wouldn’t commit that there would never be any changes in them, and if departments have complied or reached other developments that could justify the withdrawal or modification of a consent decree, of course I would do that,” Sessions said. He said, though, that he would enforce existing agreements.
Sessions declined to say that he would adopt the policies of former attorney general Eric Holder when it comes to investigations involving the news media, including a promise not to jail reporters for doing their job.
“I’m not sure,” he said when asked whether he would keep that Holder promise. “I have not studied those regulations.”
But Sessions also seemed to recognize that, if confirmed, he would have to abandon his persona as a far-right lawmaker and an unabashed Trump supporter. He said that the attorney general should enforce the law regardless of the president’s views, and that if the president presses for illegal action, the attorney general should resign.
“He or she must be willing to tell the president or other top officials ‘no’ if he or they overreach,” Sessions said. “He or she cannot be a mere rubber stamp.”
Sessions spoke in a room packed with demonstrators, reporters and his family members, and the proceedings were interrupted several times by protesters declaring him “evil” or “racist.”
Capitol Police said 25 were arrested — 18 at the hearing and seven in Sessions’s office.
The Senate Judiciary Committee rejected Sessions for a federal judgeship in 1986 amid allegations of racially insensitive remarks, and civil rights advocates and others have mounted a campaign to deny him the attorney general post.
Democratic senators took up many of their issues Tuesday, questioning Sessions on his opposition to the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which expanded federal hatecrimes law to include sexual orientation and gender identity, and his decision not to support an iteration of the Violence Against Women Act that gave Native Americans special protections. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., asked Sessions about prior comments in which he suggested, after a video emerged of Trump talking about grabbing women by the genitals, that such conduct was not necessarily sexual assault.
“Senator, is grabbing a woman by her genitals without consent, is that sexual assault?” Leahy said.
“Clearly, it would be,” Sessions responded. He later suggested that a sitting president could be prosecuted for doing so “if appropriate.”
Sessions said that he supported the Violence Against Women Act broadly, and that he thought hate crimes “were being prosecuted effectively in state courts where they would normally be expected to be prosecuted.” He sought to portray the allegations that sunk him in 1986 — when even Coretta Scott King, the widow of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., urged Congress to turn him down — as inaccurate.