Sessions finds silver lining in recusal
No longer involved in 2016 election investigation, AG can focus on reshaping Justice priorities
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.
Sessions’ 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.
The speed with which Sessions has moved to undo some of the legacy items of his Democratic-appointed predecessors has dismayed critics.
“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.”
In a matter of weeks, the Sessions Justice Department lifted anti-discrimination guidelines meant to ensure transgender students could use school restrooms of their choice.
He repealed a memo that directed the department to phase out the use of private prisons, signaling he sees them as necessary for the future. The department also changed its position in a critical voting rights case in Texas, abandoning its yearslong opposition to a critical aspect of the state’s voter ID law.
Though the Justice Department’s push to overhaul troubled police agencies was a staple effort of the last administration, Sessions announced his desire to “pull back” on federal scrutiny of local law enforcement, winning praise from some quarters.
Even as Sessions outlined his vision for the department at his confirmation hearing, he was tailed by questions about whether he would withdraw from any investigation involving the Trump campaign and Russian meddling in the election.
The changed legal positions already advanced by Sessions means minority voters looking to prove that the state’s strict voter ID law is intentionally discriminatory will probably have to do without the federal government’s backing, as will transgender students who argue that the law allows them to use the bathroom that matches their gender identity.
Yeomans said that though changes in litigating positions do occur and are sometimes dictated by court deadlines, the department must always be concerned not to undermine its own legitimacy by too drastic a reversal.
“When it has been taking one position in court, and suddenly comes back in and takes the opposite position — and the only thing that’s changed is an election — it looks like the department is being driven by politics,” Yeomans said.