Sessions laughs as college crowd uses 2016 chant: ‘Lock her up’
Attorney General Jeff Sessions laughed as conservative students interrupted his speech Tuesday by chanting “Lock her up!” — a reference to Hillary Clinton — prompting him to repeat the phrase.
Sessions, in the midst of a speech castigating universities and colleges for what he called excessive political correctness, at one point told the students: “I like this bunch. Go get ‘em.”
With that, some in the crowd began chanting “Lock her up.” The chant was a popular one at Trump rallies during the 2016 campaign, in which crowds called for Clinton to be sent to prison over her use of a private email server when she was secretary of state.
Sessions, now the attorney general, is recused from investigations involving the 2016 campaign, but he has assigned a subordinate to review Obamaera decisions by the Justice Department not to charge anyone over the Clinton email matter.
As the crowd chanted “Lock her up,” the attorney general laughed and said, “Lock her up . . . . I heard that a long time over the last campaign,” he added.
He then returned to the text of his speech attacking college officials, saying: “Rather than molding a generation of mature, well-informed adults, some schools are doing everything they
can to create a generation of sanctimonious, sensitive, supercilious snowflakes. We’re not going to have it.”
Sessions was speaking to a gathering of Turning Point USA, a conservative student group, at George Washington University. The attorney general repeatedly praised the students, echoing a conservative argument that on many American campuses, right-leaning students’ voices are being stifled by left-leaning students and college administrators.
“Whether you realize it or not, freedom of thought and speech on the American campus are under attack,” Sessions said. “Of all places, the college campus should be where debate and discussion should be appreciated and honored. But nowhere has there been more arbitrary and capricious restrictions on free speech than in supposedly educational institutions.”