Donald Trump’s former Attorney General Jeff Sessions may have gained some sympathy from the constant attacks he suffered from the president after he recused himself from Robert Mueller’s special investigation. But that should not excuse Sessions from the judgment of historians as they evaluate his leadership of the Justice Department from January 2017 to November 2018. Sessions was arguably the most abusive and disgraceful Attorney General in history.
Sessions previously served as an Alabama Republican Senator since 1997 and he had an extremely conservative voting record. Even before he was a senator, a Republican-controlled Senate refused to appoint Sessions to a Federal District Court judgeship in 1986. This was only the second time in a half century that a federal appointee to the federal judiciary had been rejected by the Senate Judiciary Committee for elevation to the federal bench.
He was accused at that time of racially insensitive behavior toward people of color. He limited voting rights, prosecuted people of color for petty and insignificant reasons, and used inappropriate language against African Americans. As a result, Sessions was opposed by his own state’s Democratic Senator, Howell Heflin, whom he succeeded in the Senate, and two Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, and Charles Mathias of Maryland, insured that his nomination would not be approved.