Tag: Attorney General Jeff Sessions

Critics fear Trump’s attacks are doing lasting damage to the justice system

The following article by Felicia Sonmez, Josh Dawsey and Ann E. Marimow was posted on the Washington Post website August 23, 2018:

President Trump once again attacked Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and Sessions hit back by saying the Justice Department will not be politically influenced. (Reuters)

President Trump took his criticism of the criminal justice system to new heights Thursday, prompting alarm from national security and law enforcement officials who fear the president is seeking to protect himself from encroaching investigations at the expense of lasting damage to ­institutions.

In a “Fox & Friends” interview aired Thursday, Trump argued it “almost ought to be illegal” for “flippers” to get plea deals in exchange for testimony — a reference to his former attorney, Michael Cohen, who implicated Trump this week in a scheme to cover up alleged affairs before the 2016 election. The president also lashed out at Attorney General Jeff Sessions for not “taking over” the Justice Department and praised his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, who was convicted of eight felonies by a federal jury in Alexandria, Va., this week.

The sense of crisis was amplified by Trump’s personal attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani, who said in a Thursday interview with The Washington Post that the president had asked his legal team weeks ago for advice on pardoning Manafort and others facing investigation.

View the complete article here.

Trump’s opioid strategy ‘missing in action’ as 115 people die every day

The following article by Joe Davidson was posted on the Washington Post website May 21, 2018:

In an effort to combat the opioid crisis, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announces a new task force targeting opioid distributors and manufacturers. (The Washington Post)

Opening statements at congressional hearings often are predictable. But not those at a House hearing on the opioid crisis and the Trump administration’s inadequate reaction to it.

It’s too bad no one from the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) testified at Thursday’s Oversight and Government Reform Committee session, which was called to discuss the office’s reauthorization. Had its officials, or Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway, who leads his opioid initiative, been there, they would have heard moving, heartfelt stories from the panel’s bipartisan leadership that went beyond the usual perfunctory remarks. Continue reading “Trump’s opioid strategy ‘missing in action’ as 115 people die every day”

Jeff Sessions’s claim that an ACLU settlement with Chicago caused murders to spike

The following article by Salvador Rizzo was posted on the Washington Post website May 14, 2018:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions Credit: Gregory Bull/AP

“Paul Cassel and Richard Fowles of the University of Utah analyzed the dramatic surge in Chicago homicides in 2016. Homicides went from 480 in 2015 to 754 in 2016 — a stunning event.

“They asked why. They considered numerous possible causes. They concluded the 58 percent increase was caused by the abrupt decline in ‘stop and frisks’ in 2015. There had been a horrific police shooting, protests and an ACLU lawsuit. The settlement of that lawsuit resulted in a decline in stops from 40,000 per month to 10,000 per month. Arrests fell also. In sum, they conclude that these actions in late 2016, conservatively calculated, resulted in approximately 236 additional victims killed and over 1,100 additional shootings in 2016 alone. The scholars call it the ‘ACLU effect.’ Continue reading “Jeff Sessions’s claim that an ACLU settlement with Chicago caused murders to spike”

Trump Pressed Top Republicans to End Senate Russia Inquiry

The following article by Maggie Haberman and Alexander Burns was posted on the New York Times website November 30, 2017:

Senator Richard Burr, Republican of North Carolina, is chairman of the Intelligence Committee, which is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election. Credit Gabriella Demczuk for The New York Times

WASHINGTON — President Trump over the summer repeatedly urged senior Senate Republicans, including the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, to end the panel’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, according to a half dozen lawmakers and aides. Mr. Trump’s requests were a highly unusual intervention from a president into a legislative inquiry involving his family and close aides.

Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina, the intelligence committee chairman, said in an interview this week that Mr. Trump told him that he was eager to see an investigation that has overshadowed much of the first year of his presidency come to an end. Continue reading “Trump Pressed Top Republicans to End Senate Russia Inquiry”

Sessions’s claim that ‘dirty immigration lawyers’ encourage clients to cite ‘credible fear’

The following article by Nicole Lewis was posted on the Washington Post website October 26, 2017:

“We also have dirty immigration lawyers who are encouraging their otherwise unlawfully present clients to make false claims of asylum providing them with the magic words needed to trigger the credible fear process.”

-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, remarks to the Executive Office for Immigration Review, Oct. 12, 2017

On Oct. 8, President Trump released a list of strict immigration policies that include funding for a border wall with Mexico, restricting federal grants to “sanctuary cities,” and a scaling back of legal pathways to citizenship. Just a few days later, on Oct. 12, Attorney General Jeff Sessions encouraged Congress to pass the administration’s legislative priorities to solve the “crisis at our borders.”

In a speech, Sessions described an immigration system rife with “fraud and abuse” which paves the way for millions of immigrants to enter the country illegally. Sessions zeroed in on the asylum system in the United States, asserting that “dirty immigration lawyers” are coaching their clients to make “fake claims” to trigger “credible fear” proceedings so they can stay in the United States. Continue reading “Sessions’s claim that ‘dirty immigration lawyers’ encourage clients to cite ‘credible fear’”

Watch: Sessions won’t say if he’ll jail journalists

The following article from the Associated Press was posted on the MPR website October 18, 2017:

Democratic Sen. Al Franken is accusing Attorney General Jeff Sessions of “moving the goalposts” in denying his interactions with the Russian ambassador.

In a testy exchange, Franken confronted Sessions about his testimony in January, in which he said he had no communications with Russians. Sessions later had to recuse himself from the Justice Department’s investigation of Trump campaign ties to Russia after it was revealed he had conversations with the ambassador. Franken says his explanations of those interactions continue to change.

But Sessions, visibly frustrated and voice rising, called Franken’s line of questioning unfair. He says he answered the question as a surrogate of the Trump campaign. Sessions says he may have discussed Trump’s campaign positions with the ambassador but insists he did not have a continuing exchange of information with him. Continue reading “Watch: Sessions won’t say if he’ll jail journalists”