Updated: police have arrested protesters who staged sit-in at Jeff Sessions' office, per video posted by @ALPolitics https://t.co/bxwH3xI95I
— Zoe Tillman (@ZoeTillman) January 4, 2017
Who could blame them?
… “As a matter of conscience and conviction, we can neither be mute nor mumble our opposition to Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions becoming Attorney General of the United States. Senator Sessions has callously ignored the reality of voter suppression but zealously prosecuted innocent civil rights leaders on trumped-up charges of voter fraud,” Brooks said in the statement.
He appeared to be referencing an incident in which Sessions brought 29 charges related to voter fraud and conspiracy against each of three black activists when he was a U.S. attorney in the 1980s. A jury found the activists innocent in a matter of hours.
“As an opponent of the vote, he can’t be trusted to be the chief law enforcement officer for voting rights,” Brooks continued in the statement.
Sessions was rejected from a federal judgeship in 1986 after a former colleague testified during his confirmation hearings that Sessions had made racially insensitive remarks. During those hearings, a Justice Department employee said Sessions had called the ACLU and NAACP “Communist-inspired” and “un-American,” comments for which Sessions said he had “meant no harm.”
And they’re hardly alone, per the Washington Post:
A group of more than 1,100 law school professors from across the country is sending a letter to Congress on Tuesday urging the Senate to reject the nomination of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) for attorney general.
The letter, signed by professors from 170 law schools in 48 states, is also scheduled to run as a full-page newspaper ad aimed at members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will be holding confirmation hearings for Sessions on Jan. 10-11…
The professors — from every state except North Dakota and Alaska, which has no law school — highlight the rejection of Sessions’s nomination to a federal judgeship more than 30 years ago. Robin Walker Sterling of the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, one of the organizers of the letter, said that 1,000 professors signed on within 72 hours. “Clearly, there are many, many law professors who are very uneasy with the prospect of Attorney General Sessions, and they are willing to take a public stand in opposition to his nomination,” she said…
Mr. Charles P. Pierce, at Esquire:
It seems that some folks are finding the concept of Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions just a tad too 1957 for their liking. Were you a historically minded type, you might even say the idea is encountering massive resistance. Down in Alabama, at Sessions’ local office, the NAACP is taking rather direct action, as CNN informs us.
The protesters arrived earlier Tuesday and said they would stay until Sessions is no longer the nominee or they were arrested.”We are asking the senator to withdraw his name for consideration as attorney general or for the President-elect, Donald Trump, to withdraw the nomination,” Brooks said Tuesday afternoon from Sessions’ office. “In the midst of rampant voter suppression, this nominee has failed to acknowledge the reality of voter suppression while pretending to believe in the myth of voter fraud.” Earlier in the day, Alabama NAACP President Benard Simelton said he and 15-20 others were there “conducting business as usual” and would remain until “Sessions meets our demands or the arrest — whichever he chooses.”…
Late Night Open Thread: The NAACP Does Not Trust Jefferson Beauregard SessionsPost + Comments (62)