On Friday, President-elect Donald Trump announced that he would be nominating Alabama Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions to be the next Attorney General of the United States. Sessions, you may recall, has made controversial statements in the past. He once denounced the NAACP and ACLU as “communist” organizations and even called an African-American attorney “boy” before telling that same attorney he needed to learn how to be respectful to whites.
On CNN last night, Democratic strategist Angela Rye expressed what many progressives felt when they heard Sessions–who was rejected in 1986 by the Senate Judiciary Committee for a seat on the federal bench–was the pick to be the chief legal officer of the country.
Host Don Lemon began the debate by asking the panel:
“How harshly do you expect Democrats to push back on this confirmation hearing?”
Rye responded:
“Well they’ve already started and rightfully so. It’s interesting to hear commentators all day say ‘oh we’re judging him off his record from 30 years ago’ and that’s not exactly true. There are a number of women who are frustrated about the fact that this is the same man who voted against the Violence Against Women’s Act.”
She then noted:
“He’s not an advocate for people of color, for Latinos and other folks who immigrate into the country. He’s been a very strong opponent for black people — we can check the record — from calling a black man ‘boy’ while he was a USA attorney in Alabama.
“You have this major issue where this man’s record consistently, from the ’80s to today, flies in the face of what the Justice Department should be all about.”
Lemon followed up by wondering:
“Following in the footsteps of Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch, how different do you think this department will be under Senator Sessions?”
That’s when Rye laid a nuclear truth bomb on the entire conversation, remarking:
“Well, we should call it the Department of Injustice, because that’s exactly what it would be. He would undo everything they’ve done to work so hard to establish the Civil Rights Division and to make it a beacon of hope in this country.”
Jeff Sessions must be rejected by the Senate. This man would attempt to take the country back to the 1950s and would trample on the rights of everyone who isn’t white or male. He is a danger to the very freedoms we most cherish.
Featured Image Via YouTube Screengrab
