Sessions says he’d defy Trump as attorney general if needed

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, January 11, 2017

By Efric Tucker and Mary Clare Jalonick

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions fervently rejected “damnably false” accusations of past racist comments Tuesday as he challenged Democratic concerns about the civil rights commitment he would bring as Donald Trump’s attorney general. He vowed at his confirmation hearing to stay independent from the White House and stand up to Trump when necessary.

Sessions laid out a sharply conservative vision for the Justice Department he would oversee, pledging to crack down on illegal immigration, gun violence and the “scourge of radical Islamic terrorism” and to keep open the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba.

But he also distanced himself from some of Trump’s public pronouncements.

He said waterboarding, a now-banned harsh interrogation technique that Trump has at times expressed support for, was “absolutely improper and illegal.”

Though he said he would prosecute immigrants who repeatedly enter the country illegally and criticized as constitutionally “questionable” an executive action by President Barack Obama that shielded certain immigrants from deportation, he said he did “not support the idea that Muslims, as a religious group, should be denied admission to the United States.”

Trump earlier in his campaign called for a temporary total ban on Muslims entering his country but has more recently proposed “extreme vetting.”

Sessions asserted that he could confront Trump if needed, saying an attorney general must be prepared to resign if asked to do something “unlawful or unconstitutional.”

Nothing new came out of the hearing that seemed likely to threaten Sessions’ confirmation by the Republican Senate.

Yet as he outlined his priorities, his past — including a 1986 judicial nomination that failed amid allegations that he’d made racially charged comments — hovered over the proceedings. Protesters calling Sessions a racist repeatedly interrupted and were hustled out by Capitol police.

Sessions vigorously denied that he had ever called the NAACP “un-American.” He said he had never harbored racial animus, calling the allegations — which included that he had referred to a black attorney in his office as “boy” — part of a false caricature.

“It wasn’t accurate then,” Sessions said. “It isn’t accurate now.”

Politics got its share of attention, too, with Sessions promising to recuse himself from any investigation there might be into Democrat Hillary Clinton, whom he had criticized during the presidential campaign.

Trump said during the campaign he would name a special prosecutor to look into Clinton’s use of a private email server, but he has since backed away. The FBI and Justice Department declined to bring charges last year.

Sessions, known as one of the most staunchly conservative members of the Senate, has solid support from the Senate’s Republican majority and from some Democrats in conservative-leaning states.

But he faces a challenge convincing Democrats that he’ll be fair and committed to civil rights, a chief priority of the Justice Department during the Obama administration, as the country’s top law enforcement official.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., asked whether he could be trusted to enforce the laws he has voted against, including expanded hate crime protections. He said he could, noting that he accepted the Roe v. Wade opinion on abortion as the law of the land even though he personally opposed it.

If confirmed, Sessions would succeed Attorney General Loretta Lynch and would be in a position to reshape Justice Department priorities not only in civil rights but also environmental enforcement, criminal justice and national security.