Sessions ‘irreplaceable’ on immigration to base
By Tal Kopan, CNN
When then-candidate Donald Trump touted Jeff Sessions’ support on the 2016 campaign trail, he’d joke that even he was surprised he beat out other immigration hawks for the prized endorsement. It was an indication of how strongly Trump resonated with the base on immigration and border security — and how strongly Sessions represented it.
Now, Sessions’ supporters are hoping the President hasn’t forgotten that lesson.
Sessions’ support among Republicans in the Senate is publicly weakening, as the President continues to tweet his frustration with his attorney general and early backer over his handling of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
But Sessions’ supporters are saying one simple fact should keep the attorney general in office: There is no one else who could better execute Trump’s own vision on immigration, and no one who bears more credit for what the President has achieved thus far.
Sessions “is almost irreplaceable because of his commitment and understanding of the core issue on which the President won his election,” said Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which advocates for slashing immigration dramatically.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham this week argued Trump deserves to replace Sessions, saying the relationship is “beyond repair.”
That sentiment is not shared, however, in Sessions’ strongest base of support — the groups that have long advocated for the immigration-restricting policies that the attorney general has aggressively pursued.
More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/08/28/politics/jeff-sessions-support-immigration-base/index.html
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Yeah, I can see that Sessions would be a hard guy to duplicate. He’s a true relic of the Jim Crow era who wears his disdain and disrespect for people of color on his sleeve. I also suppose that one reason he turned out to be “confirmable” was the desire of many of his colleagues on both sides of the aisle to get rid of his wacko, far right, obstructionist presence.
Over at Justice, Sessions doesn’t have to convince anyone that what he is doing is legal or good policy. He just does as he pleases. The Federal Courts rein him in on a regular basis. That leads Sessions to utter insulting trivialities about “interference with the Executive.” Interfering with a member of the Executive Branch who is riding roughshod over the Constitution and the statutes is just what Article III courts are supposed to be doing!
About the only thing at Justice that Sessions hasn’t screwed up is the Russia investigation (although he tried by approving the “bogus memo” from Rod Rosenstein recommending the firing of Comey which Trump later admitted was a fraud). And, that’s only because he was quite properly disqualified. While Sessions couldn’t care less about the law and ethics, he does have some sense of self-preservation. Participating in the Russia investigation could have been a Federal crime (although the Federal criminal law on non-financial conflicts of interest is somewhat murky) as well as a basis for stripping his law license.
PWS
08-28-18