4 incredibly backward, WTF quotes from Trump's attorney general nominee DATE: 2024-05-29 16:50:20
Another day, another Donald Trump appointee who gets rave reviews from a former Ku Klux Klan leader.
Trump nominated Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions to be his attorney general on Friday, and former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke seems like he's having trouble believing his luck.
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Sessions -- a former United States attorney -- has been dogged by allegations of racism throughout his career, as you can see from the quotes, below.
The KKK was 'OK until I learned they smoked pot.'
Sessions now appears to be on his way to a federal appointment, but he was denied a federal judgeship 30 years ago as testimony documenting his alleged racism derailed his bid. The testimony was given by Thomas Figures, a black man who worked for Sessions.
Part of that testimony detailed that, amid a 1981 murder investigation linked to the KKK, Sessions said he thought the KKK was "OK until I learned they smoked pot." He has claimed it was a "joke."
Sessions denied most of the allegations relating to racism in 1986. According to the Washington Post, he told the Senate Judiciary Committee, "I am not the Jeff Sessions my detractors have tried to create. I am not a racist. I am not insensitive to blacks."
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The NAACP is 'un-American.'
Sessions was also not able to capture a judgeship because, according to testimonies by Figures and Justice Department lawyer J. Gerald Hebert in 1986, he called civil rights organizations "un-American." Herbert also claimed Sessions had said such groups "forced civil rights down the throats of people."
Sessions attempted to clarify his comment by saying these organizations involve themselves in "un-American positions."
'I wish I could decline on all of them.'
This is a comment Sessions allegedly said in regards to civil rights cases, according to Figures.
Faced with having to investigate a civil rights case he had tried to close in the 80s as an attorney, it was claimed Sessions became angry, slammed a stack of documents on a desk, and said he wished he could decline all civil rights cases.
'Be careful what you say to white folks.'
Figures testified that Sessions once told him to "be careful what you say to white folks" after Figures admonished a white employee.
"Had Mr. Sessions merely urged me to be careful what I said to 'folks,' that admonition would have been quite reasonable. But that was not the language that he used," he said.
Sessions will again have to survive a Senate confirmation hearing in order to become attorney general. The full scope of reaction to his nomination remains to be seen, but stopping him would require Republican opposition.