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In Alabama, Jeff Sessions Desegregated Schools and Got the Death Penalty for KKK Head

Weekly Standard ^ | November 18, 2016 | Mark Hemingway

Posted on by grundle

Now that Jeff Sessions is Donald Trump's pick for attorney general, you're going to hear a lot of people dig up old accusations that Sessions is a racist. In fact, CNN did so last night. However, between the nature of the accusations and Sessions's actual record of desegregating schools and taking on the Klan in Alabama, it strains credulity to believe that he is a racist.

These accusations all center around the bruising judicial nomination process Sessions went through in 1986. Ronald Reagan had tapped Sessions to serve on the federal bench and the Senate judiciary committee ultimately rejected him after they heard testimony that he had supposedly called the ACLU and NAACP "un-American" and "communist-inspired," as well as made racist remarks. The accusations came from Thomas Figures, a black assistant U.S. attorney who worked for Sessions who said Sessions called him "boy" and had made a joke about how he thought the KKK was "O.K. until [he] found out they smoked pot." Another prosecutor, J. Gerald Hebert, said Sessions had called a white lawyer "a disgrace to his race" for representing black clients.

There is no concrete reason to doubt Figures or Herbert. Sessions vehemently denied calling Figures "boy," but he didn't rebut the substance of some of the claimsthough he asserted they were taken out of context. It's not exactly inaccurate to point out that the NAACP and ACLU were "communist-inspired." He said thought it absurd to think he would make a pro-KKK joke considering he was prosecuting the Klan at the time he made the remark. And for what it's worth, Figures also directed accusations at a another assistant U.S. Attorney who worked with Figures. That assistant U.S. Attorney also said Figures wasn't telling the truth and defended Sessions's integrity. Ultimately, the charges were no more than hearsay.

However, it's worth noting that Senator Ted Kennedy, on the Senate judiciary committee at the time, seemed heavily invested in tanking Sessions nomination. The next year, Kennedy's crusade was to sink Robert Bork's nomination to the Supreme Court, which has generally been regarded as a shameful smear campaign ever since. The episode upended the comity that had previously existed between the Senate and the White House on Supreme Court nominationsAntonin Scalia was approved to the court 98-0 the year before, the same year that Sessions was filleted by Kennedy and Democrats on the judiciary committee. Perhaps Sessions was a trial run for "Borking."

In 2009, Sessions himself told me that "When I got to Washington, there had been an orchestrated campaign to smear my record, and it was executed with great care. And I, frankly, was a babe in the woods and wasn't sufficiently prepared for it." For that reason, when Sessions got to the Senate he has always been more deferential toward nominations than most of his GOP colleagues. For instance, he was one of the only Republican senators to support Eric Holder's nomination for attorney general.

Sessions's actual track record certainly doesn't suggest he's a racist. Quite the opposite, in fact. As a U.S. Attorney he filed several cases to desegregate schools in Alabama. And he also prosecuted the head of the state Klan, Henry Francis Hays, for abducting and killing Michael Donald, a black teenager selected at random. Sessions insisted on the death penalty for Hays. When he was later elected the state Attorney General, Sessions followed through and made sure Hays was executed. The successful prosecution of Hays also led to a $7 million civil judgment against the Klan, effectively breaking the back of the KKK in Alabama.

As a U.S. attorney, he also prosecuted a group of civil rights activists, which included a former aide to Martin Luther King Jr., for voter fraud in Perry County, Alabama. The case fell apart, and Sessions bluntly told me he "failed to make the case." This incident has also been used to claim that Sessions is racistbut it shouldn't be. The county has been dogged with accusations of voter fraud for decades. In 2008, state and federal officials investigated voter fraud in Perry County after "a local citizens group gathered affidavits detailing several cases in which at least one Democratic county official paid citizens for their votes, or encouraged them to vote multiple times." A detailed story in the Tuscaloosa News reported that voting patterns in one Perry County town were also mighty suspicious in 2012: "Uniontown has a population of 1,775, according to the 2010 census but, according to the Perry County board of registrars, has 2,587 registered voters. The total votes cast thereTuesday1,431represented a turnout of 55 percent of the number of registered voters and a whopping 80.6 percent of the town's population."

Perhaps there are a lot of ideological reasons for liberals to be upset about Sessions becoming attorney general. But I don't think the character attacks on the man can be taken seriously.



TOPICS:

Miscellaneous

US: Alabama

KEYWORDS:

sessions

trumpcabinet

trumptransition





To: grundle

All the Clinton campaign, and the CNN;s have got is t play the race card, the woman card, the homosexual card, the whatever card they can use. they have nothing, let them keep embarrassing themselves and if you ever hear a loon say he is racist them ask for specifics, and I guarantee that you will never get an answer.



by 2 posted onby manc ( If they want so called marriage equality then they should support polygamy too.)

To: grundle

Thanks for this post. Ammunition for when I get pummeled by liberal “friends and family members” who are already going beserk over the Sessions appointment.



To: grundle

The Ministry of Propaganda along with their compatriots in the Democrat Party will try to undermine every one of Trump’s appointees.

Tune them out.

Donald Trump has a track record of picking the right person for the right job.



by 4 posted onby Lurkinanloomin (Know Islam, No Peace - No Islam , Know Peace)

To: grundle

All the left has is their worn out race card. Zip. That's it!



by 5 posted onby dragnet2 (Diversion and evasion are tools of deceit)

To: grundle

But he’s white...so he’s clearly a racist.Somebody hasn’t been paying attention.



To: Pride in the USA; Stillwaters

We are forewarned, and now we are forearmed. Good article.



by 7 posted onby lonevoice (diagonally parked in a parallel universe)

To: Jemian

For the Alabama ping list



To: grundle

Good article. Thank you for posting!



To: grundle

Sessions is no racist and everyone knows it. The libs are going to lose this battle. Net result is their playing of the race card will be further discredited.



To: grundle

Thanks for posting! The usual suspects are sure to attack in the same old ways, We need this info!



To: kosciusko51; JLS; bamahead; EdReform; saleman; Southack; Bryan24; blam; Jemian; alancarp; ...

Thanks, kosciusko51. I’ll be out of pocket in about 2 hours and will be unavailable for about 24 hours. Flying to Hong Kong! The ping list is on FR Homepage if any pings to the Alabama are needed.



To: grundle

Every time people give into race card throwing bullies it gives them even more power to do it the next time. People need to get some courage and stop giving in to them.



by 13 posted onby Cubs Fan (Trump and Brexit 2016--The year the good guys finally said "enough." Remember it.)

To: grundle

A Freeper has a fabulous TRUE PHRASE......"The Democrats haven't been THIS mad since the Republicans took away their SLAVES"!!! HAHA...How TRUE!! It was the Republicans that did away with SLAVERY!!.....EVERYONE in the SOUTH was a DEMOCRAT!!



by 14 posted onby Ann Archy (Abortion....... The HUMAN Sacrifice to the god of Convenience.)

To: grundle

You say there is no concrete evidence to doubt Hebert? Read this: https://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams/2016/11/18/crying-wolf-on-race-top-jeff-sessions-critic-gerry-hebert-has-history-of-making-it-up/?singlepage=true



by 15 posted onby rimtop56 ("My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of Heaven and earth.")

To: grundle

Pfl



by 16 posted onby Batman11 (ÂHow sweet it is! ÂJackie Gleason")

To: grundle

ping



To: Jemian

Enjoy Hong Kong. Thats my home town



To: grundle

Funny how none of the "research" the lefties have done has managed to find this stuff - they concentrate on an anecdotal accusation by a political enemy 30 years ago where the accuser is also conveniently dead. Saw Tucker Carlson on Fox last night and he tore some guy a new one for calling Sessions all kind of racist with zero proof - he pretty much had the guy looking a bit ill as he was uncovered as a Dim talking-point purveyor who did zero research except to download the Dim talking points....



by 19 posted onby trebb (Where in the the hell has my country gone?)

To: trebb

They did point out Sessions good record on Fox and Friends earlier this morning.



by 20 posted onby MEG33 (God Bless Our Troops, ;Our Leaders And Our Nation)

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