Attorney General Jeff Sessions appears to have made a New Year’s resolution out of attacking California. In January, Sessions’ Department of Justice supported conservative groups suing the state’s school system for allegedly suppressing conservatives’ free speech. The DOJ has also filed suit to invalidate three California laws designed to protect undocumented immigrants from federal agents seeking to detain, abuse, or deport them. In a fiery speech on March 7, Sessions accused the state government of passing “irrational, unfair, and unconstitutional policies” with the goal of “protecting lawbreakers.”

Six days after that speech, a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a provision of Texas’ new law prohibiting the implementation of “sanctuary city” laws. The panel, which contained two of the most conservative judges in the United States, ruled the Texas law—the constitutionality of which Sessions and the DOJ had defended—had censored the speech of state officials in violation of the First Amendment. The lawbreakers, it turns out, aren’t the immigrant-protecting Californians. They’re the Texans the Sessions-led DOJ has been cheering on.

The Texas law in question, SB 4, is troubling for many reasons. At the heart of the measure is a radical new requirement that state and local law enforcement implement federal immigration law. Under the law, local agencies may no longer craft policies that bar officers from checking the immigration status of arrestees—policies that many departments used to build trust with immigrant communities. SB 4 also forces local authorities to honor “ICE detainers,” which obligate them to hold undocumented detainees for two days beyond their release dates so federal agents can pick them up. In August, a district court found that these provisions conflicted with federal immigration law and violated the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches and seizures.

But perhaps the most startling component of SB 4 is a provision that states that no elected official may “endorse a policy” of limiting Texas’ “enforcement of immigration laws.” Each violation of this gag order incurs a fine of $25,500, and violators may be stripped of their offices.

SB 4’s “endorsement” clause effectively bars myriad Texans, including sheriffs and mayors, from criticizing the bill itself. It is a textbook example of viewpoint-based censorship, an attempt by the government to insulate its own laws from criticism. For that reason, the district court struck it down as a flagrant infringement upon the First Amendment.

In most respects, Texas fared better at the 5th Circuit this week. The state drew an all-star panel of conservative judges: Edith Jones (who has been credibly accused of making racist remarks), Jerry Smith (an anti-abortion judicial activist), and the more mainstream Edward Prado. Given that Jones and Smith inhabit the far-right fringe of the federal judiciary—Jones recently suggested that undocumented immigrants may not have any constitutional rights at all—it was no surprise that the panel voted to uphold most of SB 4.

Yet Texas’ gag rule went too far for even these judges. In an opinion authored by Jones, the court held that the “endorsement” provision suppressed elected officials’ “core political speech”—expression that lies at the heart of the First Amendment. SB 4 functions as a statewide speech code, forbidding officials from speaking out against the legislature’s immigration policies. Thus, the court blocked Texas from enforcing this provision against elected officeholders.

You might expect Sessions to have spoken out against the gag order. In September and October, the attorney general delivered two lengthy addresses on the vital importance of free expression. The attorney general described the right to free speech as “precious,” chastising countries that do not allow citizens to “openly criticiz[e] the government.” He railed against “speech codes” and “the dangers of government-imposed groupthink.” The liberty “to speak our minds,” Sessions declared, is “at the core of what it means to be free.”

A few months earlier, Sessions’ Justice Department had filed a statement of interest “siding with Texas in SB 4 litigation.” The statement defended the legality of SB 4’s major provisions—except for its gag rule, which, oddly enough, the DOJ entirely overlooked. Because the Justice Department had already taken the time to weigh in on the case, it could have easily noted that it objected to the “endorsement” clause as a violation of basic free speech principles. Or, at a minimum, it could have explicitly reserved judgment on the gag rule’s constitutionality. Instead, the DOJ ignored this provision while lending its imprimatur to SB 4. It seems the attorney general had no interest in opposing the speech code that the Texas government had implemented to shield its new measure from censure by state officials.

Sessions is a notorious free speech hypocrite. But his posturing against California and his vigorous defense of Texas reveal something much more insidious than mere hypocrisy. The attorney general is launching an assault on California while Texas tests out vastly more dangerous policies, aligning the executive branch with a legally dubious campaign against immigrants. For all his sanctimonious encomiums to freedom, Sessions has chosen to legitimize Texas Republicans’ infringements upon individual liberty and undercut California Democrats’ experiment with state sovereignty. Sessions frames himself as an evenhanded crusader for the rule of law. In reality, he’s a nativist who happens to have the machinery of the federal government at his disposal.