You're listening to Bloomberg Law. I'm June Gralso in New York with Greg Store in Washington, d C. The first of President elect Donald Trump's cabinet nominees to get a hearing is someone known to all the Senators, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, known as being one of the most conservative members. The seventy year old Sessions appeared before the Judiciary Committee today, the same committee that rejected his bid for a federal judge ship in nine six because of allegations of racist comments.
A case at the time in which Sessions prosecuted three African American civil rights activists, accusing them of voter fraud is said to be one reason he failed. Sessions told Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein today that that caricature of him in nine eighty six was not correct, and I do hope this hearing today will show that I conducted myself honorably and properly at that time, and that I am the same person, perhaps wiser and maybe a little better.
I hope so the day than I was in. But I did not harbor the kind of animosities and race based discrimination ideas that were um I was accused of I did not. Our guests are Christine Kippens, director of Constitutional Messaging at the Constitutional Accountability Center, and Victoria Tuntsing, an attorney at Genova and Tuntsing Christine. Sessions was asked about his views on civil rights, women's rights, Muslims being
barred from entering the country. Did he try to walk back his voting record or positions in any of those areas well? He definitely had a long public record of hostility to the Constitution's protections of liberty and equality for all are particularly in relation to people of color, women, immigrants, voting rights, lgbt Q rights, and equal access to education, which makes him unfit to serve as the chief enforcer
of our nation's civil rights laws. You could see he tried to rewrite his civil rights passed when he was in conversation with Senator Frankin and Uh. The Senator did not did not buy it. Uh. The Department of Justice has a extremely important responsibility in defending our country civil rights, and Sessions today proved that he has done nothing uh in his record that would suggest that he would enforce these laws effectively as is required by our Attorney General. Victoria.
There there are a number of controversial comments that that Senator Sessions is alleged to have made. Um. I'm not going to go into all of them, but let me just mention a couple of them. Uh. And these were all before he was nominated to the judiciary. Um. He uh allegedly said to a white civil rights lawyer that he was ascribed described at white civil rights lawyer as being a disgrace to his race. Incorrected, what do we want to start? I mean, these things, it's so appalling.
This good and decent man was well, Victoria, can I finished my question? Victoria, let me finish my question, please, um, he said at his first confirmation hearing back when he was nominated to be a judge. I think he acknowledged that he actually did say that, right. He said, I don't remember saying it. He said sometimes I have a loose tongue, but I certainly don't remember that. Um. And he didn't. He was not even accused of saying it.
He was that somebody came in and said, I hear this person's a disgrace to his race, and uh, Jeff Sessions evidently said something about it. Really, he just didn't refute it. Now, I mean these allegations are are are so obnoxious. Let's just talk about the voting fraud case that was talked about at the beginning of the segment. Um, do you know who the victims were? The victims were blacks who had come to his office and begged for help because they thought that there was voter fraud going on.
A grand jury had asked him to get involved. The there was surveillance and the person who was indicted was caught mailing ballots that had marked on it showing that the names of the person voted for had been changed, and Blacks were saying, I didn't make those changes on my ballot. That's that case, and the Department of Justice not only sanctioned it but wrote the indictment. And Christine, what's your response to that, because that's a different view,
and it's a view that Centator Sessions was talking about today, right. Well, I what I have to say to that is that it's it's interesting that his supporters keep bringing up this one example of Senator Sessions supporting a a possible outcome that would have positive results for the black community. I had to say, it's not enough to be in not racist. Uh, what he has to do is to prove uh that he has done something to defend the civil rights and
constitutional principles of equality and fairness. These are these are deep commitments that an attorney general would have to demonstrate. Any qualified nominee must have a history of respecting substantive fundamental rights, and Jeff Sessions with one example that can't be a history of respecting substantive fundamental rights. His rap sheet is much longer for for ways in which he
has impeded blacks from voting. Uh. He has also mentioned in great length during his nomination hearing today how he supports law enforcement, which is wonderful, Yet he has said absolutely nothing on the Department of Justice is responsibility to look into h law enforcement that may be targeting the black community. He has said that such procedures are end around the of the Constitution. And that is the type
of things that we need to discuss today. Not one instance from so long ago, but his thirty year plus record of being anti civil rights. Well, well, let me ask Victoria to respond to that. And one thing in particularly I want to ask you about is Victoria is uh. You know, he he did during the campaign express some words of support for the idea of banning Muslims from entering the country on the basis of religion. Um, are you are you satisfied that he's going to uh file
the Constitution in that regard? Can I respond to fist statement about one example. We're bringing out that one example because that's what he was derided for and it was false. The context stop it, which I just gave you shows that he should not have been criticized for bringing for bringing that case. Now you talked about the question about the Muslims. He's never said Muslims. That was not Jeff sesshions.
And what he said is that there are certain countries where there is terrorism and the people from there should be vetted more carefully than for other Uh. But but Donald Trump said Donald Trump said Muslims before changing his position, right, didn't We can't. We're gonna kinda put put somebody else's words in Jeff's session's mouth. Yeah, but he also refused Victoria.
He also refused when the when the Senate tried to pass a sense of not having people not allowed into the country because of their religion, he refused to sign on to that. I have no idea what you just said Okay, Well, you'll listen listen to them, You'll listen to the to the testimony today, and you'll hear Senator Patrick Leahy talking to him about that. I mean, you're not you're you're do you do you think that he is going to embrace Muslims coming into this country. That's
not that, that's not the issue. He said that people coming from countries that has where there is terrorism should be vetted more strongly. Hillary Clinton said the same thing. You go back and and google her statement from an airport tarmac, and she said, yes, I believe in stronger vetting. That that's not, you know, a controversial statement. We should vet people from countries, people coming in from Syria where
they have fake documents. We should be looking at people like that more carefully, of course, to protect the American people. But I just want to go back to the the two people who criticized Jeff Sessions in and that we're basing all this on, both of them have been discredited. Victoria. There has been a lot not just about Jeff Sessions, but about a lot of other Trump nominees that the
is are being rushed through. They're being rushed through without the normal background checks that are done by the FBI without some of the nominees even filling out the required forms. Why the rush, Well, as I'm sure we all know that that Senator Obama on the day he was sworn in, had seven of his appointees already voted on by but they had filled out the forms, and so was all the ones that are on this week. So um, I mean, I don't understand the issue. They're the ones that are
up this week have filled out their forms. June, I'd like to go back to something about but we talked, but we okay, But we don't want to go back to the same case that that was so many years ago. But you can go back to something else. This is about an overarching concept. Um. I was a prosecutor. I was a several prosecutor for five years and then deputies just in a g for four So I developed a
philosophy about the criminal law. I know Christine hasn't been there and and so it's not her background, and she has another wonderful background. But I have a philosophy, and that is regarding violent crimes, they should be done by carried out by the state. They should be state prosecutors. And so I marched for the e r A, I marched for pro choice, but when it came to the Violence for Women Act, I opposed it because I thought local prosecutors should be doing it. It does not make
me a sexist. For goodness stake. Um. People can have differing views because of a basic legal philosophy, and it doesn't make them whatever is you want to call them that day, Christine. Senator Sessions has said a lot of things today that I would think would reassure you to some degree. He said he would recuse himself from any investigation involving Hillary Clinton. He's talked about how he abhors the KKK, he is, uh, you know, pretty strongly asserted
he will be independent from Donald Trump. He has is that he empathizes with the civil rights struggles. Um. Are you reassured is he at least saying saying the right things today? Well? I think saying things and doing things are very different. Um. Senator Cornin today spoke about knowing Jeff Sessions is heart and while that's very nice for the two of them, his heart doesn't really, you know, give us an indication as to what type of attorney
general he would be. Um. Now, I do want to go back to the idea of this being a rigged process for a rigged cabinet. UH. Senator Sessions has said in the past during similar Attorney general hearings that you know, you need to present a full record so that we could understand the type of attorney general the nominee would be. And yet Sessions has not provided a full record. He has not provided a questionnaire that is suitable to have a hearing. Not to mention we're only having one day
of hearing from Senator Sessions. He has a thirty year plus record that we need to go through, and getting through with it in a single day is not good enough. We're only having an additional day for outside witnesses. Now, if you think back to Attorney general hearings in the past, some of them have been four days long for people who have not had so public a career as Jeff Sessions. So I do believe that, UH, these nominees are being
rammed through. Quite a few of them are coming through today and tomorrow, so we're not going to be able to give the American people a full picture of these nominees background and why they are so troubling for maintaining rule of law. Thank you both for being on Bloomberg Law. That's Christine Kippens, director of Constitutional Messaging at the Constitutional Accountability Center, and Victoria Dunsing, an attorney at di Genova and Dunsing