Sessions nominated for attorney general, could face rocky road to confirmation

A woman stops for a selfie with a heavily-armed New York City police officer at the main Fifth Avenue entrance to Trump Tower in New York City. “Some have degraded and demeaned Americans”.

“Do you understand that that could be interpreted as one more example of leadership in America dismissing the seriousness of marijuana use?”

The last time he faced Senate confirmation, things did not go well.

In 1986, the Judiciary Committee voted against confirming him for a federal judgeship after he was accused of making racially charged remarks while US attorney in Alabama. Spokesman Sean Spicer noted that Sessions worked on desegregation lawsuits while he was a US attorney, voted to confirm Eric Holder as attorney general – the first African-American to hold the post – and led an effort to award the Congressional Gold Medal to civil rights activist Rosa Parks. Sessions said 10 years ago, calling for tougher border enforcement.

Should that happen, Sessions will leave behind a coveted U.S. Senate seat in the Yellowhammer State.

Flynn, who has called Islam a “political ideology” that “hides behind being a religion”, will work in the West Wing and have frequent access to Trump as he makes national security decisions.

A less high-profile but equally stellar appointment is Trump’s selection of Congressman Mike Pompeo, from Kansas, to head the Central Intelligence Agency.

A retired Army lieutenant general and former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Flynn was another early Trump backer and served as the president-elect’s top military adviser during the campaign.

Barletta said he and Pompeo were elected to serve in the House of Representatives the same year. He was an executive in the aerospace and oil industries before his election to Congress in 2010.

“Good people don’t smoke marijuana”, Sessions said during a Senate hearing in April.

In March, two lawyers, including a 13-year Justice Department veteran, testified that Sessions had referred to the NAACP, the National Council of Churches, the ACLU, and other groups as Communist-inspired and “un-American”. Jeb Hensarling and Tom Price both met with the President-elect this week and are being mentioned for other Cabinet positions.

Pompeo has also promised to undo the mass-surveillance reforms that ended the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of phone-record metadata. The Kansas Republican has long argued for expanding the government’s surveillance powers. Don Beyer Jr. said in a statement. In tapping Sessions and Flynn, Trump is also rewarding loyalty from two of his most ardent supporters during the presidential campaign.

“Like any nominee he has to questioned very carefully, not only about his past but about his future”, the NY senator said.

Sessions was denied a federal judge position in 1986 in part because of persistent allegations of racism, including one instance in which he joked that he was fine with the Ku Klux Klan “until I found out they smoked pot”. Sessions conceded that he had made such remarks. An aide to Sen. Attorney General Luther Strange, to state senators Trip Pittman, Dick Brewbaker and Cam Ward.

Several Republican lawmakers issued statements in support of their colleagues.

Sessions is on the senate judiciary committee and previously worked alongside the late-Democratic Pennsylvania Sen.

North Carolina Republican Sen. Spencer Abraham of MI, though Sessions was an early co-sponsor and joined 85 other senators in the unanimous vote in support. But he was rejected by the GOP-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee after critics accused him of making racially charged statements.