Senate hearing for Sessions likely to revisit racial issue

The two-term California Attorney General, Harris would be sworn in as US Senator on January 3, 2017.

If approved for the job by a simple majority in the Republican-dominated Senate, Sessions, 69, would lead the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Sessions has previously said a “properly exercised” Civil Rights Division “provides tremendous benefit to American citizens” but should not be used as “a sword to assert inappropriate claims that have the effect of promoting political agendas”.

The 69-year-old Sessions was first elected to the Senate 20 years ago.

“The Congressional Black Caucus stands ready to oppose Senator Sessions’ confirmation as we adamantly believe his appointment will set us back in the advancement of civil rights and race relations across the country”, Butterfield said. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) to be attorney general.

Thomas Walker, the former US attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, an Obama appointee as the top prosecutor for the 44 counties from Raleigh to the coast, raised many questions about what the Justice Department under Sessions’ leadership might entail.

While his picks suggest he is adhering to far-right positions, Trump made efforts to send reassuring signals about stability and continuity regarding America’s place in the world. Elizabeth Warren, a possible presidential contender in 2020, sounded the call nearly immediately, asserting a moral imperative to block Sessions’ confirmation.

John Hudak, deputy director of the Center for Effective Public Management and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who studies marijuana policy, points out that Sessions could not only empower federal prosecutors across the country to begin targeting drug crimes again, but if the Justice Department sues individual states, it is unlikely to lose that battle in court. Nunes said he did so after gauging Pompeo’s interest in serving in a Trump administration a few days after the election.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has also announced he supports Sessions for attorney general. “I am not insensitive to Blacks”. “They must cite the Koran as evidence that the murder of innocents is not permitted”, he said in a 2013 House floor speech. But, he doesn’t see how the Trump administration could take down an industry that is already generating billions of dollars and created thousands of jobs.

“In viewing the role of the US Attorney General through this lens, I have deep concerns about Senator Sessions’ nomination. Sessions’ nomination”, CEO Maria Teresa Kumar said about Sessions’ appointment. “But beyond the language, would you characterize the behavior described in that as sexual assault if that behavior actually took place?” The Justice Department, which Sessions may soon lead, defines sexual assault as “any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient”. He now serves on the Judiciary Committee. He is known for his opposition towards immigration reform and bipartisan proposals to cut mandatory minimum prison sentences, the New York Times explains.

Sessions, whom President-elect Donald Trump named today as his choice to become the nation’s top prosecutor and head of the Justice Department, was in 1986 denied confirmation for a USA district judgeship following allegations that he had called the ACLU and the NAACP “un-American” and made racist remarks directed at colleagues. Jeff Sessions as USA attorney general.

Thomas Figures, a black assistant U.S. attorney who worked for Sessions, testified that Sessions called him “boy” on multiple occasions and joked about the Ku Klux Klan, saying that he thought Klan members were “OK, until he learned that they smoked marijuana”.

Sessions maintained that he was just “joking” when he said thought the Ku Klux Klan “OK” until he found out its members smoked pot.

Since his stunning victory over Hillary Clinton last week, Trump has spoken with Russian President Putin, British Prime Minister Theresa May and almost three dozen other world leaders by telephone.

Sessions’ hard-line and at times inflammatory statements on immigration are similar to Trump’s but have angered other members of Congress.

All five states voted Trump, with Pennsylvania turning red for the first Republican presidential candidate since 1988.