Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Law. I'm June Gralso in New
Speaker 1: York with Greg Store in Washington, d C. The first
Speaker 1: of President elect Donald Trump's cabinet nominees to get a
Speaker 1: hearing is someone known to all the Senators, Alabama Senator
Speaker 1: Jeff Sessions, known as being one of the most conservative members.
Speaker 1: The seventy year old Sessions appeared before the Judiciary Committee today,
Speaker 1: the same committee that rejected his bid for a federal
Speaker 1: judge ship in nine six because of allegations of racist comments.
Speaker 1: A case at the time in which Sessions prosecuted three
Speaker 1: African American civil rights activists, accusing them of voter fraud
Speaker 1: is said to be one reason he failed. Sessions told
Speaker 1: Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein today that that caricature of him
Speaker 1: in nine eighty six was not correct, and I do
Speaker 1: hope this hearing today will show that I conducted myself
Speaker 1: honorably and properly at that time, and that I am
Speaker 1: the same person, perhaps wiser and maybe a little better.
Speaker 1: I hope so the day than I was in. But
Speaker 1: I did not harbor the kind of animosities and race
Speaker 1: based discrimination ideas that were um I was accused of
Speaker 1: I did not. Our guests are Christine Kippens, director of
Speaker 1: Constitutional Messaging at the Constitutional Accountability Center, and Victoria Tuntsing,
Speaker 1: an attorney at Genova and Tuntsing Christine. Sessions was asked
Speaker 1: about his views on civil rights, women's rights, Muslims being
Speaker 1: barred from entering the country. Did he try to walk
Speaker 1: back his voting record or positions in any of those
Speaker 1: areas well? He definitely had a long public record of
Speaker 1: hostility to the Constitution's protections of liberty and equality for
Speaker 1: all are particularly in relation to people of color, women, immigrants,
Speaker 1: voting rights, lgbt Q rights, and equal access to education,
Speaker 1: which makes him unfit to serve as the chief enforcer
Speaker 1: of our nation's civil rights laws. You could see he
Speaker 1: tried to rewrite his civil rights passed when he was
Speaker 1: in conversation with Senator Frankin and Uh. The Senator did
Speaker 1: not did not buy it. Uh. The Department of Justice
Speaker 1: has a extremely important responsibility in defending our country civil rights,
Speaker 1: and Sessions today proved that he has done nothing uh
Speaker 1: in his record that would suggest that he would enforce
Speaker 1: these laws effectively as is required by our Attorney General. Victoria.
Speaker 1: There there are a number of controversial comments that that
Speaker 1: Senator Sessions is alleged to have made. Um. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to go into all of them, but let me
Speaker 1: just mention a couple of them. Uh. And these were
Speaker 1: all before he was nominated to the judiciary. Um. He
Speaker 1: uh allegedly said to a white civil rights lawyer that
Speaker 1: he was ascribed described at white civil rights lawyer as
Speaker 1: being a disgrace to his race. Incorrected, what do we
Speaker 1: want to start? I mean, these things, it's so appalling.
Speaker 1: This good and decent man was well, Victoria, can I
Speaker 1: finished my question? Victoria, let me finish my question, please, um,
Speaker 1: he said at his first confirmation hearing back when he
Speaker 1: was nominated to be a judge. I think he acknowledged
Speaker 1: that he actually did say that, right. He said, I
Speaker 1: don't remember saying it. He said sometimes I have a
Speaker 1: loose tongue, but I certainly don't remember that. Um. And
Speaker 1: he didn't. He was not even accused of saying it.
Speaker 1: He was that somebody came in and said, I hear
Speaker 1: this person's a disgrace to his race, and uh, Jeff
Speaker 1: Sessions evidently said something about it. Really, he just didn't
Speaker 1: refute it. Now, I mean these allegations are are are
Speaker 1: so obnoxious. Let's just talk about the voting fraud case
Speaker 1: that was talked about at the beginning of the segment. Um,
Speaker 1: do you know who the victims were? The victims were
Speaker 1: blacks who had come to his office and begged for
Speaker 1: help because they thought that there was voter fraud going on.
Speaker 1: A grand jury had asked him to get involved. The
Speaker 1: there was surveillance and the person who was indicted was
Speaker 1: caught mailing ballots that had marked on it showing that
Speaker 1: the names of the person voted for had been changed,
Speaker 1: and Blacks were saying, I didn't make those changes on
Speaker 1: my ballot. That's that case, and the Department of Justice
Speaker 1: not only sanctioned it but wrote the indictment. And Christine,
Speaker 1: what's your response to that, because that's a different view,
Speaker 1: and it's a view that Centator Sessions was talking about today, right. Well,
Speaker 1: I what I have to say to that is that
Speaker 1: it's it's interesting that his supporters keep bringing up this
Speaker 1: one example of Senator Sessions supporting a a possible outcome
Speaker 1: that would have positive results for the black community. I
Speaker 1: had to say, it's not enough to be in not racist. Uh,
Speaker 1: what he has to do is to prove uh that
Speaker 1: he has done something to defend the civil rights and
Speaker 1: constitutional principles of equality and fairness. These are these are
Speaker 1: deep commitments that an attorney general would have to demonstrate.
Speaker 1: Any qualified nominee must have a history of respecting substantive
Speaker 1: fundamental rights, and Jeff Sessions with one example that can't
Speaker 1: be a history of respecting substantive fundamental rights. His rap
Speaker 1: sheet is much longer for for ways in which he
Speaker 1: has impeded blacks from voting. Uh. He has also mentioned
Speaker 1: in great length during his nomination hearing today how he
Speaker 1: supports law enforcement, which is wonderful, Yet he has said
Speaker 1: absolutely nothing on the Department of Justice is responsibility to
Speaker 1: look into h law enforcement that may be targeting the
Speaker 1: black community. He has said that such procedures are end
Speaker 1: around the of the Constitution. And that is the type
Speaker 1: of things that we need to discuss today. Not one
Speaker 1: instance from so long ago, but his thirty year plus
Speaker 1: record of being anti civil rights. Well, well, let me
Speaker 1: ask Victoria to respond to that. And one thing in
Speaker 1: particularly I want to ask you about is Victoria is uh.
Speaker 1: You know, he he did during the campaign express some
Speaker 1: words of support for the idea of banning Muslims from
Speaker 1: entering the country on the basis of religion. Um, are
Speaker 1: you are you satisfied that he's going to uh file
Speaker 1: the Constitution in that regard? Can I respond to fist
Speaker 1: statement about one example. We're bringing out that one example
Speaker 1: because that's what he was derided for and it was false.
Speaker 1: The context stop it, which I just gave you shows
Speaker 1: that he should not have been criticized for bringing for
Speaker 1: bringing that case. Now you talked about the question about
Speaker 1: the Muslims. He's never said Muslims. That was not Jeff sesshions.
Speaker 1: And what he said is that there are certain countries
Speaker 1: where there is terrorism and the people from there should
Speaker 1: be vetted more carefully than for other Uh. But but
Speaker 1: Donald Trump said Donald Trump said Muslims before changing his position, right,
Speaker 1: didn't We can't. We're gonna kinda put put somebody else's
Speaker 1: words in Jeff's session's mouth. Yeah, but he also refused Victoria.
Speaker 1: He also refused when the when the Senate tried to
Speaker 1: pass a sense of not having people not allowed into
Speaker 1: the country because of their religion, he refused to sign
Speaker 1: on to that. I have no idea what you just
Speaker 1: said Okay, Well, you'll listen listen to them, You'll listen
Speaker 1: to the to the testimony today, and you'll hear Senator
Speaker 1: Patrick Leahy talking to him about that. I mean, you're
Speaker 1: not you're you're do you do you think that he
Speaker 1: is going to embrace Muslims coming into this country. That's
Speaker 1: not that, that's not the issue. He said that people
Speaker 1: coming from countries that has where there is terrorism should
Speaker 1: be vetted more strongly. Hillary Clinton said the same thing.
Speaker 1: You go back and and google her statement from an
Speaker 1: airport tarmac, and she said, yes, I believe in stronger vetting.
Speaker 1: That that's not, you know, a controversial statement. We should
Speaker 1: vet people from countries, people coming in from Syria where
Speaker 1: they have fake documents. We should be looking at people
Speaker 1: like that more carefully, of course, to protect the American people.
Speaker 1: But I just want to go back to the the
Speaker 1: two people who criticized Jeff Sessions in and that we're
Speaker 1: basing all this on, both of them have been discredited. Victoria.
Speaker 1: There has been a lot not just about Jeff Sessions,
Speaker 1: but about a lot of other Trump nominees that the
Speaker 1: is are being rushed through. They're being rushed through without
Speaker 1: the normal background checks that are done by the FBI
Speaker 1: without some of the nominees even filling out the required forms.
Speaker 1: Why the rush, Well, as I'm sure we all know
Speaker 1: that that Senator Obama on the day he was sworn in,
Speaker 1: had seven of his appointees already voted on by but
Speaker 1: they had filled out the forms, and so was all
Speaker 1: the ones that are on this week. So um, I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't understand the issue. They're the ones that are
Speaker 1: up this week have filled out their forms. June, I'd
Speaker 1: like to go back to something about but we talked,
Speaker 1: but we okay, But we don't want to go back
Speaker 1: to the same case that that was so many years ago.
Speaker 1: But you can go back to something else. This is
Speaker 1: about an overarching concept. Um. I was a prosecutor. I
Speaker 1: was a several prosecutor for five years and then deputies
Speaker 1: just in a g for four So I developed a
Speaker 1: philosophy about the criminal law. I know Christine hasn't been
Speaker 1: there and and so it's not her background, and she
Speaker 1: has another wonderful background. But I have a philosophy, and
Speaker 1: that is regarding violent crimes, they should be done by
Speaker 1: carried out by the state. They should be state prosecutors.
Speaker 1: And so I marched for the e r A, I
Speaker 1: marched for pro choice, but when it came to the
Speaker 1: Violence for Women Act, I opposed it because I thought
Speaker 1: local prosecutors should be doing it. It does not make
Speaker 1: me a sexist. For goodness stake. Um. People can have
Speaker 1: differing views because of a basic legal philosophy, and it
Speaker 1: doesn't make them whatever is you want to call them
Speaker 1: that day, Christine. Senator Sessions has said a lot of
Speaker 1: things today that I would think would reassure you to
Speaker 1: some degree. He said he would recuse himself from any
Speaker 1: investigation involving Hillary Clinton. He's talked about how he abhors
Speaker 1: the KKK, he is, uh, you know, pretty strongly asserted
Speaker 1: he will be independent from Donald Trump. He has is
Speaker 1: that he empathizes with the civil rights struggles. Um. Are
Speaker 1: you reassured is he at least saying saying the right
Speaker 1: things today? Well? I think saying things and doing things
Speaker 1: are very different. Um. Senator Cornin today spoke about knowing
Speaker 1: Jeff Sessions is heart and while that's very nice for
Speaker 1: the two of them, his heart doesn't really, you know,
Speaker 1: give us an indication as to what type of attorney
Speaker 1: general he would be. Um. Now, I do want to
Speaker 1: go back to the idea of this being a rigged
Speaker 1: process for a rigged cabinet. UH. Senator Sessions has said
Speaker 1: in the past during similar Attorney general hearings that you know,
Speaker 1: you need to present a full record so that we
Speaker 1: could understand the type of attorney general the nominee would be.
Speaker 1: And yet Sessions has not provided a full record. He
Speaker 1: has not provided a questionnaire that is suitable to have
Speaker 1: a hearing. Not to mention we're only having one day
Speaker 1: of hearing from Senator Sessions. He has a thirty year
Speaker 1: plus record that we need to go through, and getting
Speaker 1: through with it in a single day is not good enough.
Speaker 1: We're only having an additional day for outside witnesses. Now,
Speaker 1: if you think back to Attorney general hearings in the past,
Speaker 1: some of them have been four days long for people
Speaker 1: who have not had so public a career as Jeff Sessions.
Speaker 1: So I do believe that, UH, these nominees are being
Speaker 1: rammed through. Quite a few of them are coming through
Speaker 1: today and tomorrow, so we're not going to be able
Speaker 1: to give the American people a full picture of these
Speaker 1: nominees background and why they are so troubling for maintaining
Speaker 1: rule of law. Thank you both for being on Bloomberg Law.
Speaker 1: That's Christine Kippens, director of Constitutional Messaging at the Constitutional
Speaker 1: Accountability Center, and Victoria Dunsing, an attorney at di Genova
Speaker 1: and Dunsing