“Respected colleagues”: Sessions, Blumenthal.
(Opinion) President-Elect Donald Trump has chosen a man who considers a white civil rights lawyer a “disgrace to his race” to oversee enforcing civil-rights law in America — though you wouldn’t know that from the reaction of Connecticut’s newly reelected U.S. senator.
Trump’s office announced Friday that he has decided to nominate the white supremacist, Republican U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, to become attorney general.
Sessions’s history of hostility to black Americans was so well documented that it stopped U.S. senators from approving Sessions’s previous presidential nomination, to a judgeship, back in the 1980s, before Sessions became a senator himself.
But that was then. We live in a different America now.
And based on the reaction Friday from Democratic U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Sessions may have reason to expect smoother sailing this time in having his nomination approved.
Here’s the statement Blumenthal issued about the Sessions selection, in its entirety:
“Although a respected colleague, Senator Sessions deserves and no doubt expects the same exacting, serious scrutiny that any other Attorney General nominee would receive. As the nation’s highest law enforcer, this position extends an unrivaled panoply of powers — over individual rights and liberties, national security, criminal justice, environment and many others. Seeking a public trust of profound importance, an appointee should have unquestionable integrity and ability, an unshakable respect for the Constitution, and a record of professional and ethical excellence. Senator Sessions will be held to this high standard. I am sure he anticipates no less.”
That’s it. No hint of Sessions’ past or his stated views. No hint that Session calls the NAACP and the ACLU “un-American” for “trying to force civil rights down the throats of people.” Or that he allegedly calls grown black men “boy.” Or that, after his role leading the charge to kill bipartisan immigration reform in 2013, he was dubbed the “most anti-immigrant senator in the chamber.” Or that he has called for resuming torture tactics abandoned by the Obama administration. Or that, as the D.C.-based Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights put it in a statement issued Friday attacking the choice, “Throughout his tenure in the Senate, Senator Sessions has been one of the chamber’s leading antagonists of immigrants and the LGBT community, continuing his long record of obstructing civil rights that began in his tenure as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama. His record of hostility to voting rights as U.S. Attorney is particularly egregious.”
Maybe Blumenthal was signaling he plans to get tougher during hearings with that “although” at the beginning of the statement.
But then consider the very different message Blumenthal sent this same week when Trump announced he’s appointing another white supremacist to a top post: “alt-right” impresario Stephen K. Bannon, who’ll serve as a top counselor to the president. Blumenthal immediately called on Trump to “rescind” the appointment. And he didn’t mince words.
Here’s what he said in a release from his office: “I am deeply troubled by the prospective appointment of Steve Bannon to a position in the Trump Administration’s White House. Steve Bannon is the executive chairman of a website that deals in anti-Semitic, racist, xenophobic, and misogynistic comments. He should have no place in a position of public trust, and I hope that the President-elect will reconsider and reverse this decision. Actions speak louder than words. I share President-elect Trump’s stated intention to bring the country together, bridge divisions, and find common ground, but appointing Steve Bannon dramatically undercuts and discredits that goal.”
His Friday statement expressed no such concerns about Sessions.
As a former U.S. attorney, Blumenthal understands more than most people the stakes of Sessions’ nomination. The attorney general oversees the U.S. Department of Justice’s civil rights division. That division is responsible for investigating and enforcing civil-rights laws. It’s supposed to act as what Sessions considers “traitors” to the white race — intervening, for instance, when rogue white cops brutalize people of color.
We’ve seen here in the New Haven area the difference it makes to our lives when that division does its job. Under President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, the Justice Department responded to years-old pleas for help with an East Haven police department that as a matter of policy harassed and brutalized people of color, especially, in more recent years, Latino immigrants. The department undertook a courageous investigation that led to an overhaul of the department. People’s lives are far safer today as a result. The department similarly investigated systemic racism and brought about similar changes in communities like Ferguson, Missouri. It builds on, rather than thwarts, the work done by organizations promoting civil liberties and civil rights.
Under Sessions, the federal government can be counted on to protect, rather than prosecute, lynch mobs and brutal rogue cops. Never mind what this means for the rights of Muslim Americans.
Jeff Sessions doesn’t need Democratic colleagues like Blumenthal to vote to approve his nomination. The Republicans control the Senate. They have the votes. Democrats like Blumenthal will be able to cover their flanks by voting no without insulting Sessions.
But Sessions needs Democratic colleagues like Blumenthal to hold their tongues. To avoid exposing him for what he is, so that it becomes either politically impossible for him to win his nomination — or, barring that, to make clear the stakes to the American public and strengthen the institutional and grassroots opposition needed to fight back against a racist U.S. Department of “Justice.”
He needs colleagues like Blumenthal to pretend to pose tough questions by talking about raising questions — without taking a clear, forthright stand against a danger to lives of thousands of innocent Americans.
Blumenthal’s wishy-washy non-statement on the nomination reflects the tactical shrewdness of Trump’s move. If he had nominated any other white supremacist — say, Bannon — to a position requiring Senate approval, he might have encountered trouble. He chose Bannon instead for a top spot that doesn’t require Senate approval (but does give hate groups a direct line to the Oval Office). The Trump team knew it could count on Senate “collegiality” to trump the safety and well-being of the American people.
New Haven media pundits Markeshia Ricks, Joe Ugly and Norma Rodriguez-Reyes weighed in on Blumenthal’s statements during the “Pundit Friday” program on WNHH radio.
Joe Ugly called the Sessions statement “weak, to say the least” and noted that black voters in cities like New Haven just helped reelect Blumenthal to the Senate by a wide margin. “He should think of that,” he said.
“I would have been more comfortable if he said [Sessions’] record disqualifies him,” Ricks added.
Citing the senator’s strong recent stand in support of Puerto Rico, Rodriguez-Reyes predicted that even though Blumenthal Friday “played it safe,” when confirmation hearings begin, “he’s going to make his point well-known.”
Click on or download the above sound file to listen to the full episode of “Pundit Friday” which also touched on Trump’s other first moves, the protests in New Haven this past week, the “sanctuary city” debate, and new development projects in town.