Trump Transition Team Claims Civil Rights Groups Are ‘Strongly Supporting’ Sessions for AG – but Can’t Name One

Quotes Bush AG Who Authorized Use of Torture

The Donald Trump transition team on Sunday published a press release claiming that civil rights groups are strongly supporting Sen. Jeff Sessions’ nomination to be Attorney General – the chief law enforcement officer in the nation. But the press release, which does cite several law enforcement groups led by Republicans, doesn’t include any endorsements from civil rights groups. 

Civil rights groups and activists have come out strongly against the Republican U.S. Senator from Alabama, who has a reputation of being a racist and called civil rights groups, including the ACLU and the NAACP “un-American.” Sessions had said both groups, which have been defending civil rights and upholding the U.S. Constitution for about a century, were trying to “force civil rights down the throats of people who were trying to put problems behind them.”

Sessions was denied a seat as judge on the federal bench after being accused of telling a white attorney representing a Black client that he was a traitor to his race. He was also accused of referring to a black attorney as “boy.”

The Huffington Post has detailed many civil rights groups that are opposed to Sessions’ nomination.

The Trump press release also says “law enforcement groups are strongly supporting President-elect Donald J. Trump’s nomination of U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions for Attorney General,” and quotes far right law enforcement professionals like former Attorney General John Ashcroft, who under President George W. Bush authorized the use of torture. 

 

Image by U.S. Customs and Border Protection via Flickr