Trump, Sessions and the GOP are purposely trying to demoralize, de-staff, and destroy the various branches of government, the better to shrink regulation and oversight, allowing their crony-controlled "free markets" the unrestricted ability to make as much money for the rich as humanly possible. As long as these people stay rich and can pass their wealth, power and privilege to their children, I truly don't think they give a darn what happens to the rest of us - and that includes the brainwashed rubes who vote for them.
In order to do make their billions, for decades the GOP has cultivated under-educated and gullible Americans by underfunding eduction, undermining trust in journalism, and masterfully stoking resentment and insecurities. And now that those people act entirely out of hatred for "the other," they'll only believe what Fox News tell them to believe.
The GOP has been masterful in its depravity.
2
"And he has castigated rank-and-file employees, which career lawyers said further chilled dissent and debate within the department."
These lawyers don't understand: there is no dissent or debate in the Trump administration. Either you are with him or you are against him. In the latter case, you should get out - and don't let the door hit you on the way out. Dissent and debate is disloyalty and you are definitely part of the deep state.
1
This is what you get when senior positions are staffed by 3rd raters, if not outright crooks. When Trump, Sessions, and others leave (or sent to jail) it will take many years to repair the damage.
We are still suffering a post-Vietnam mentality. How long will this one be?
1
Treating DOJ employees badly means there will be little to no loyalty to the organization. It is under circumstances described that corruption takes hold in a system of justice.
Bribery, witness tampering, evidence removal/placement, exposing informants; even killing witnesses in organized crime prosecutions will find a home in a DOJ that does not respect & support its employees-any high performing organization's greatest asset.
1
So there really is a deep state that refuses to support the president?
You all had previously assured us there is no such thing.
Which is true?
3
Are we really surprised by any of this? The Trumpanovs openly scorn the base tenets of democracy and view government entities and employees as pawns in their tyrannical power games. Jeff Sessions was selected as AG because he possessed the bias and the desire to carry out Trump's white nationalist agenda. Trump, like all dictators, understands the need to have effective stooges. I am an optimist by nature but fear that our democracy is in a perilous state. As educational philosopher Robert Hutchins asserted, "The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference and undernourishment". I pray that my fellow citizens will show up at the polls and cast out the Trump minions. This is the vote of our lives.
4
This is how you undermine an institution. A Republican specialty. I hope we have time to reverse the damage. If the Democrats don't win at least the House or Senate, the Trump damage may be irreversible.
6
Nothing to worry about. By the time the Federalist Society --together with a clueless President who takes its direction and the slim majority of Republicans in Congress that rubber-stamps Presidential appointments -- has finished packing the federal courts with 'conservatives,' winning cases based on Sessions' hard line right-wing agenda will be a piece of cake. Shootin' fish in a rain barrel.
That will no doubt improve morale among the grunts at the "Justice" Department who have to do the dirty work.
2
Trump only cares about trump—always has, always will. If it means undermining our justice system so they can't investigate him, he will call that a "fair deal."
3
I was a Justice Department lawyer when Ed Meese was Attorney General. Meese was an ethical train wreck and there were muliple staff resignations. But most of the resignations were about professionalism, not politics. By contrast, much of the current conflict appears to be political.
Since these were the two worst periods of conflict at Justice in recent times, a comparison of the two would be particularly enlightening. Distinguishing the ethical conflicts from the political is important. Sessions has an agenda that is clearly political. But there are also allegations that he has crossed ethical lines. The disruption caused by each is different.
14
I am sure things could have been handled better. But Katie Benner seems to have flunked Democracy 101.
More alarming still, many officials of the Justice Department also don't seem to understand the basics of self-governance. They seem to think that the Justice Department belongs to them, and no matter the priorities of the President, they get to determine the Department's policies. That is precisely what critics have in mind when they talk about the deep state.
It is hard to feel any sympathy for the officials as they cry into their suds at the Irish pub. What did they expect? As President Obama used to say: Elections have consequences. There is a new President in town, and if the Department's employees are true professionals and dedicated public servants, they place their skills and energy at the disposal of the new Administration to help it implement its priorities, goals and values. If they can't stomach that, then they tender their resignations.
In the UK, where my father once worked for the foreign service, there are doubtless many civil servants who (as I write) think that nationalizing the steel or rail industries is foolish, but they are drafting plans for the eventuality that Jeremy Corbyn's Labor Party comes to power.
10
They should just ask Lindsey Graham what he intends to do when he is A.G. so they can prepare.
8
But I thought Trump only picked the best. Those with the highest I.Q.'s.
6
Wow, lawyers having different opinions within the same law firm or the same governmental department. Who'd have thought?
9
Readers here may be wringing their hands in completely justified fear of the social destruction being recklessly engineered by Sessions and Trump but everyone needs to stay focused on the fact that DEEP STATE CONSERVATIVES are the puppet-masters to blame for the utter mess this country has gotten itself into.
18
The Senate (back when it was a respected arm of Government) rejected Sessions' appointment as a federal judge.
But Trump, of course, thought he was a great candidate to oversee the whole Department of Justice. In his nomination process, Mr. Sesssions lied to the Senate Committee. Clearly Mr. Sessions has no respect for the rule of law.
As silly as that sounds, he seemed like the ideal appointee for Trump. Trump does not know anything about the Constitution and has ignorance is surpassed only by his contempt for the rule of law. After all, he is an authoritarian.
The silver lining, such as it is, is that Mr. Sessions is incompetent - Mr. Magoo as Trump calls him. While Sessions is happy to violate the law, ignore precedent, shield the President from oversight, he lacks the ability to execute. He is clearly not a leader, hence the widespread dissent within Justice. He's a mean little man with a chip on his shoulder and that works in the nation's favor. He is fortunately too proud to resign meaning Trump, another incompetent, can replace him. Sure, Lindsey Graham, shameless toady of the President, has planted the seeds for a post-election firing, but that assumes Republicans maintain control.
This is what corruption, mendacity, and subversion of the rule of law look like. Their incompetence has bought us time, but if we do not grab at least one lever of power in the mid-terms, the game may well be over.
43
When I look at the actions of Trump and Sessions, at least I understand why they’re doing what they’re doing.
Trump’s a lazy greedhead who likes to swan about on the taxpayes’ dime, and who has figured out that his path to power and mo’ money is to scream, yell, break stuff, and occasionally throw the suckers a bone and a sop.
Sessions is a no-kidding, old-fashioned Southern style bigot of the Lester Maddox stripe, who really doesn’t give a tinker’s about the Constitution he thumps or the law he swore to uphold, so long as he can keep propping up some of the stupidest white people on the planet, and keep taking a hack at refugees, black people, them turrible gays, and anybody whose politics are to the left of Joe Pyne.
The suckers are harder to explain. I mean, they really think they’re upholding a Constitution they’ve never read, and “conservative,” values they couldn’t find with both hands and a hunting dog. They really think this insanity is good for the country.
You really can’t explain it, without words like racism and ignorance and laziness.
30
As a long-time DOJ insider, a veteran of many administrations, I can certainly relate a number of tales worthy of "Yes, Prime Minister!"
New administrations come in. The new political appointees may have their different policy objectives. But whatever DOJ does can potentially be subjected to the discipline of a court-ordered process. In other words: one may not like the case law, but one can't just sweep it aside and make up new law. One has to respect the case law.
So, how does one channel or "drift" the appointees? You don't write a memo which says, "We can't do this," (such as challenge the 'sanctuary cities'). You write a memo which says, "Here's our best case."
If the case is weak, the political leadership will then know it, and it can then take responsibility for pursuing a weak case. Or the leadership may be persuaded. And that is that.
To the long-time attorneys complaining to the New York Times: Don't be so lazy. Do your job. And do it knowing that your preferred policy outcome is not going to prevail. That's democratic process for you. Grow up.
11
@chaunceygardiner
This is not a case of "Yes Minister" manipulation by the bureaucracy. This is a case of the appointed head of the department asking for legal backing for his policies and not getting the answers he wants. He was given the best case and it was not good enough apparently he literally asked them to write something that came to a different conclusion. Sorry the law don't work that way. There is no "both sides" argument.
2
Baloney. This is a political activist report, not a news report. The "shift" at DOJ from a "civil rights-centered agenda"? Really? You mean the SAME "civil rights-centered agenda" that failed to challenge police abuse over POC for 8 years under President Obama? The same "civil rights-centered agenda" that did not even lift a finger when Natasha McKenna was electrocuted in Fairfax County by Sheriff's Dept? The same "civil rights-centered agenda" that led to massive protests across the USA in the failure of DOJ to act to protect American civil rights? Please.
I cannot even recall the number of times I wrote to Vanita Gupta who is now pearl-clutching at the "horrors" of the current administration, while she saw "nothing-nothing-nothing" under the last administration.
The reality has been and remains that the DOJ has become another domestic intelligence organization, and that is their main priority. Everything else is window-dressing for the gullible. This is not new to Trump, and certainly the NYT has known for a long, long time.
15
Trump is breaking the FBI. Clearly, poor management and rotten leadership are at the heart of problem. Moreover, this White House has no understanding of what it means to be a professional or a public servant. These folks are swamping the drain, not draining the swamp. The Republican party is history. Our faith and confidence in the Supreme Court has been decimated. Now Trump is squandering the independence and professionalism of the FBI.
9
And so we see the reason for the ferocity of the Supreme Court strategy of the GOP. A political SC will now be able to consistently reverse the decisions of lower courts based on sound law. And Trump and co. are seeding the lower courts with the same politically slanted minds. With the eyes of the world on Kavanaugh, he was confirmed despite obvious political bias and even vengeful spite. How much more biased are some or all of the lower court judges that receive no media coverage and thus get much less push back?
This is how a democracy becomes fascist, or any other -ist, without armed insurrection. Drip by drip, until it is too late to turn things back.
16
Mr. Sessions reflects Trump's thinking in several ways. Firstly, he rejects expert opinion, favoring his own ideological bent . In the course of putting down the professionals, he slights their judgement and disrespects their conclusions. Secondly, he is not one to consider the possibility of compromise --it is always "I know better!". Thirdly his ideology is extremely cruel, even barbaric. He is willing to inflict unbearable burdens on those who do not obey him; as with Trump, there is no compassion with this man. Under Sessions , Justice is not tempered with mercy. This unwillingness to respect expert opinion is shared with the president. As a result, we have cases brought to court that often are kicked out, rarely won. (This may change under the slew of new judges put up by the Federalist Society). We have policies that are barbaric because Sessions persists, ignoring the opinions of his underlings. His policy of migrant separation has not stopped the flow of immigrants over the border, yet he persists in keeping this inhumane policy going. His war on the undocumented is carried on to an extreme--making orphans out of children who are citizens but whose parents--often having been productive and peaceful citizens for years--are hounded incessantly and deported without mercy. And the DACA adults--who most Americans believe should remain in this country unmolested --are on the cusp of deportation. Under Trump-Sessions, professionals. experts leave gov't employ.
81
Stop pretending America is something other than what it is. It's a gangster state. It's run by criminals who now have absolute power and can not be challenged.
22
Another example of 'investigative reporting' by NYT that seems to have clear ulterior motive of sowing discontent within the government and undermine confidence in the government.
Don't quite understand why this is newsworthy. Liberals whose priorities differ from those of the administration are unhappy because the administration is exerting its clear right to prioritize cases.
Fact of the matter, the exact same phenomena occured as Obama took over from Bush...
Just hate how the NYT leans so far to the left in its coverage of the news. This is the very reason I don't watch Fox News. NYT has simply become the polar opposite of Fox.... Very sad for a once great news journal...
8
This "same old, same old" argument - claiming the sins of this administration are the same as earlier administrations' - does not hold up under scrutiny. Trump has made trouble within the Federal departments in ways that no previous administration has dared. He is a heedless, needlessly destructive President.
20
One of the worst aspects of this admin is shown by this sentence, "Most asked not to be named for fear of retribution." The strongly vindictive nature of Trump et al has lead to chilling of free speech within the DOJ. Past admins have been more accommodating to career employees who may have differing political views, but with Trump, it's all or nothing. This is not how you govern a free people.
12
Imagine the Sound and the Fury if, with an administration in pursuit of ends that this newspaper and its readers support, subordinates rose in rebellion against it. It would then be a case of, as the British have put it, Your Most Disobedient Servant.
Apparently some staffers who expect laws to be elastic enough to cover their favored people, despite text to the contrary, have seen fit to take their talents elsewhere. Fare them well, and let them go to Congress if they don't like the law as it is written.
7
Nobody expected this abortion of an Administration to be anything other than right-wing. We did however hold out some hope that it’d maybe be competent, and would color within the lines drawn by the law and the Constitution and common sense.
How very foolish of us.
17
This is becoming a nation of tyranny. People in our government are afraid to stand up for fairness, freedom and our democracy. Something terrible is going to happen. I don’t know what it will be but it will change our nation forever. Maybe we the people will have to pack our bags and become refugees. VOTE BLUE if you want to live
15
This is fascism. I am encouraged to see the occasional article or opinion piece agreeing.
Change course in November or it will be too late.
12
'“We know of no department employee who is opposed to policies that uphold the rule of law and protect the American people....' [said] Ms. Flores.'
i wonder how long she will have this notion? will she continue to have it when a supreme court packed with right-wing ideologues professing to be 'originalists' confirm law suits that enforce state laws to disenfranchise left-leaning voters? this is the way the country will turn to fascism: eliminating the right to vote!
i hope the donor class soon sees the folly of their support for trump, because if trump and the supreme court lead the country to fascism they will have to pack up and leave to autocratic safe havens and become 'oligarchs' (after putin extorts enough payment) or morbid sycophants (as MBS has their lackeys beheaded) or both!
5
Some of the defenders of the current admin and Sessions are trying to say the situation is normal, that conservatives always have it tough in the D.O.J., that Trump won and has the right to implement his policies, etc. They're not reading carefully. The article is about how this time it's different, unlike under Bush, for example. Trump has no principles and doesn't understand the idea of law. Sessions does, but wants what he wants, which is racism and unfairness. The very nomination of someone like Sessions makes this D.O.J. unique. He is a pariah of the Old South, someone who couldn't get confirmed as a judge because of his blatant racism. No, it's not just someone else's turn now.
17
The "rank and file" are not this administration's constituency, or concern...
6
Just as with Trump, Sessions is totally unqualified for the job he was selected for. Both have demeaned their office and act in a way that lessens rather than increases the respect for law in this country .
17
Sessions has suffered Trump's insults and abuse for 20 months and has refused to take the bait and resign. Sessions hung onto the job to promote his own agenda at DOJ. Anti-immigration, drug enforcement, violent crime, etc. Session's fate is tied to the mid-term elections. If the Senate flips to democratic control (unlikely), then Trump may not fire Sessions. If the Senate remains under Republican control, Trump will fire Sessions via tweet (naturally). Jeff can then watch the House investigate Trump come January 2019.
4
Depressed morale, minimization of expertise and departure of career attorneys is just what our Boy President wants for the DOJ.
In Trump's mind he knows more than they do and believes they will just be an annoyance and an impediment to his goals.
6
“... two dozen current and former career department lawyers who worked under Mr. Sessions. Most asked not to be named for fear of retribution.”
Good Lord, how many times in recent months have we heard that members of the WH staff, cabinet, and federal agency staff have “fear of retribution”? Answer: More than in any other presidency in the past 100 or so years.
Retribution, more common among the likes of the Saudi, or Iranian, Russian, Chinese, former Argentine, Chilean, El Salvadoran and a half-dozen current African nations, should NOT be the central m.o. of the US President’s administration, particularly when it’s against fellow US citizens.
It’s disturbing to see that so many of our fellow Americans, including many who call themselves people of God, prefer intimidation and bullying over celebrating our America the Beautiful by honoring the dignity of all.
12
Well, I guess the NY Times and it's liberal minded readers should have no problem with AG Sessions' dismissal and subsequent replacement. Or, will all of the aforementioned complain about that?
6
There seems to be a lot of disgruntlement everywhere, no doubt it's not hard to find some employees to interview for any specific topic, just name the topic. Every week brings a new flavor.
5
I'm not sure I'd call this news. It was clear from day one that Jeff Sessions was a buffoon. Add to that constant undermining from the president, and how could the DoJ possibly be anything but dysfunctional?
6
It seems entirely plausible that Sessions is not a great AG and that he's making legal mistakes. There are two sides to every story, however. Everyone who has worked in govt knows that the federal govt is mostly populated by progressive activist types, whether they admit to it or not. This is not any surprise. People who work in govt usually think the govt should be activist. Any conservative who wants to align the DoJ with even reasonable conservative policies is going to be opposed by mid- and senior-level bureaucrats. This happens all the time, not only in the fed govt but in state govt. In such situations, one should expect to see a lot of resignations (a sure sign that there indeed was progressive resistance), press leaks, a sympathetic press, and so on. Let's hope that whomever replaces Sessions has enough administrative skill to gently transition the DoJ without wrecking it.
6
@Chris-zzz - Fascinating. Please provide proof to back up these assertions.
7
@ Chris
Many liberal lawyers graduate law school and find govt work to be the best life fit. Many conservative lawyers graduate law school and find the rewards of private practice (i.e. the market) to be a better fit. This is natural and okay. Not a surprise that government lawyers don't like a conservative AG. Would be bigger news if they did.
3
The management team always reflects the guy at the top. Trump is in this for himself, and so it seems is everyone else.
6
Why are conservatives always surprised that most people in government -- most people in colleges, in the media, in the country -- are liberal?
The very act of working for government is a liberal notion. Education teaches western civilization which has prospered under liberal -- even democratic socialist -- policies of egalitarianism and social welfare.
When the nation's educated mostly believe in civil rights and equal employment opportunity and equal rights and national health and public education and even in a welcoming immigration policy, then why are conservatives surprised?
The people who want low taxes for the rich, who want vote suppression, and white supremacy and income inequality and gutting government funding for the public welfare are not anywhere in the majority.
Conservatives are losing ground, even as they hold most of the land. And that is the voice not of unruly mobs but of democracy.
18
Is the political team running the NY Times these days really surprised to see that there really is a Deep State?
The departments of Justice and State were always the prime targets for pro-Soviet agents in the WWII era, and one the progressive ideologues controlled the larger university faculties, this trend only sped up.
Wild guesses had Obama adding over a thousand cadres of his choosing to Justice under Eric ''the fixer'' Holder, and an enormous percentage was added at State, which Sec. Tillerson made wonderful cuts in.
Of COURSE loyal progressives are dedicated to stopping AG Sessions, as Project Veritas has been allowing them to document for us with their own speech. Many appear to spend most or all of their work time promoting harshly ideological goals.
11
Oh. Is that how word got out about our secret base under the Texas Wal-Marts.
You’re going to lose, you know.
4
Political shift at DOJ, you write? It's more like a seismic event of epic proportions or the difference between Democratic rule and a white supremacist takeover. I'm waiting, though not holding my breath, for someone to finally peg Sessions with the right description: klansman.
--
'Things Trump Did While You Weren’t Looking' https://wp.me/p2KJ3H-2ZW
18
Obama/Holder was not civil rights centered. Holder did a few spotlights grabbing civil rights cases focused on race, but did nothing to broadly enforce the 14th amendment (or any others).
7
He actually did, but that was in this dimension.
2
Pres. Trump said that AG Sessions was mentally retarded. I disagree. Sessions is not mentally retarded. He knows exactly what he is doing, by trying to turn the esteemed Justice Department into a back water agency that cannot get out of its own way. This is the core of the Trump agenda.
18
Sessions has been racist bigot his entire life. In the real world Sessions would never have been given this position. however since this is the administration of less than smart people, he is in charge.
Once he is gone and the democrats are in charge we can overturn his hateful mandates. Maybe his grand children should be locked up in cages see how he reacts to it.
Session is the old jim crow south taking its last breaths..
29
That suction sound you are hearing is brain and memory drain. DOJ, EPA, DOE and probably any other department acronym you care to throw in is suffering from experienced civil servants leaving for ethical, scientific, human and economic reasons. Attracting replacements a of similar caliber who are willing to risk their careers for government pay will be a daunting task.
The level of expertise and character of the replacements will be determined by answering this question: Are you willing to work under the Trump Administration? You know where the President sets the the bar when it comes to expertise and character.
16
Not a surprise that swamp creatures don't find it pleasant when the swamp is being drained.
10
@Ryan - Problem is that the swamp creatures are now in charge. Don't be naive, the corruption in the trump administration is at historic levels. We have never had this many corrupt government officials in office. Not even Tammeny Hall under Boss Tweed was this bad, Tweed at least paid off the voters.
1
Yes, if only we could go back to the days of open borders and tarmac meetings.
9
Once the Republicans get the courts stacked, however, they won't lose as much, right? So maybe Sessions is thinking ahead.
I am NOT a supporter of Sessions in any way, BTW.
4
I can only hope that most who despise bully Trump and his bully cronies’ style of “governance” are quietly planning to vote like democracy depends on it on Tuesday, November 6th 2018. As a child of the Chief Judge Advocate of the United States Air Force during the first decade of the 2000s, my Republican parents reiterated that my siblings and I are privileged to have been born into the greatest and freest country on planet Earth. I agree, but my children may not be able to say the same.
I would feel inclined to discuss America’s predicament with my parents, but they have unfortunately been duped like so many into believing FoxNews delivers real investigative journalism. They simply tune into the weekday primetime Fox opinion shows because newspapers are no longer printed and it’s all they have time for. I don’t blame them for not wanting to read long articles from a screen and choosing voices that at the very least lean toward their existing opinions. We all want comfort after a hard day of work, not to be challenged. Fox (and others on the liberal side too!) take/s full advantage of this: exhaustion. Exhaustion for ratings.
If we can’t agree upon a source of truth, we will continue to be tribes. What a shame. I truly hope our democracy, as well as Mother Earth and its inhabitants, survive this horrible blip in history.
Please vote.
14
I’m in the same boat with my own parents.
Dad watches Fox News and Mom that religious station with the odious Pat Robertson. The most bizarre thing is that they are not rabid right-wingers, just evangelical Christians in their 80s who are falling for Franklin Graham’s political directives. Dad said after the primaries that he didn’t like Trump but has to stick to with the team (Republicans) now.
Meanwhile, my niece just came fully out as gay and they’re totally fine with it, showering her with love and gifts at her birthday party with her girlfriend at her side. Dad is actively helping an undocumented Hispanic church member manage the legal fallout from a minor fender bender. Mom, the Mexican immigrant, chats on the phone daily with her undocumented friends who have been here for years and are now complexly interwoven into family and community that span undocumented, legal resident, and American citizen Hispanics. Meanwhile Hannity screams “Illegals!” from the den TV. When I ask her how can she sit there in this complete cognitive dissonance that goes against her people and values, she replies, “because I want them to stop killing babies.” And the families ripped apart at the border? “It’s horrible, wrong!” And the cretin Trump? “He’s not a Christian, he’s a horrible man!” But you voted for him. Again, “to stop killing babies.”
It breaks my heart. I want them in my life for another 20 years but I also desperately want their generation gone so we can finally evolve.
12
@left coast finch Your reply really resonated with me. Thanks for sharing. My parents are very reasonable and empathetic in those types of scenarios also. I had no idea the abortion issue was as powerful as it is until recently. It is the end all be all (no pun intended) for so many Americans. My parents are not one issue: abortion voters, but they are one issue: national security voters. Military might equals national security in their eyes. Then I try to explain how climate change will impact national security and their eyes glaze over.. it's kind of maddening. Treaties aren't sexy, but threats are I guess. The entertainment factor is real. On abortion though, I'm in this weird camp that no one wants to talk about. All women should have the right to control their own bodies, but when rich people are having abortions because of inconvenient timing, I'm not down with that. I've found that most people either haven't thought about, or aren't willing to consider the vast complexities of every issue, from abortion to immigration to national security. It's uncomfortable and it requires a challenge to pride, but it's necessary for our democracy to survive. I thank the same Mom and Dad that I disagree with on many issues for encouraging me to fight for what's right and fight for the values my country stands for.
1
Notwithstanding all the other nonsense that goes on, experienced career attorneys are being asked to set aside sound judgment and advocate for positions that are not legal. They are being asked to pursue cases that they know they cannot win. They are being asked to set aside other important priorities to pursue these matters. All of this is done so that the government can tout their prosecution numbers. The end game is all about show, not about substance.
16
Who knew the enforcing the law instead of ignoring the parts you don’t like could be so controversial? Barack Obama has Eric Holder ignore immigration laws he disagreed with. He head Eric Holder ignore federal marijuana laws. You don’t change the law by not enforcing it. That’s Congress’s job. The president is duty-bound to enforce the laws of the land
3
Ohhhh, I see. The president is just supposed to enforce the laws. Not abide by them himself. I wonder why he won’t release his tax returns. He respects the law like he respects his marriage.
7
with key exceptions such as the Emoluments Act or, really, anything that gets in his way.
but that's what you get when you have a Congress afraid to do anything much, answerable mainly to big-time donors, and wary of upsetting the gravy train.
8
With the rule of law under daily attack by the man in the White House who is supposed to be defending it, stories like this make ordinary citizens like me quake for the future of democracy. When autocrats started getting more in the dictator category they sought to undermine the system of justice as a way of greasing the skids toward tightening their control.
7
What is that strange picture of Rod Rosenstein? I don't get it.
3
on the right is the Rod Rosenstein of today. on the left, the ghost of Rosenstein past.
1
“Now, discontent and infighting have taken hold at the Justice Department, in part because Mr. Sessions “
Thanks, Jeff Sessions, for helping Russia et al further weaken our country. Your shameful motto must be “Me before country”
13
Jeff is in Chicago today and will be cutting some blues tracks on South Michigan Avenue...
Hard times.
In fairness, sometimes, leadership in a certain direction, despite dissent, is considered a good thing or proves to have been a good thing.
11
But not to the Sudentenland.
6
Check's in the mail Bruce!
6
@Bruce Quinn
Sometimes vicious criminals, even murderers, do good things. Sometimes this kind of argument is just a distraction.
The rule of law isn't yet dead, but its immune system has been compromised. And now that the administration has it weakened, it's looking to drive a stake through its heart.
This is how democracies die, and we have a front row seat to see it happen before us in slow motion. With a re-formed federal judiciary and SCOTUS, the wealthy in this country are a hair's breadth from seeing their perennial dream come true: nearly unlimited power, unfettered by the meddling middling masses.
And as for the presidency? Soon, Nixon's fantasy will have come true, as well. When the president does it, it's not illegal.
15
pervy, possibly, but not illegal.
1
The Times writes a piece that slams Sessions as too Trumpian and evil. The result for most Republican readers is that they are now more comfortable that Sessions is the right guy for the job. Many of us worried that Sessions was too woosey and liberal and wouldn't do the things we thought he should. Turns out, he's doing them. Thanks.
5
I can’t say I am surprised to know you lot approve of blowing up the law and the Constitution.
15
@The Ancient Somehow, I don't quite buy that "many of us" were worried Sessions is liberal. In no fantasy world has Sessions ever showed an ounce of liberal politics.
17
Sessions is the poster child for “old white men who can’t stand anyone different than themselves.”
But at least with Sessions we know what we’re getting, and can be cautious against his excesses. With Trump, who follows wherever the current political wind takes him, we don’t really know what to expect, well, other than a constant stream of lies.
17
While it is normal for a career employee to feel distraught when there is change of administration, it is undeniable that what is happening under Trump and his appointees is unprecedented. Career employees tend to be dedicated to the principles of their mission rather than to specific personalities at the top. But that didn't seem to have generated such a visceral reaction heretofore. Trump is different. He came in with a wrecking ball. How would you feel if you were at the receiving end? One can't help feeling the pain of those who toil for the good of the country in the face of a calamitous administration.
10
These people don’t care about trivial things such as truth, law and fairness. Vote them all out for the good of our country.
19
@SYJ Certainly Eric Holder did not "care about trivial things such as truth, law and fairness". He should be indicted for the illegal actions he took during his tenure as AG.
4
Sure thing, typical NYT Sovietized media lead: "from the civil rights-centered agenda of the Obama era to one that favors his hard-line conservative views on immigration, civil rights and social issues"
More accurate: from Obama era of open-borders cultural Marxism based on Marcuse-centered social ethics to one that favors the Constitution, the "Bill of Rights", and sovereignty.
13
Pretty clear you don’t know what any of those principles you reference actually mean
6
@Mike
"principles"? Diction.
By every word and deed, it is now obvious the GOP Trump base is trying to remold America to their utopian ideal.
Their America is afraid of almost everything. Their America is a fortress with border walls. Where white privilege, stand your ground, free flowing gun trade, and Evangelical rule of law control all facets of life.
Where no amount of money is too much when spending on defense and police and security. Even if it means trillion dollar deficits.
Where corporations rule politics through the Citizens United edict of a Conservative Court, where billions pour unfettered from corporate coffers to campaign war chests. Where Congress writes the laws according to corporate wishes.
Where counties and voting precincts are drawn with algorithmic computer precision to ensure the Evangelical Right Wing Party always wins a majority of seats. To maintain and extend control and power, in order to continue their ceaseless incremental march toward their goal to MAGA in their own image.
11
Hate and fear have fueled so much in the Trump Administration. When you add in negligence, incompetence, wilful discrimination, ignorance, dishonesty and disrespect, what do you expect to get except the break down of institutions and norms that have formed the framework of our democracy for centuries? Almost half of America--aided and abetted by a foreign enemy--have brought us to this moment. The question is which Americans will show up at the polls on November 6th and how will they vote. This DOJ situation may just be the beginning of a new norm.
12
This is what they want us to think...that there is unrest and within the department so they have an excuse to fire Sessions and replace him with a Fox news "cover up" guy. I think Jeff Sessions is basically the devil but if he gets fired, I will not have any faith in Russia investigation.
3
Good leaders inspire.
But Trump's administration has created record low morale in Justice and FBI, in the State Department, Dept. of Energy, Dept. of Interior, EPA, Intelligence agencies and more.
Trump is on a race to the bottom. America is no longer the world leader in influence, diplomacy and so much more.
Trump will surpass the era of Teapot Dome Scandals in the history of worst American Presidents.
19
A Tiger never changes its spots!
1
I always try to look up the bios of people like Sarah Isgur Flores here who soldier in the Republican trenches blankly state the party line. This statement is compound nonsense, obviously groomed and vetted to say nothing, look adamant, and hide instead of illuminating--“We know of no department employee who is opposed to policies that uphold the rule of law and protect the American people — which are precisely the policies that this department has implemented and embraced.”
This silliness is the spot on the X-ray, and the spot now covers the whole organism. The Republican Party is a lie, propagating lies, spoken for by liars.
16
Leaked and perfectly placed anti-Sessions piece laying the groundwork for Trump to dismiss him post midterms and cite reasons totally unrelated to Mueller inquiry
5
@Luciano From the "failing New York Times," right? Say it ain't so! I don't think Trump cares what this publication has to say, does he? Or is that just a bluff?
6
Despite his bluster, Trump does not mind keeping Sessions in office, because the AG is aggressively promoting the right-fringe agenda.
Sessions is a lap puppy to the president, but an attack dog to civil rights.
126
@LarryAt27N
I think that we can all assume you define the ''right fringe'' as anything on the sunny side of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
2
Actually, I define it as you lot, who think somebody like David Frum is a commie.
As a former DOJ attorney for almost 30 years, I had the opportunity to work for the agency during a number of presidential party changes. Every administration has a laundry list of legal programs and policies it wishes to implement, but the overarching strength of the agency has always been its professionalism no matter which political party was/is in control of the executive branch. I can honestly say with certainty that I never had any idea what the political leanings of any of my career colleagues were. It was a topic that was never discussed because, frankly, it didn’t matter what someone’s political leanings might be. Legal decisions were never made on the basis of application of a political calculus. I miss many of my colleagues, and I know that some have become discouraged because of the political interference in their day-to-day work. I can’t think of a worse threat to DOJ’s justice-is-blind operating standard than the application of political pressure to influence a legal decision or outcome.
9
It's not just the DOJ but the entire government. Career civil servants are now being ordered to follow a specific political agenda or else face the consequences, including being fired. They are frightened and intimidated.
I'm a retired National Park Service ranger and the situation at Interior is as bad or worse as DOJ. Sweetheart deals with oil companies, mining companies and ranchers. Destroying two popular national monuments to do so and plans for more. Secretary as morally compromised as all others in this criminal organization and facing numerous investigations of his activities. A quiet Scott Pruitt.
A cabinet that may very well be subject to RICO charges if anyone but a hack like Sessions was in charge. An ongoing criminal organization answerable to no-one right now.
That's why voting in this mid-term is one of the most important duties of any citizen that wants to preserve our democracy. It's circling the drain right now and will only get exponentially worse if the Republicans retain their House majority.
18
This is news? A new administration implements policies different from the previous administration and some of the holdover employees are upset. Cry me a river.
11
@Robert most governments do not recycle the rank and file of the public service every time there is a change in government. Those are the people who know the technical details of how government runs. If you turf them out every time there is an election, government would grind to a halt.
It is not the job of rank and file public servants to set policy but if they are asked to do something that is not practical or will have unforeseen consequences, it IS their job to warn the political leadership.
19
Okay, but what Sessions is doing’ll pretty much guarantee that it’s a badly-polluted river.
5
This should come as no surprise. I know people within the Justice Department. They are smart, decent hard working individuals committed to the rule and law and above all protecting the rights of all Americans against excesses imposed by the executive, legislative and in some cases the judicial branches of government. Sessions lacks this basic grounding and is more than willing to use the power of the Justice Department to discriminate against groups he does not favor. This article should not worry us....it should restore our confidence in this critical piece of piece of our democracy.
13
We have a team of inept idealogues running the country, destroying our intstitutions. Get them out on election day!
22
Trump being so publicly and cruelly awful to Jeff Sessions had the affect of making us a little sympathetic to Sessions and temporarily forget that he is every bit as awful as Trump and that they deserve each other. A racist and dishonest bigot as the attorney general? Sure, fits right in.
17
A president, whose public statements would not even make it to the comment section of a serious daily, for a lack of civility, factuality, veracity. A president, whose entire life had been about ridiculing decency. I had asked myself, how would he deal with a Justice Department, and how would this department respond.
4
Yet another reason why Progressives and moderates should never ignore midterm elections.
Whoever controls the Senate also controls judicial appointments and, for the time being, the courts are the only authority that can stop Trump and Session's extremist agenda.
Vote!
15
It is just coincidence that more highly-educated people tend to be more progressive? Instead of accusing people of being "left wing" to whatever nasty word is now being used by people who see red, why not just be honest and say " You highly educated people are ruining this country with your analytical and knowledge-based agenda. Your educated outlook will be the ruination of the republic." Are we supposed to apologize?
15
@MJM
First, educated doesn't mean qualified to run anything. Second, it's wealthy educated progressives who are increasingly out of touch with mainstream Americans. There is, however, no shortage of hubris among them.
2
@AACNY - You don't know what you're talking about. I live in one of the bluest states in the country and very few people here qualify as wealthy.
4
bottom line: “The underlying message from Trump is that department employees are either enemies of the White House or vassals doing its bidding,”
2
So enforcing immigration laws is now a "hard-line conservative view" and allowing illegal immigrant to flout our laws is an example of "civil rights"?
That's quite a distortion.
10
Trump and his folk came to power with the goal of dismembering government. Encouraging valuable, competent employees to become disenchanted, engage in infighting or quit has always been the goal. Given Trump’s questionable behavior concerning all sorts of laws, of course the Justice Department’s destruction would be a top priority. Placing departments in the hands of incompetents or ideologues leads to mission accomplished.
7
Mr. Trump won the election as the Republicans won the House and Senate. It appears they are doing exactly what they were elected to do.
7
This is a joke, right?
8
@TW Smith
From the same people who refused to acknowledge Trump won the election (because of Russian involvement) and then that he was actually their president (because he lost the popular vote), did you any expect them to accept that running Justice is the purview of someone who isn't whom they would select?
It appears their extraordinary sense of entitlement to run the government supersedes elections.
3
@Rosiedeuce Not in the least. Elections have consequences, that’s why we have elections. If everyone wanted to continue to pursue a progressive agenda then it is likely progressives would have been elected. They weren’t.
Vote and talk with those around you about voting.
4
I don't doubt the veracity of Katie Benner's reporting; but, in light of Trump's determination to end the Mueller investigation by getting rid of Sessions and installing a new AG who would shut it down, I have to wonder what was Benner's motivation, or even more critically how did this story come to appear on the front page of the NYT? Was it planted? Is Benner inadvertently doing Trump's bidding by giving him more defensible ammunition for dumping Sessions (by the "failing New York Times" no less!) as soon as he thinks he can get away with it?
1
Not one citation of how the Justice Department was politicized under the former president. No mention of massive corruption and criminality. Even with the free press of this country now being an active wing of the democrat party, the hypocrisy of this article is breath taking. All presidents seek to have their departments hewing to the party line. But until President Obama, no president ever used the DOJ to interfere in the candidacy of that president and later to interfere with the presidency after the election. I say that Little Jeff has not done enough to clear away these corrupt career bureaucrats. Clear them out root and branch.
6
Not one citation because your entire claim is bogus. What massive corruption? Political appointees resign with the dawn of a new administration. Career lawyers leave when what they are being asked, counters the stated goals of the department, which is what's going on now. All of government exists to serve Trump, not the people. Just ask him.
2
@helen souza
Attorney General Holder was the only Cabinet member in history to have been held in contempt of Congress. Think tarmac meetings. "Civil rights"? Suuuurrrre.
@helen souza I'm stunned at how much Helen is off the mark. Her comment hues to what has become the standard Republican talking point that Obama is the root of all evil and a reason for Trump to oppose and undo anything Obama did starting with Trump's birther campaign (which gave Trump his first political foothold) and no end in sight.
To say that Obama interfered in Trump's candidacy and administration is easily refuted. Indeed, Obama has given Trump the same or wider birth than most presidents have done to their successors. Examples are that Obama knew about, but refrained from broadcasting shortly before the election the Russian interference for fear of being accused of affecting the election. And after the election he has been unnaturally silent (until recently) in the face of an unprecedented level and personal nature of attacks by Trump after the election. An object lesson of classy versus mobster.
1
Trump lost the popular vote and the Electoral College elevated him to the presidency, a collection of demigods that don't resemble what the Founders hoped they'd be. Trump does not have a mandate to dismantle the federal government, in spite of his propaganda about the size of his inaugural crowd and the millions of illegal votes he said went to Clinton. I pray November will begin to put our national nightmare and shame behind us.
11
Yes indeed. Exactly what t-Rump wanted to happen. Divide and conquer. If you tell someone often enough that they are bad, they will either be bad or leave. We were left with Sessions who was on his own crusade. t-Rump won.
Vote folks. Democracy depends on it.
3
General Jeff Sessions has swept in perhaps the most dramatic political shift in memory at the Justice Department, from the civil rights-centered agenda of the Obama era to one that favors his hard-line conservative views on immigration, civil rights and social issues. The GOP is adamantly opposed to any and all immigration, even allowing more educated and productive immigrants that inevitably improve our society. Civil rights is only for select groups, not all. Diversity is the enemy in Republican thinking. The GOP has championed business that has run income standards into the ground. They have destroyed union influence, one of our major income levelers in the US. They let corporate interests and tax laws call the shots. Without a more progressive approach to societal improvements in civil rights, immigration and social issues, the US will continue to be a fading memory of what was.
7
@DENOTE MORDANT If this wasn't enough, Mich McConnell has announced the gop will be going after Social Security and the other so-called "Entitlements" that most of us have paid into for our entire working careers, to pay for the "ballooning deficits" resulting from their tax cuts for the rich and corporations.
VOTE DEMOCRATIC!! Even many republicans are saying that about this election.
6
"Justice Dept. Rank-and-File Tell of Discontent Over Sessions’s Approach"
In a speech to the conservative Heritage Foundation on Monday, Sessions bemoaned the losses but attributed them to rampant “judicial activism,” and judges who have forgotten about “the rule of law” and the “guardrails” that limit them. Their activism, he said, “is a threat to our freedom and the Democratic process.”"
When so many federal judges, in so many jurisdictions across our country come up with the same determinations, it clearly is the Trump and republican positions and actions that are against our “rule of law.” It is Trump, his administration and the republicans who are “a threat to our freedom and the Democratic process.”"
Every president in our history has had a few court cases go against him. But no president and his administration has had a record of losing case after case from one coast to the other.
Jeff Sessions, who lied to his own fellow senators to get the Trump job of Attorney General, is using more lies to try and justify their continuing failures. Sessions cannot any more be believed than can Trump and the republicans in congress.
4
Trump and his assorted cat's paws (Sessions in the case of Justice) are embarked on a mission to transform every federal department agency to ignore the rule of law and to submit to Trump's personal whims. We are witnessing a fascist reformation in real time -- failure to support the 15th Amendment, purging the Justice Department, gutting the EPA, attacking journalism, etc. Resist!
7
A man of Sessions' stature will be hard to replace. I would like to suggest Trump search job applications in Saudi Arabia, Syria, the Philippines and Myanmar ( although he probably already has).
6
This is what happens when your boss threatens you with a loss of your job even if what is asking is wrong.
4
Jeffery Sessions gives Southern Racists a bad name.
4
The cancer spreads!
The cure is to get rid of the Republicans by voting on
November 6!
15
I worked at DOJ for a long time as a manager and executive in one of the non legal divisions. Our agency was involved in a fair amount of litigation. Although I had a law degree, and practiced a short time as house counsel in my agency, most of my dealings with DOJ lawyers were as a client, or so I thought. I had the opportunity to do some oversight of private lawyers who were engaged in legal practice outside the expertise of the Department. My relationships with the private lawyers and the DOJ lawyers in civil matters was like night and day. The private lawyers provided advice on courses of action and litigation risk, but they were always very clear about what was a lawyer's decision, where they expected me as a client to defer to them, and client decisions, where they would advise only, but defer to me, even if there was a great deal of litigation risk. The problem with DOJ lawyers was that they were always confused about who was the client. They invariably thought that they had the right to make client decisions, if the risk of loss was too high. The major reason in my view was that private lawyers were on the clock at high hourly rates and they could make more out of losing position sometimes than a winning one. DOJ lawyers are on salary. There are no real performance bonuses and so their focus was always on taking the winning case. I can see that writ large here. The rank and file aren't the client. Sessions is and the DOJ position is his call as the AG.
4
@John Smith. The DOJ's client is the United States of America, and the professional obligations of DOJ lawyers run to the rule of law on which our American republic is based. Without a stable rule of law and a justice department committed to the interest of the country, rather than to Jeff Sessions, Donald Trump or anyone else in this (or any) administration, our republic will ultimately fail.
2
Ms. Benner--You say: "Mr. Sessions’s shift in the department’s priorities reflected Mr. Trump’s campaign promises to be tough on crime and crack down on illegal immigration, much as former Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. took office in 2009 with a mandate to realize President Barack Obama’s vision on civil rights." Thus you juxtapose a commitment to fight crime against a commitment to civil rights. That is dishonest.
Mr. Holder was every bit as committed to fighting crime as Mr. Sessions. What he wasn't committed to was dividing families, interfering with voting rights, and ignoring antitrust violations.
22
Trump bears the responsibility for this undoing - he target and destroys anything that does not conform to the dictates he receives from his benefactor - Putin. He cannot be indicted soon enough for me.
6
The political system that fuses government and corporate power catalyzed by a culture of mythic xenophobic nationalism is described by history and political science as fascism.
Fascism has many tactics designed to make government and culture obedient to the supreme leader.
The two most effective tactics are the absolute control of the independent judicial branch consisting of judges and prosecutors. The second is to muzzle the media or convert it to a disseminator of propaganda that supports and praises the lies
of the leader. Label President Trump and Attorney General Session’s transformation of the courts and Justice Department
by any name you prefer. The end result ,regardless of their motive , appears to resemble early forms of the historical fascist
Nation states of the twentieth century.
Since Aristotle, the corruption of Democracy has been a Tyrrany defined by the absolute rule of the demogogue. The Republican party’s complicity in Trump’s conversion of the Justice department and Judiciary into a tool of one party government is our early warning of what may follow.
History’s demogogues have always depended upon legitimate political leaders who thought the demogogue could be used for their own purposes.
18
". A federal judge dismissed most of the case, and the department has appealed" When this case reaches the SC the court out come will be what ever the republicans want, not what the constitution or current laws say
6
Fundamentalism inertly excludes intellect, reason and civility. Minus those markers, how does one position himself to lead justice in a modern democracy?
9
GOP and Trump's main agenda is to destroy trust on US democracy and its make our democratic institutions redundant, with no trust among American people. And they are largely successful in doing just that in this relatively short time of 21 months.
10
And sadly, its every government agency being ruined like this.
The right loves this because they hate government.
Grover Norquist
"I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub. "
The more poorly it runs the more they scream it doesn't work, and they continue to sabotage it.
Please vote BLUE in November
19
Take a look at the make-up of the picture accompanying this article and tell me what's missing at to top (hint: its not white guys.)
7
This too will pass. In the end, history will define the Trump Chapter as one in which a man I’ll-suited to govern tried to destroy the nation’s institutions to suit his own narrow needs but he was stopped by the American people and by the patriots who served the nation and resisted his tyranny.
7
@Len Wouldn't it be lovely to think so.
2
It appears that "draining the swamp" is in high gear with so many" top level" DOJ officials leaving because of ideological differences with the Trump agenda. Why is this considered "news fit to print" - didn't this occur when we went from Bush to Obama, from Clinton to Bush? If you have a strong moral or political disagreement with what's going on it your workplace, you find another workplace. That's all that's happening here...what else is new?
5
@Back Up READ the article. That is far from all that is happening here. The swamp is making itself contain only swamp creatures.
5
@Back Up
The assumption here is that the bias of the Justice employees is justified when a conservative is in charge. In fact, Sessions is the boss. They work for him. If they don't like his politics it's too bad. They need to grow up and do their jobs. They're not being paid to be political activists.
3
Sessions is the ideal AG for the GOP/Republicans. He has been implementing the the GOP/Republicans wishes, and his own, since he got into office. Having a weak president who chases shinny objects, Sessions can do whatever he wishes. Sessions is a determined racist and a bigot. He once was denied a federal judgeship because of his racism and bigotry. Once Sessions term is done, America has to sit down and figure out the damage his tenure caused in loss of civil liberties, women's rights, LBGTQ rights, environment protections, etc. It will take years to recover from the damage Sessions has caused. It is a sad time in America, the land of the free and the home of the brave!
8
The law is, at best, a terrible inconvenience. It is, at worst, an obstacle between Trump and more millions.
4
So are they only discovering now that they work under a lazy, ignorant degenerate--and that he mistakenly believes they are supposed to work FOR HIM, not for the people of the United States?
6
“But it would be inappropriate to ask people to tailor legal judgments to policy preferences.” I think Sessions, with Trump's full approval, and certainly that of the GOP, is being a conservative activist. It's okay to be an activist if one is conservative. The GOP, the Kochs, and some others of their ilk only dislike liberal activism and activists. But when justice is bent towards the conservative view of things it's quite all right by them.
Another example of the Ghastly Obnoxious Parody Party making a complete joke of our civil rights, and trying to drag us back to the 'good ol' days' when prejudice operated in favor of the white man.
16
I can’t see where any surprise would come from. We were told and we were shown, again and again, what Trump is, and how he’d ru; the government. Hellfire, Jeb Bush told Republicans that he’d be a “chaos President.”
Well, guess what happened. He’s completely incompetent, a lot of the good people have had to quit, posts are left empty, morons are screaming at whoever’s left, and everything from gay folks to refugees to the environment is getting sold straight down the river.
Why’re you shocked? Is it that you didn’t vote and still won’t vote? Or that you voted for Stein or write in Captain Marvel to be clever? Do you need an alibi that bad?
If you didn’t vote, this is on YOU.
26
I could be very wrong here, but the Department of Justice, even going back to the regressive regimes of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, generally went along—however grudgingly—with societal changes and legal challenges to discriminatory laws. But the Donald Trump presidency has gone off the rails in more ways than this example.
Firmly convinced that he has a “mandate” to take a wrecking ball to the legal protections for minorities and women and sexually-diverse folks and the skeletal structures in place to enable them, the president appointed Jefferson Davis Beauregard Sessions III to completely undo these “guarantees.” AG Sessions has tried to implement these with a zeal that exceeds the religious and is clearly motivated by the ill will embedded in his segregationist Southern roots.
Mr. Sessions took office apparently thinking that the president’s animus toward these marginalized groups was sufficient ballast to make the Department over in his image and likeness, the years-long and career-long experience of DOJ professionals be damned.
With the president and right-wing Congress shoving through all manner of “conservative” judges in the federal appellate pipeline, neither the AG nor the president gave any thought to patience—they wanted the bonfire of their ideological fantasies to catch flame right away, fearing that the smallest delay meant defeat.
I think the AG is at the end of a very long plank—far from the S.S. Trump—looking down into a sea of white teeth.
218
@Soxared, '04, '07, '13
“I think the AG is at the end of a very long plank”
We can only hope!
3
@Soxared, '04, '07, '13 Yes, the DOJ under some Republican presidents did what it could to sidetrack what those Presidents were elected to do, i.e., stop reverse discrimination, end the undermining of marriage, and enforce immigration laws. So we came into a bizarre situation where the "conservative" proceduralists wanted to preserve substantively liberal jurisprudence under a strange notion of stare decisis. Now, at least, we have a President and a DOJ that will not play that game, preserving procedure at the price of real, destructive content.
3
@Soxared, '04, '07, '13 Baloney. The idea that legal protections for minorities and woman and sexually-diverse have suddenly been "attacked" is a POLITICAL fiction - not an actual fact - in the U.S. or the DOJ. This is what you want the public to perceive, but such "attacks" against such legal protections actually have not happened.
3
Management by edict. Enforcement by choice. Where a law happens to be in the way, find a way to nullify it. Where a law is lacking, establish some rule to establish precedent.
...and voices of dissent become whispers in the shadows over drinks, amongst those trusted few...
But someday we may no longer read tweets nor see "interviews" complaining about the FBI. All that noise will stop.
...and then the rest of us will really have something to worry about...
4
Sessions = Only an intellectual midget like Tiny-Hands-Trump would select someone even more intellectually and morally challenged than himself for a cabinet post.
8
Sessions never should have been selected or confirmed as Attorney General. He is and always has been an ideologe with a throwback heritage of his old south upbringing. He comes across as a racist pure and simple. That is why trump selected him to send a clear signal to his base. There is no place for that type of perception in our society.
12
For how long can a Republic stand by and watch itself dismantled piece by piece by an obviously corrupted tyrant?
A prolific, pathological liar. A documented con man cheat. An admitted sexual predator. A man of misdirection and relentless self-interest more than willing to insult your intelligence with utter nonsense!
NONE of this is a secret. Any and every news source with a respectable reputation and history reports facets of these facts every day for two YEARS now and NOTHING’S changed! This monster is SO outside the pale, the national corpus is paralyzed and apparently helpless.
9
“More unnerving, employees said, was the president’s threat to remove the security clearance of Bruce Ohr, a civil servant who worked to combat Russian mobs and oligarchs. The message, said one lawyer in the criminal division: Doing your job can make you vulnerable to a career-ending attack.”
Two other lawyers stopped working on Russian related matters
This is what happens when DOJ personnel, who are hired to represent the People of the United States and the Constitution are told instead to represent a political agenda or face retribution.
13
Jeff Sessions is a reactive politician; not an Attorney General- and it shows. He was never qualified to be a judge and he sure as heck isn't qualified to be the top Attorney of the United States; That he was confirmed was nothing more than a consolation prize from the current crop of GOP in Congress, who will never be subject to his "law & order" (with a huge portion of self righteousness) approach.
6
Sessions is an ideologue, a zealot, and a fundamentally dishonest man (viz. his various lies before congress at his conformation hearings and on numerous other occasions.
He's doing the bidding of the most egomaniacal, corrupt, and dishonest despot wannabes in recent history.
On the other hand, you have people -- whatever their own political views -- who generally believe in the rule of law, and in using the Justice Dept to enforce laws -- not push extremist positions, no matter how indefensible they are --to investigate "smoking guns" of apparent law-breaking at any level, and serve the demands of a dangerously unstable, utterly corrupt, and constantly power-grabbing despot wannabe.
6
Who are we? Trump and his minions are
giving us an opportunity to be HEROS. This nation is being challenged and ALL of us need to stand up for AMERICAN ideals. The Republicans are hypocrites at this juncture...all who stand by this administration have proven that they don't understand what this country stands for. VOTE every Republican out, their very platform proves they are not of the people, by the people.
4
Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, III has to rank down there with Roger B. Taney, Wade Keyes, Thomas Bragg, Thomas Watts, George Davis, Judah P. Benjamin, John N. Mitchell, Edwin Meese III and Alberto Gonzales as among the most corrupt, ignorant, immoral, incompetent, insecure ,intemperate and unethical Attorney Generals ever.
The Attorney General's client is the American people and their basic guidance comes from our Constitution.
10
What this midterm race needs before the November election is a series of giant billboard ads across this entire nation with photos of Trump, Sessions and McConnell angrily ripping crying babies from young immigrant mothers who are begging for help.
Or a photo of Trump and Kushner shaking hands with a smiling Mohammed bin Salmen and standing in front of a giant photo of journalist Khashoggi.
Yep, that's what we have become in America.
8
This is the reason why we have civil servants. They are employed to provide services to the country with out regard to political parties. Bravo for setting the demagogues up for failure because these are crackpot times with crackpots in power who we must nullify. Remember to vote Democratic to nullify the biggest crackpot of all, the mentally unbalanced one in the white house.
7
Sessions is so bizarre he resembles a bull in a china shop! He and Trump go rambling around the US government as if they were just drooling to make noise for no reason. It is really borderline paranoia. Strange.
...and so very disturbing to behold.
Not only do we have a Republican administration of vile snakes like McConnell but weird unwired people in high places.
Will the mid- terms Ever arrive?
6
The DOJ is not the only federal agency in Washington that has had waves of retirements. The administration's view that executive agencies are part of a political machine, rather than keepers of the Constitution, is anathema to long-term professional civil servants.
15
What right do career bureaucrats have to subvert the directives of the elected officials for whom they work?
Do we want to have a representative democracy or an authoritarian bureaucratic oligarchy?
6
@Rik Blumenthal. Wait so REPUBLICANS are actually involved in pursuing "a democracy"? And THIS is it? My god.........
4
@Rik Blumenthal
Amen. No one is paying them for their political views, and as a taxpayer I don't appreciate they cannot accept who won an election.
3
First and foremost: Sessions, Tweet, and their henchmen are not conservatives. They are fascists. Let us just stop sullying the conservative movement once and for all. Tweet is a fascist-plain and simple. He totally disregards all democratic norms and safeguards, does not believe in free speech, and would like nothing more than to really rule like a dictator-which if the Democrats do not take back at least one House of Congress, he will. Sessions, is just a reactionary fascist and has been his entire life. He believes only in justice for white men. That is it. And, anyone who thinks otherwise is kidding themselves.
There are just so many tragedies afoot, but as it pertains to the DOJ, this is the one Department of government that stood above the rest. Staffed by dedicated, highly educated and trained public servants, committed to the Constitution and doing what is right for the good of the whole. Was the DOJ perfect? No. But, more often than not, DOJ strove to do what was right. Having known many Assistant Attorneys General, these women and men, worked at great personal sacrifice to ensure that the investigations and cases they brought forth were done properly, without the overlay of politics.
All that is being destroyed now. Sessions, Steven Miller, Tweet, and Sessions Chief of Staff (whose name escapes me) are seeing to that. Will the reputation and the esteem this agency was once held in ever be restored?
17
Well this guy is the drum major for the deplorables and all deplorabladom.
Bannon was quoted as calling Session "a true believer"
5
Trump's constant assault on the rule of law threatens us all. It's disgusting that he views the AG as his personal protection when he breaks the law.
As disturbing as those facts are, Sessions is a 19th century cracker whose white supremacist views are on the wrong side of history and he doesn't deserve the job he was given
9
"“The underlying message from Trump is that department employees are either enemies of the White House or vassals doing its bidding,” said Norman L. Eisen, who served as special counsel for ethics and government reform under Mr. Obama."
The president, and by extension his much maligned Attorney General, have politicized so much of the body of US law, there seems to be nothing left to pillage.
I wonder how many Americans realize how dangerous this is? It's one thing to pursue political goals writ large, and quite another for an inexperienced team to come in and demand defined outcomes from key policy reversals.
A quick look at any budding despotic regime in eastern Europe--Poland and Hungary come quickly to mind--tells you that the first things they come for are the courts and the rule of law.
I suspect it's proved harder for Trump/Sessions than they thought possible, although I don't think anything would deter Trump from imposing his will on US institutions.
I keep wondering when he'll come after our free press.
Donald Trump is an inexperienced, narcissistic who views the entire world in terms of winning or losing. Sessions, is simply a legal hack, in my estimation.
They've taken a wrecking ball to our system of justice and the rule of law. Fortunately, the DOJ is still standing, but for how long?
665
@ChristineMcM: He's been "coming after our free press" for quite some time now. Last nights Nuremberg rally in Montana is just one example.
3
@ChristineMcM "a wrecking ball to our system of justice and the rule of law"? No I am sorry - that is the "national security" intelligence organizations doing that. They have been seeking to do that for years. The New York Times writes with horror about how the new admministation sought the DOJ to be "tough on crime," and here that is the actual DOJ's written mission to "enforce the law." Go figure.
I have no contact with the current DOJ and thus no view into what is brewing there. But as someone who once worked there and headed one of its principal divisions, I can say from personal experience that any conservative in a leadership post, no matter what his agenda might be, will face resistance from the career staff and perhaps from some political appointees of the same party.
It is a fact of life that some portion of the career staff will always be zealous true believers, who see the mission of the Department in terms that are quite extreme. This can often lead to a revolutionary chic "by any means necessary" mentality that is dangerous in an enforcement agency that can wield such immense power. Moreover, the work of the agency is far more fun for employees when the agency is in an aggressive and attacking mode -- another source of danger and potential conflict with conservative leadership.
Even without deep state paranoia, agency staff at Justice and most other agencies are more aligned with a progressive agenda. By contrast conservatives face resistance, ranging from quiet discontent, to insubordination, to outright attempts to undermine the conservative program. And it never helps that the DC press is quite happy to receive insider information about discontent or even illegally purloined info from employees in resistance mode. I don't know whether Sessions is doing better or worse than most, but some version of this story was inevitable.
27
@AR Clayboy
So you agree with Trump's idea that the DOJ is his own personal army of lawyers.
Last time l checked the DOJ was an independent arm of the federal government.
I am quite relieved that you don't get paid with taxpayer money anymore.
2
@AR Clayboy What dept did you head and when? As for your "agency staff at Justice and most other agencies are more aligned with a progressive agenda" opinion, one only has to look at Federal judges and where they went to school to digest that statement.
3
@AR Clayboy, as someone who has worked with attorneys in the DOJ in the past, none of them were of a "revolutionary chic". Most were nose-to the-grindstone servants who believed in discovering what the law says and follows it. All of the points you make about various members of executive branch departments and the press are nothing more than speculative, uninformed viiews that probably conform with your pre-existing prejudices.
3
This is hardly surprising, but it is demoralizing, and it is not the only Federal agency being gutted through poor leadership, incompetent and unqualified Trump hires, and long-time employees leaving in droves. Sessions just caps a bad situation. His approach to the JD is outdated, and his antagonistic relationship with Trump muddies the water. He was a poor choice for this position in the first place, and now we are seeing the fallout from it. Never mind the other agencies going through similar turmoil---you will find a similar story for every one of them at this moment in time. What we have here is the slow collapse of solid institutions being overseen by a lawless and corrupt President who doesn't understand how these agencies work and who doesn't really care.
221
amen sister
2
I cannot imagine how demoralizing it must be for lawyers in DOJ to work for an administration that has zero respect for the rule of law. Between being asked to write opinions to legally justify unconstitutional behavior and having a president that daily denigrates everything you do, it is no wonder morale is rock bottom. Even if Trump and his gang are turfed in 2020, the loss of expertise and the toxic environment created by this appalling administration will take decades to repair. Trump is no builder - he a wrecking ball who destroys everything he comes near. In his wake is pure destruction.
7
@MM
It is a great environment for leaks and whistleblowers.
2
Let me get the facts straight. We had an election and a particular candidate won (under well established and well known rules), defeating the candidate supported by the outgoing President. The new President appointed, and the Senate confirmed, an AG who supported the agenda the President had run on, and the new AG sought to implement this agenda. The agenda was often at odds with that of the outgoing President whose party had just lost both the Presidential election and sufficient House and Senate elections to ensure the President's party controlled those legislative bodies.
Now somehow NYT and its loyal commenters think this is a bug rather than a feature in a free society?
33
@Ambrose Rivers
Respectfully, you sort of miss the point. The rub is not "a bug", the rub is that this thing called "the rule of law"(that pesky constitution) is kinda getting in the way of Mssrs. Trump and Sessions in the quest to enforce every aspect of their 'vision' on the nation.
2
Of course Trump has the right to appoint the AG of his choice. No one disputes that. But justice is supposed to be blind. The overall problem cited in this article is the politicization of the Department of Justice. The high-level Justice employers cited in the article have been with the department for many years, through Democratic and Republican administrations. The decline of morale speaks not about political affiliation but rather a toxic leadership climate, starting with the POTUS.
1
@Ambrose Rivers - Let us get the facts in focus - winning an election does not give you the right to undo the Constitution much less to undermine the independence of the Justice Department - it is not Trump's personal vengeance agency. It may surprise you that JD employees take an oath to protect the Constitution not Trump. Further, the election was not 'won' - it was coopted by Trump's handlers in Russia.
2
This is what it looks like when someone adopts a conclusion then uses the process of investigation of the facts to create an argument that supports the predetermined outcome. Or as the lawyer said:
“But it would be inappropriate to ask people to tailor legal judgments to policy preferences.”
Since reagan this is the essence of what being a republican is. They step forth and promote conclusions they have arrived at or adopted with no rational process to back them up. they like the position therefore it must be right and true and if you question it you must be partisan. No further thinking required, new evidence be damned.
8
It’s heartening to see honorable people in public service refusing to go along with this lying, fraudulent administration. Thank you.
8
There’s been a coup, a soft coup. Congress has cooperated, even enabled it. The courts are being politicized. The rule of law, long taken for granted in the United States, is being dismantled. We have two years and two weeks to save this nation.
16
This is all part of the plan to dismantle and destroy the federal government - placing incompetent and disruptive people in charge and forcing competent people to leave (as well as downsizing. They are well on their way to destroying EPA, Interior, ED, Energy, HUD, IRS, and DOJ, just to name a few.
12
Trump and the people who support him don't believe in the laws of the United States or the mores of its people. They are criminals down to the last supporter. Allowing them to stay in office is the end of the United States of America.
7
Sessions wants to push losing arguments up through the courts, so the cases can reach the an illegitimate Supreme Court, where they shall be decided in his ideological favor by a this politically corrupted judicial institution. It is all about finding ways to get issues in front of them, regardless of the initial legitimacy of the legal arguments.
5
In urging the crowd to vote for Representative Greg Gianforte, who is running for re-election and who was sentenced to anger management classes and community service for assaulting a reporter last spring, Mr. Trump jokingly warned the crowd to “never wrestle him.”
This is a law and order candidate?
6
This is the seed that will lead to Sessions being fired after the midterms. The White House is setting him up by planting stories in the press that will justify his dismissal. He will be replaced by someone favored by Trump, who will not recuse himself from the Russia investigation, but instead, will get rid of Mueller.
3
Mr. Sessions, the first sycophant to support our inexperienced, hateful, reality star POTUS, and one of the very few nominees to ever fail to pass nomination for a federal judgeship (something about that pesky hobgoblin called racism), has a record of which I am sure he is very proud!
His vocal opposition includes, but is not limited to:
- the 1965 Voting Rights Act;
- the Equal Pay Ay (Ledbetter) Act;
- the Hate Crimes (Matthew Shephard ) Act;
- the ACA (while, of course, he has enjoyed Cadillac tax payer subsidized health care throughout his long, long, long career as, ostensibly anyway, a 'public servant.' )
He opposed all of the above, on tax dime, in service to the nation. (?)
That he now sputters and flounders, having never been in a court room in almost 25 years, and being too dumb, or too deaf, or too afraid to rely on the decades of counsel and experience around him,
and that he is profoundly humiliated, denigrated and left voiceless by the venomous man he helped to coronate will be, to me, a fitting end to his illustrious "service" career.
Some might say it is karma. Ouch.
14
It’s time to call them out for what they are… Traitors to everything this country has stood for and was progressing towards. My fear is the Republicans are still in control after the midterms and the president is reelected for another four nightmare years all due to voter suppression and the electoral college.
We no longer have checks on the system… Especially in the Department of “Justice”
14
Sessions is an anachronism, a vestige from the 1950s who has no business being AG in 2018. Let's be honest - he is racist and completely out of touch on contemporary social and civil rights issues.
15
The Civil War continues today as the Culture War, thanks to Pat Buchanan, a proud member of the Sons of the Confederacy. The belief among the Union States that the Civil War was over in 1865 was not shared in the Slave States of the South.
Southerners believe in Slavery, full stop. They are not racist - they are slavist, believing that there are better people and lesser people based on the color of their skin, and not the content of their hearts, minds and souls. They believe that there is nothing wrong with buying and selling men, women and children, and they believe that their rights as White Southerners were being violated when they were not allowed to continue to extend Slavery to the new states of the American West in the 19th century.
The Old Time Religion of Evangelicals is the political party of the Lost Cause. The Southern Baptist Church formed itself in 1845 to defend and extend slavery, full stop. Disenfranchising voters and making false claims of voter fraud are old news to White Conservatives in the South, they've always believed that only whites should be allowed to vote.
These are horribly mis-guided, evil people; this is why you frequently see swastikas and the confederate battle flag together, and until we truly recognize who these people are, Neo-Confederates, we will continue to respond ineffectually.
5
Sessions asked Mr. Buckingham to "come to a different conclusion." Sounds like mafia tactics. Or a failing and flailing administration's tactics. Let's not forget the majority of the population is soundly against these tactics. Vote in two and a half weeks, folks.
7
We knew Jeff Sessions was a bigot, a homophobe, and a hard-line conservative before he was confirmed as Attorney General. Congressional Democrats were not bold enough in exposing his views to America. There should have been protests in the streets against his confirmation. And a reminder "Democrat" Joe Manchin of West Virginia voted to confirm him.
4
One more department in disarray. Trump clearly hires only the best.
5
Right out of Reagan’s playbook. Ronnie figured rightly that he could change America’s direction by appointing people who disparaged an agency to be in charge of it. Trump has used the same policy but it appears he has mostly just settled for people who agree with him but are also incompetent. With Sessions he came closer to Reagan’s vision, he isn’t incompetent, but the results are the same. If you don’t like an agency just tear it apart.
7
The Con Don thinks he's king. He's been watching too much king of thrones. He thinks that's the way the world works. He thinks his little appointed minions like Jeffrey Sessions can do exactly what he wants - and they want - without interference.
This is just more proof that before any person in OUR United States of America can pass out of junior high school or middle school they must take a democratic governance civics course and pass both written and oral citizenship tests so they understand what OUR United States of America really is all about.
Additionally, federally run voter registration must be mandatory when a citizen reaches 17 1/2 years of age. Every single citizen must be made aware of their individual rights and protections under OUR U.S. Constitution.
Fortunately, The Con Don will be defanged on November 6 and dethroned in 2020. Until then WE THE PEOPLE must do everything in our individual power to hold OUR America together - with the social safety nets we have come to depend on - until WE hire/elect representatives and senators who will work for 99.9% of us.
12
Don’t count on it.
Sigh. American kids already have those classes, and I believe I’ll take a pass on your political indoctrination. Might want to learn about how that already works, in fact.
We have all the info we need, and have had for twenty years. You’d have had to be blind, deaf, dumb and dead not to know what Trump is, before the last big election.
Stop blaming schools and the newspapers because we won’t get up off our duffs.
Well, it's been a long time since I was in junio high, Robert. but when I see Texas - where all the school books are manufactured - changing the facts to look like the bible I think you are mistaken.
However, I have an open mind. Please give me a link to the naitonal civics courses required in every school. It is not "indoctrination". It's education.
George Orwell wrote, "In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is an act of revolution." In this stage of our nation's history, it seems that Orwell correctly predicted this crisis of corruption in all our governmental institutions. I only hope that enough people vote in a way that rights our ship. I hope that enough honest and insightful people show up, vote, and have their votes counted in this midterm election so that Congress will become accountable. Without at least one branch of government that serves as a counterweight to the meanest policymakers, we could become a true Rogue Nation! We will be outcasts from the community of nations, no better or different than any other human rights abuser. Money should never be a decision maker for national policies toward those who make mock of decency, basic human rights, or accountability of heads of state. There couldn't be a more important time to vote in defense of the unbiased rule of law.
18
Shocking as it might be to consider, but the Republican coalition is not a monolith, so dissent in the ranks is fairly common. Trump is widely backed by the GOP establishment due to the fact that his popular base is the largest faction within the Republican electorate at present, but they alone do not constitute a majority of Republicans, they are simply large enough that no such alliance could function without them. Similarly, many Republican allies of Trump merely use him and his base as a means to advance long-standing neo-conservative and traditional conservative policy in congress and elsewhere.
Sessions and Trump plainly do not like one another and have different ideas about how things should be done and what priorities are important, but both of them sees the other as useful where he is. For the time being. The Republicans have waited 8 years to regain full control of the government, and they're not going to let Trump's mercurial, vicious attitude spoil it for them.
So expect a lot more stories like this, of low morale and open dissent against Trump and his lackeys, but don't be optimistic that it's a sign that Republicans are abandoning him or breaking up. Until his popular support withers away the GOP will continue to prop him up, the simple reality is that they cannot afford to offend his base. Trump supporters have effectively held America hostage by exploiting GOP politician anxiety and greed.
32
I mean what do you expect? Sessions has behaved just as I thought he would. This man is stuck in 1960's America and will do what he can to bring this country back to the "good ole days". This isn't what we need in the Justice Department. It is crucial that laws are parallel with societal culture. Culture will always evolve and by extension our laws should reflect that. Restricting the evolution of laws (reverting to old/outdated policies) we open ourselves up to political and social unrest. Right now we are actively creating this problem, when now more than ever, we need solidarity. This is why it is so crucial that we vote and even more so young people vote.
15
I never understood don't ask, don't tell. The vast majority of dismissed service personnel only told because they were interrogated by a an officer and wouldn't lie, yet I never heard of an interrogator being dismissed.
10
Groupthink. This is what this is. It often results in disastrous decisions. A shame for our country and justice department.
9
"The process left little room for debate. 'Edicts came down, and it was up to us to try to implement them,' said Ms. Flynn."
Ms. Flynn has not been elected.
Based on their political donations, DOJ employees oppose many of the president's policies. Nevertheless, the president, not career lawyers, was elected to set policy. Their refusal undermines the rule of law at the agency where the law is most needed.
Political differences must be settled at the ballot box, not on floors 1-6 of the Department of Justice.
9
@Hoxworth I totally agree with you, yet it is an exact reversal of what you wrote. A paradox. You are correct that Ms. Flynn's job is to do the work of the chief executive. The problem comes when the chief executive asks the civil servant to do things that are either illegal or irresponsible. We need decent managers in the Federal government. We have lost a large number of them due to the disrespect they feel for Trump's policies and behavior. It is their choice to quit. However, who replaces them? There has been a concerted effort on the administration's part to place political appointees in civil servant management. It simply results in the same kind of thing that inevitably sank communism. You don't want to get rid of the experts. The experienced ones. These are not partisans. Many served without complaint in Bush's administration. They didn't quit because they had ideological differences of opinion with the elected Republican. They quit because of incompetence.
6
@Hoxworth
The DOJ is a law enforcement agency. Its job is to enforce the laws, not to pursue political policies that conflict with law.
@Hoxworth
Laws are not "elected" either, policy should be secondary to law enforcement and the rule of law.
1
I, too, recently left a contracted five month employment with a manufacturer whose toxic work environment caused 30-40% of the professional staff to quit the company. This wasn't even political! it was the absence of any performance improvement for its customers, even as my tenure brought the improvements that I considered a challenge met.
For our DOJ, its focus is unconscionable as 'togh beans' for the growth of civil and economic rights. Someday, the reckoning will reverse this trend and our Nation will repair and recover.
Repair American Greatness Again---RAGA instead of MAGA.
6
Sessions hardline view on immigration is you have to be here legally. That is what the justice department is supposed to do. Enforce the laws. And a hardline civil rights issue was transgenders gender classification in the work place. That is hardly an easy topic to figure out. It’s breaking new ground not hardline. It isn’t hardline to say that if you don’t want to buy health insurance you don’t have to. Mandatory health insurance, your gender is what you were born with, and you have to be in the country legally has been the norm for all of us our whole lives unless your under ten years old. Sessions views aren’t hardline.
3
@Jim And if you don't want to be in a government run retirement program should you be able to opt out of Social Security?
4
The fundament al flaw of the Trump Administration is the belief that all of the people in government service, elected, appointed or civil servants - work for the president. They all, including Trump, work for We the People and promise to protect and defend the constitution and laws of the nation. While politics cannot be avoided, they have to submit to legal and constitutional principles. Trump has a real problem with that concept as he comes from a world where he used to demand and get total loyalty from people who did what they were told because they worked for Trump. Hence that age-old argument that we need business leaders as president just don’t work in reality.
Of Sessions himself, I am both amused and outraged that he displays his trademark “kid on Christmas morning” grin every time he announces some egregious policy that is ethically and morally dubious, the more dubious, the bigger the grin.
37
Ask career people to please stay. We are so dependant right now on the continuity of the civil service. And when they resign they are gone and Sessions picks their replacement.
186
@Carolyn Dependent on them to do what exactly, Carolyn? Certainly not defend civil rights or enforce the law - as we have seen for well over a decade. Are we dependent on them to help spy agencies for domestic intelligence? I guess so. But why do we really want that for the American people. Why do we need a Surveillance State where our government's so-called "law enforcement" organizations mantra ends up "the ends justify the means"?
Since 2016, same kind of reports were published about the State Department, Department Of Defense, the EPA etc. Maybe the intent behind such reports was to create an impression of chaos and potential damage to the functioning of those departments. But in-spite of numerous such attempts, the predicted collapse never happened. The same is going to be true with Justice Department. It will do just fine and we need not worry about such reports. Today media often becomes an extension of political campaigns, unfortunately.
5
OR maybe those reports are true.
Compromised agencies can lurch along for quite some time before "collapsing." Just look at how long Trump and his "business" has lasted.
9
If this pattern of demoralization and high turnover happened in a corporation the Wall Street Journal would print long articles and stockholders would question the executives. This is not normal. The departments will endure, but their missions have been damaged and may take a long time to recover.
12
The reality is the Justice Departments and other institutions are being undermined. It is a slow erosion that results, until one day it is almost all new people, that are politically and ideologically beholden to their sponsors, with the professionalism gone. To think this is not happening is naive. When folks leave, the administration is being sure they are not being replaced with folks who do not hold their views. The question is whether the rate of delusion of responsible career officials is such that the transformation is complete before this regime is shown the door. If they get complete control of the Justice Department before they are out, they'll be able to use it assure their political survival.
9
Does anyone remember the detailed objections from Senators voicing why they refused to vote FOR - Jeff Sessions appointment to be Attorney General of the Justice Dept ---
At the time - these senators detailed objections sounded to be alarmist -- well -- every single one of these senators detailed objections have come true - Jeff Sessions has implemented and continues to implement with 'ZEAL'.
Wonder what would happen if all the Justice Dept employess would walk out...
18
@Karen: "Wonder what would happen if all the Justice Dept employess would walk out..."
Well, for a start, they would probably be summarily dismissed, which would be a catastrophic outcome, a) for the United States (who depends on a working DOJ) and b) for the employees and their families. After all, not very many people can afford to just walk away from their primary source of income.
4
They would be replaced be loyalists.
4
It would be nasty but not as nasty as Reagan firing the air traffic controllers; there are a great many lawyers in this country.
The motus operandi of Cadet club foot and his devious, lying, abusive & bigoted criminal cast of characters (AKA the Trump administration) is to either leave important positions open (IE: The State Department) or to make the professional life so miserable for public employees (federal, state and local) that they wear them down to the point that fighting back is useless and they resign.
Then the opposition is gone and they can do whatever they want.
35
Session is part of GOP, which believes in it's own world view of alternate facts.
They also includes, Trump, Mitch and rest of the GOP. They still don't believe that we're in 21st century where America is a moral leader and a more liberal country then it was in 1850s.
31
So Sessions wielded his power as Attorney General to push a cruel "hard-line conservative" agenda, placing "the Trump administration on track to lose in court" and prompting the resignation of experienced DOJ officials.
And this includes ripping babies from their parents and caging children.
This is the perfect intersection of meanness and incompetence. Can someone please explain to me why evangelical so-called "Christians" continue to support the Trump administration?
47
@Ann
Christians can do whatever they want on earth, illegal or immoral as it may be, with the faith that they will be forgiven in the afterlife. Pretty sweet deal, isn't it?
9
@Ann.......evangelical "Christians" and other chosen and anointed "religiously devoted " supporters of Don the Con ..........are devoted flocks and followers of the NEW ETHIC preached by trendy, jetsetting , spiritual preachers........who claim that the wealthy and materialistically fulfilled are examples of those blessed and rewarded by God !
2
@Ann
because they do not and never have given a rat's a$$ about Christianity, but portraying themselves as such pays off at the polls. The rubes love them some good "Christians."
1
Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III
Even the name, alone, sends me chills. That and those eerie visions of him in white robe and mask that arise.
35
You know what I wish ? That you’d stop referring to this craziness as “ hardline”.
That term gives these ideologies the aura of strength or righteousness . Hardline sounds opposite of wimpy and doesn’t represent the real issue.
Call it extremist and right wing radical .
That gives it a different feel but most importantly it’s the truth .
111
AMEN
8
Sessions isn't his own man which, given his 1950's era politics is a good thing. Instead, he's dancing on the head of a pin to please Trump and try to keep his job. You can't lead, you can't earn respect, you can't get a job done if you have a whimsical master off stage. Trump is focused on Mueller and what he can wring from the country to benefit Trump. Sessions is a weak thinker, and an even weaker Attorney General. Such is the pedigree of the Trump administration (if they're not pleading guilty).
28
If you are surprised by this information - you haven't been paying attention. This administration will go down as the most corrupt in history. Sessions is no different.
59
not only this administration, but this Congressional majority and the judicial majority. checks and balances is no more. I hope if and when Democrats manage to regain Congress, instead of resting on that success and celebrating, as they did when they had the presidency and a supermajority, they anticipate the next time a foreign country interferes in our elections for the purpose of "electing" a corrupt leader and corrupt senators and congress people and DO SOMETHING to prevent this from happening again.
3
"To succeed in other trades, capacity must be shown; in the law, concealment of it will do."
— Mark Twain, Following the Equator (1897)
Justices, judges, or lawyers in the United States of America who hold personal, political views which espouse xenophobia, transphobia, sexism, racism, misogyny, jingoism, homophobia, greed, ecological destruction, or chauvinism should not only be disbarred but also should stand trial, either civil or criminal (or both), for those laws (i.e., legislation, executive actions, or judicial decisions) that they created while having a license to practice law within the United States of America.
19
You mean the backwoods 1950's Alabama mentality isnt going over well in 2018 Washington DC ?! Go figure.
32
1950s mentality? Seems more like 1850s.
4
Sessions is a complicated case. He is perhaps more successful than any other cabinet member in implementing Trump’s extreme conservative agenda. Yet, he is more despised and reviled by Trump than any other public official, not for his backward policies or ineptitude at Justice, but for his decision to recuse himself from the Russia probe, making way for Rod Rosenstein’s appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller.
Sessions and Trump have inflicted a great deal of pain on one another and they truly deserve each other. In that, there is true justice. Eventually, under a democratic administration, the backward policies of Trump and Sessions will be fixed and the Justice Department’s integrity, reputation and core values restored.
Sessions will be remembered by history as a Trump soldier who turned Justice in a wrong direction, but who made a single brave decision to recuse, and who then withstood the daily rants, ridicule, abuse and humiliation inflicted by this president in order to protect that decision. For that he deserves credit.
20
@Jeffrey Zuckerman
I believe Sessions recused as a result of his abject terror at being tied too closely to Trump.
Sessions is a canny politician and a survivor but he is fast approaching the end of his career.
Not a moth who flew too close to the flame of Trumps brilliance, but a twisted ideologue who was finally revealed by the toxic values he hid so well for so many years.
Trump was the one who ripped Sessions mask off. The bumbling, unpredictable, loose cannon president did Sessions in. Hysterical.
I do not believe that Mr. Sessions will be inflicted on the law abiding citizens of the United States for too much longer...
4
This is squarely the aim of being raised by a father named 'Trump'.
Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III would turn back the clock in many areas, including civil rights.
Sessions grew up in Jim Crow Alabama.
Sessions was elected Attorney General of Alabama in November 1994.
Senator Edward Kennedy called Sessions a "throw-back to a shameful era" and a "disgrace".
Sessions wore a "Make America Great Again" cap at a Trump rally in August 2015.
Stephen Miller, Sessions' longtime-communications director, joined the Trump campaign.
In February 2016, Sessions officially endorsed Donald Trump for president.
Sessions and Rudy Giuliani often appeared at Trump campaign rallies.
Jefferson Sessions, Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, Rudy Giuliani.
I wonder what Senator Edward Kennedy would think of this political Axis of fringe lunatics. A confederacy of throw backs, con men and misfits. An accurate representation of the republican party.
77
@interested party In your comment you mentioned Rudy Giuliani. Haven't heard from him lately. Interesting.
3
@HRaven
I believe that we will be hearing from, and about, all of them fairly soon.
When some of them are being ground up by the wheels of justice, and some being subjected to long overdue public scrutiny and well deserved castigation.
"Without directly addressing the department’s positions on transgender rights or the Affordable Care Act, Ms. Flores noted that its reversals on workplace arbitration, voting rights, labor unions and the appointments of federal officials were validated by wins at the Supreme Court."
And they will be getting even more "wins" now that Kavanaugh is on the Court. Calling your repressive policy agenda 'legal' because a rubber-stamp packed Supreme Court approves it is a shaky "justice" indeed. This is close to the Mad Queen philosopy, paraphrasing, "Laws mean just what I choose them to mean, neither more nor less."
55
@Jim Brokaw. Nitpick. The philosophy to which you refer belongs to Humpty Dumpty, not the queen.
Since when has there not a been a political agenda driving the DOJ’s priorities? It is unfortunate because that political agenda’s detract from real issues that DOJ could tackle.
The political priority is exacerbated by a very legalistic mentality that drives some of the more ambitious DOJ district attorneys to pursue very weak cases. These are largely settled simple because most do not have the resources to fight the federal govt.
DOJ loses sight of the larger problems they could tackled, but instead devotes resources towards headline grabbing cases that are politically expedient to whatever administration they are serving.
3
How did Jeff Sessions ever get a law degree? I haven’t been able to wrap my mind around that one for some time.
24
@ubique
Pedigree?
He's a "III'...
A junior of a junior?
Comes from a long line of "Beauregards".
Must have given him an honorary law degree.
1
The way they all do but they forget their idealism and morale once they realize how the law can be bent and broken for lots and lots of money $$$$$$$
1
@ubique Ask the University of Alabama.
1
To career justice department insiders: RESIST. America needs your patriotic acts of resistance, more than ever before. Do what you know is right, despite orders to do otherwise. Stay, if you can, to resist.
27
This is a great report. It confirms for me what I suspected must be going on in the branches and agencies of government. A sort of Stockholm Syndrome where the political appointees are the jailors and the career professionals are forced to flee or conform to Trump madness. The president runs off at the mouth telling us how great things are going when the reality is our government is rotting from the inside. The Trump experience is a failure - vote for Democrats.
43
So a Republican administration is behaving like Republicans.
Saw the same shocking WSJ headline 8 years ago that a Democratic administration was behaving like Democrats.
3
Why does the NYT insist on calling Sessions and his ilk "conservative?" These are Right wingers--far Right wingers, in fact. We must call things by their proper names or the whole discussion gets out of whack. In fact, the discussion has been out of whack since the the Republicans discovered they could mesh populist Jingoism with support for their wealthy clients and usurp first an election and then a country. Trump, Sessions, Pence--these folks are Right wingers. They would make conservatives such as Eisenhower and even Reagan turn over in their graves.
37
@Cathryn Indeed, they are not conservatives; they are reactionaries.
1
The article tries to shock us by the Trump-Sessions team's attempt to circumvent the law to their horrific ends. This is really bad on its own, but the real problem is the potential for this band of amoral and ignorant old white men, this GOP, to actually change the law to their liking.
Vote them out, before they succeed in their voter suppression efforts.
32
This is the reward for voting for Jill Stein. Just like 8 years of George W. Bush was the reward for voting for Ralph Nader. Until the left understands that, we're doomed.
65
@MR,
Nonsense. Both Gore and HR Clinton ran awful campaigns. Both managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Castigating others for those campaign failures is placing the blame where it doesn't belong.
1
@Billy Baynew The left never fails to not learn an obvious lesson.
@MR
Jill Stein? Wasn't she sitting a the same table as Flynn & Putin? Curious convergence.
These are the types of stories that have to appear in order to build the consensus that Sessions should be dismissed. And the person coming in will be just as bad, and not have to recuse himself from the Mueller investigation.
5
I don't think that in recent years any single individual worldwide has done more than Trump to undermine the rule of law.
It therefore doesn't really come as a surprise that civil servants in his Justice Department that might have believed in the rule of law are somewhat feeling estranged from their department and bosses.
33
@Baptiste C., I suggest we use the rule of law to rectify the situation. But how to start? This administration has made it clear it IS The Law.
6
@George Kamburoff
VOTE straight Democrat and insure all your like-minded friends and family members to get their votes in early.
@Baptiste C.
Henceforth refer to him as "Corrupter in Chief".
1
People in Maine remember that our senator, Susan Collins, not only voted for the nomination of AG Sessions, she was one of two senators who introduced Sessions to the Senate Judiciary Committee prior to the start of his confirmation hearing saying, "Jeff Sessions is a person of integrity, a principled leader, and a dedicated public servant."
Senator Collins continues to show bad judgement and is now just another republican hack. I proudly voted for Senator Collins, but no longer.
From the state that produced Senators Margaret Chase Smith and Olympia Snow, we expect much more of our senators.
93
Let it not be forgotten that when Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III was nominated for the Attorney General's post Maine Senator Susan Collins circulated a letter to her Senate colleagues "warmly" supporting his candidacy, and stepped up to introduce him at his confirmation hearing. Yes, that Susan Collins - the "moderate" Republican who carefully (and coyly) considers all sides of critical issues before the Senate before voting in lockstep with the GOP on every one.
153
The taxpayers are assuming the cost of this political agenda.
A tough reputation is more important to the DOJ than fairness at this time. The lives they destroy are just a means to an end.
Trump's ideology and ethics in action.
19
Jeff Sessions is a very strange person who is certainly getting slimed by his president. He seems gleefull when he talks about the horror separating children some under 1 year old from their parents. He tells people many who suffer from horrendous pain to take a couple of Aspirin and toughen up rather than use doctor prescribed pain medicine. While America is overwhelmingly supportive of normalizing Marijuana laws Sessions is taking a Reefer Madness approach.
46
I continue to be surprised that people are surprised about how truly horrible this administration is. This is who they are and always have been.
127
@Mr Peabody
Well lets make sure that those surprised people get to the voting booth in November to make sure Congress has the power to stop this mad man before we are saluting Russian or Saudi flags.
1
Each day more bone chilling news of this administration's willful sabotage of what has made America a just and truthful country. Advocating hatred against reporters has enabled one American resident and respected journalist to be murdered by this administration's most treasured international "friend". We are, in the Justice Department under Sessions, dismembering our brightest and fairest advocates for justice, and with near surgical completion of a partisan Supreme Court tipped by its newest and most radical member Kavanaugh, no longer "great". America? RIP.
69
This is the result when 56% of eligible voters stay home during a national election and a hideously incompetent administration tries to ruin the country.
Please don't make the same mistake again. Get people to the polls and vote like your life depended on it.
152
@Patrick Conley Why assume that if the 56% actually do vote, we will wind up with someone better than Trump? Could be someone worse than Trump. Why have any faith in the American people? They are the LAST organisms in nature anyone should put their trust in.
Cause and effect. When you elect a thin skinned egomaniac with a persecution complex, inferiority complex, paranoid mindset, sub-par educated, facultative conservative, chauvinist with no working knowledge of statesmanship, formal communication, science, international politics and bent-for-leather on nepotism and self-enrichment, don't be surprised when that person bends every person and bureau under them to his personal benefit to the harm of those with whom their welfare was entrusted.
62
@JP
I didn't elect this nightmare--I'd call him a joke but it isn't funny--and neither, apparently, did anyone else except for the Russians.
10
Once again, THANK YOU NY TIMES (and WaPo) for being the voice of truth and reason and information in the face of this corrupt and biased administration.
Your in-depth reporting about this "administration" is helping turn the tide. Never has the news been so important!
Democracy dies in darkness -- a great motto for the media.
75
If Rosenstein's relationship with Trump is now pronounced "good" then there is collusion involved. Rosenstein's real mission is to keep Sessions' leash tight when it comes to investigating anything Trump. He is the lame-o version of John Mitchell as Nixon's Justice Department firewall. Justice Department? Not in this administration.
17
As I read these stories, I can’t help but to feel despair at the way our Constitution is continually being corrupted by Trump and his appointees who want to interpret, rewrite, and remake it in their own twisted, ideological image.
Department spokeswoman, Sarah Isgar Flores, “called Mr. Sessions’s changes vital to reducing violent crime, combating the opioid epidemic and securing borders.” Really? That’s the excuse she came up with to defend Jess Sessions’ appalling dereliction of duty as attorney general?
Unfortunately, the keys to the White House and the DOJ were handed to two weak, fearful characters whose moral compass points south (for one, literally), and who have very distorted views of “law and order” and how to keep Americans “safe.” The biggest threat the people of this nation face isn’t coming from the drugs and immigrants “pouring into this country,” but from the aberrations currently occupying the seats of our government.
60
I could almost feel sorry for Attorney General Sessions because of the constant ridicule of him by Trump. But Sessions' agenda hurts people, and he seems incapable of feeling the pain he is inflicting by his hardline stances.
41
''But when political appointees joined the conversation, the career lawyers, worried about being pegged as dissenters, shifted the discussion to more neutral topics.''
This reads like something out of an Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn novel.
35
Like most of Trump's cabinet picks, Sessions has been a disaster for the Justice Department and a disaster for the rule of law. His deliberate separation of children and parents on our southern border is by itself a crime against humanity that should put Sessions in the dock of the International Criminal Court at the Hague.
54
I served at the Justice Department from 1990-2014, and while I am more inclined to prefer the politics of the Democratic Party, I worked with exceptional people in both Democratic and Republican Administrations. I have remained in touch with former colleagues, and it comes as no surprise to learn that the current Administration is like no other. Trump views the Justice Department as his own personal attorney, just as he views the United States as his privately owned company. One cannot help but wonder if and how long it will take to repair the damage wrought by his shameful and indefensible actions.
811
@Baltimore Jack
"The business of government is business."
Who said that? The same guy who wrought the utter destruction of the best thing the human race had ever built until that point in time.
Government is a creation of man. In this representative republic it is meant to be taking care of the people's needs, stabilizing the economy and providing long term planning and preparation for emergencies and improvements in society.
1
@Baltimore Jack
And supported by the GOP majority in Congress.
This is a chilling and enlightening article that unfortunately few will read. How does this kind of discussion become part of a larger political discussion? Are any Democratic candidates campaigning on the threat to our Justice Department?
20
Last line of the Declaration of Independence;
"And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."
I am presently reading/listening to Norman Lear's autobiography. He purchased the only privately copy of the Declaration of Independence then arranged for it to tour America.
The last line/statement as important perhaps even more so than the first if largely overlooked. Today the importance of breadth and value of that statement is replaced with near term self serving narcissism.
Today we have a powerful few who are pledging America's Honor to their self serving ends.
68
@Just Me - sadly, I agree. We have a president who actually mocked the office that he now fills at a campaign rally--showing how even he could 'act presidential'--and supporters who literally cheered him on. We have a House and Senate filled with (largely) men and women bereft of honor, and who paused in pretended awe of McCain's manifestation of that quality just long enough to get him in the ground, and out of the way. And advancing their personal fortunes--often blatantly attempting to doom the fortunes of the neediest Americans--seems paramount among their priorities.
39
I have told the story here more than once of my time as a young special assistant U.S. attorney when my superior, a grizzled career justice department lawyer, thumped on the name on my brief, reminding me never to forget that my client was the United States of America.
That sense--that our professional responsibility was in service to something bigger than "the government" (or indeed any particular administration)--was pervasive in the justice department I knew. And based on knowing folks like Sally Yates I believe it remains so among that diminishing cadre of career lawyers in the department today.
Perhaps Jefferson Beauregard Sessions believes he is doing something "important" in some ultimate sense in trying to force the social policies and practices extant before the 1960s into current law. But in the process, he is both breaking apart the rule of law--the very cornerstone of our republic--and undermining an institution dedicated to justice for the United States of America and not just for a chosen few.
298
Let's hear it for bureaucracies---yes, they can be slow, rule driven, and routine oriented, but, their strength in this administration is their built in ability to resist bold moves. Since the other two branches of government appear to be AWOL, what we now have left is our secret fourth branch of government stepping up to the plate or in bureaucratic terms, helping their leaders wander around the plate.
19
In the article the term regression is used. I prefer to describe our country and its current direction under Trump and his Republican cronies as in a state of constant retrogression.
37
That “on track to lose in court” thing will change when the evangelical right finishes the take-over of the court system.
113
So Obama’s Justice Dept were fierce citizen advocates then, in contrast to Sessions? So they didn’t ignore rampant fraud by Wall Street, or refuse to persecute whistleblowers and journalists exposing war crimes by the military? They didn’t ignore rampant criminality by Wells Fargo executives and Purdue Pharma opioid pushers? They jailed the political leaders in Michigan responsible for poisoning an entire city knowingly and concealing the evidence? They ended the scandal of incarceration for profit and the harsh rebirth of debtor prisons for the poor and vulnerable?
Give me a break with this narrative. US justice was just as much a sham back then as it is now. It shields the rich and powerful and persecutes the poor and weak.
36
Correct, it’s just the heat on the poor has been turned up from a low simmer to a rollicking boil with Sessions.
15
@Xoxarle - Interesting perspective. It must really bother you that Trump has stacked his cabinets with the kinds of people you are so upset about.
12
Stop being polite.
The social views of this administration are racist and homophobic, more in line with the "Proud Boys" than any traditional conservative view.
214
@Lawrence You forgot misogynistic. And xenophobic. And antiscience. And autocratic. And kleptocratic.
But you're of course correct about their being racist and homophobic.
3
This is what you get when a Wussy Grabbing Birther is elected president. donnie is a pathetic, petty, thin skinned, tax cheating, loser, that is morally and ethicslly unfit and unqualified to be president. Besides that he is just great, just ask him.
82
Everything is going according to plan: Force out those who disagree, replace them with loyal non-thinking far-righters, and deny via talking heads that anything unusual is going on.
Vote in November.
310
@George
And test the world's level of outrage to murdering and dismembering a distinguished Washington Post reporter.
2
I proudly served as an assistant United States attorney for fifteen years and worked overseas to provide rule of law guidance to three governments. If I were still with the DOJ I have no doubt whatsoever that I would not do anything contrary to the law, regardless of what any AG or so-called president ordered, and would undermine any effort by others to do so. It will be the worker bees that save this government, certainly not any of those in positions of power.
267
Where, oh where, are the adults in the room? I'm waiting for the one courageous attorney who leaves Justice to stand up and yell and tell the truth on the way out the door, rather than this slinking off into the night to private law firms or to "spend more time with their families...." Quitting to leave the problem to others seems to be the drumbeat of everyone affiliated with the Trump administration. Until it is too late for all of us.
93
@JTS
We keep focusing on Trump who we all know is a lost cause.
The ONLY two people who can do anything about Trump are Ryan and McConnell.
All the pressure in the world should be directed on these two people...McConnell especially, and then whoever replaces Ryan.
1
Absolutely. Doug Letter???
If Jeff Sessions is strong-arming career lawyers into implementing his own right wing agenda at the DOJ he should have been fired long ago.
Maybe the bullying and personal attacks Sessions has endured under the president has affected his judgment as to be the nation’s top law enforcement official.
Sessions is running the DOJ the way his boss is running the country, ignoring the rule of law and abusing his power.
111
The successor to Sessions is bound to be even worse, even more at Trump’s bidding. We are stuck until 2020.
17
@silver vibes
Sessions works for Trump. Why on earth would Trump fire him? The only thing Trump doesn't love about Sessions is that he did the right thing and recused himself from the Russia investigation. Trump will never fire him for implementing his own right-wing agenda--that's why Trump appointed him in the first place.
Trump has not affected Sessions--his positions have always been exactly what they are now--kick out the immigrants and throw every pothead in jail. When LBGT rights surfaced, he added them to the list of things to squelch. That's it. He hasn't been influenced by Trump at all, it's exactly who he has always been.
12
There is absolutely nothing wrong with attorneys in the Justice Department, whether political appointees or career civil servants, having personal political views.
Where the Justice Department under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and bullied by President Donald Trump, goes wrong is when the Department leadership places politics so far above the rule of law on its agenda that dissenting lawyers are forced to take political arguments into the courtroom or face career-ending punishment.
Any American, Republican or Democrat, who thinks the Trump-Sessions approach is the way justice was intended to be administered under our Constitution is either uneducated or corrupt.
348
Any individual who supports or works for trump has zero respect for the rule of law. Full stop.
3
It is not much different in other federal departments. The hubris and lack of knowledge by political appointees has been breathtaking. Career staff who worked successfully with administrations going back to the Reagan era watched political appointees ignore policies and procedures that apply to all federal employees for items as small as keeping and recording receipts. Just look at all the travelgates occurring in just about every department for just one example. For bigger issues like policy, watching the political appointees ignore the law and how regulations are actually promulgated (or removed) has been laughable. Best people? LOL.
234
RE:"transgender rights":
There was NEVER any sound legal defense of redefining the word "sex" (what is between someones legs) to be synonymous with the word "gender" (how someone acts in and interacts with the world). They are NOT and never have been the same thing.
That said,, "transgender rights" rights are in the 1st 16 words of the 1st Amendment since EVERY law that restricts them is based on "religious beliefs" and therefore are "respecting" (giving special privilege or consideration to) the beliefs and practices of religion.
The secular humanists that tried to do an end run around the dictionary claiming "transgender rights" are "human rights" that trump religious beliefs, didn't want to use the 1st 16 words because doing so they would have to admit that people of faith also have the right not to share a bathroom or other intimate space with a person of the opposite sex.
The BHO Civil Rights division could have cited the 1st 16 words and made the following ruling:
"Every building that offers public use restrooms or changing facilities MUST provide at least one single occupancy completely private space for the use of anyone that wants to ensure they have complete privacy."
This would NOT be an "unreasonable accommodation" of either religion or "transgender rights" or create an "undue burden" on anyone.
But neither the secular humanists nor the christacrats would be willing to accept it because BOTH are looking for a way to stick their thumb in the others eye.
17
@Blank Ballot Let me shorten your diatribe for you: 'I want the government to support my particular religious beliefs, and I don't care if that means imposing those beliefs on other people who don't believe the way I do."
You're welcome.
164
@Blank Ballot I find your focus on the "1st 16 words of the 1st Amendment" to be wonderfully refreshing. We should definitely follow the constitution, when the meaning is clear and unambiguous.
Tell me, are you just as zealous about respecting the first four words of the 2nd amendment?
12
@Jeff: Outstanding!
1
This article omits the strong negative reaction to Sessions' withdrawal of the "Holder Memorandum", which had instructed prosecutors to avoid bring drug charges carrying the harshest mandatory minimum sentences against minor offenders with a history of non-violence.
105
The fundamental fact is that true professionals - people that have attained their successes through *hard work* and integrity - can never normalize this bonkers hard-right behavior. And I do mean behavior. It has nothing to do with law or fact. It’s a weird, prejudicial behavioral disposition that many people under Trump’s thrall share.
Let’s remember that there is no one in Donald Trump’s cabinet that is fit to serve this nation. They are all amateurs with retrograde, uninformed views of our society and the world.
730
. . . and a lot to gain personally as they brutally carry out his shameful policies that align with their worldview.
Trump's cabinet choices are the perfect tools because they are financially set and too arrogant to both recognize their abysmal ignorance and have a sense of shame to govern their extreme ideologies.
18
It's called fascism, or the same bug which caused it anyway. It's like a fever, you can see the sadistic arrogance in their eyes.
5
Not to worry.
As the article notes, it is likely that Mr Sessions will be leaving the Trump administration shortly after the mid-terms. His replacement as Attorney General, Senator Lindsay Graham will, I'm sure, fix everything.
44
Sessions has sealed his fate. He is finished and his legacy will be
lasting. He will retire to Alabama despised by his friends and
enemies alike.
20
@Gp Capt Mandrake
Appreciate your sarcasm, but the thought of Lindsey Graham in charge of the DOJ is a nightmare worse than Sessions.
The only way that this might possibly be avoided is a change in the number of Dems elected to the Senate - a consummation devoutly to be wished - and unfortunately unlikely to be fulfilled.
The renaming of the department to Department of Injustice would be more apt.
24
@Gp Capt Mandrake
Lindsay Graham has John McCain rolling over in his grave.
9
"The best people" seemed to have eluded Mr. Trump entirely. Mr. Sessions, to no thinking person's surprise, is possibly the worst AG to occupy the office, as his priorities are way outside the American mainstream, unless you're from Birmingham.
200
@Samp426 Your comment may be a disservice to the voters of Birmingham. A large majority supported Jones against Moore in the election to replace Sessions. My guess is that Sessions would not be their favorite AG.
9
I say this as a retired attorney.
It's time to leave when 'the boss' asks/insists/demands that you abandon the standard of 'a good faith belief' in the proposition he/she is advocating that you advance.
'The Boss' will not likely be able help you retain your license should the governing Attorney Disciplinary Committee come knocking at your door.
The Trump administration may be seriously fact challenged: the Disciplinary Boards not.
Few people realize the unique dilemma attorneys face. Serious ethical compromises can cost not just your present job, but your license to practice.
You have two options: resist or move on.
431
@two cents,
What about a personal recusal?
A memo to the chief saying that "I so disagree" I cannot if professional conscience promote this argument.
Remember the pensions at stake for some of the long term staff.
Agreed that ultimately the license is controlling.
6
The tremendous irony of it all is that the one thing and one thing only that Sessions has done right since taking the job, recusing himself from the Russia investigation, is going to be the thing that gets him fired.
When the hammer does finally fall I don't imagine many people will be feeling too sorry for such a pathetic excuse for an attorney general.
280
The Justice Department has evolved into a chaotic agency led by a man unqualified to be attorney general to begin with. As a southerner myself, my political antenna is sensitive to his actions which are by and large the Republican policies enforced in Alabama and a few other neighboring states: Relaxing civil rights enforcement, supporting voter suppression, attacking helpless refugees, zealously enforcing marijuana laws and regulating a woman's choices are de reguer policies for Sessions and his fellow Republicans.
505
What did anyone expect?
This is Jeff Sessions, from ALABAMA.
Trump gave him to job to get him out of the Senate so he wouldn't have to deal with him, thinking "now you work for me, Jeff," but unfortunately for Trump, that's not the cast. Not that Sessions is his own man in a good way. He's obviously not. He's a stubborn, annoyingly insensitive solipsistic tart, given over to biblical interpretations of law and policy who always thinks he knows better.
Now, like a typical Southerner, he's obviously out for revenge against Trump for the way he's been supported / treated and it's no wonder why the Justice Department has devolved into this mess.
143
Typical Southerner? This is why we lose elections to less qualified candidates.
22
@Matty.
Being a southerner doesn’t make Sessions a bigot, just like being lace-curtain doesn’t mean you were screaming “let’s go Southie!”
That being said, Sessions is a bigot. Sessions said I thought the kkk was ok until I learned they smoke pot.
30
Let’s ease up on the “typical Southerner” language in this thread.
35