The world is getting pretty scary
The ultra-conservative lawyer who US President Elect Donald Trump has chosen to be his new Attorney General has previously expressed some bizarre and worrying views, it has been reported.
Indeed, Jeff Sessions’ controversial views on race saw him rejected for a federal judge position by a Republican-controlled Senate committee in 1986.
Since news of Session’s appointment was released this afternoon, this old newspaper report has been doing the rounds on Twitter:
Heck of a sub-headline on this old @HowardKurtz report on Jeff Sessions' 1986 hearings. "NAACP 'Un-American,' Klansmen 'Okay.'" pic.twitter.com/UOzyDlzkuH
— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) November 18, 2016
According to CNN, the report is based on testimony to The Senate Judiciary Committee during hearings in March and May 1986. Thomas Figures, a black assistant US attorney who worked for Sessions, testified that Sessions called him “boy” on multiple occasions and joked about the Ku Klux Klan, saying that he thought KKK members were “OK” before he changed his view after learning that some smoked marijuana.
Sessions vehemently denied the allegations at the time, commenting:
I am not a racist, I am not insensitive to blacks. I have supported civil rights activity in my state. I have done my job with integrity, equality, and fairness for all.
He added that he detested the KKK, and labelled the claim that he made those statements “ludicrous”.
Sessions has been Attorney General of Alabama since 1994 and a member of the US senate since 1996. He graduated from the University of Alabama School of Law in 1973, and then worked briefly in private practice, before moving into politics.