Fox Lauds Potential Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Ignores That He Was Rejected For A Judgeship For Racist Comments

Written by Media Matters Staff

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Fox & Friends guest host Ed Henry and Republican strategist Brad Blakeman, an adviser to President-elect Donald Trump's transition team, praised Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) as a potential attorney general after CBS News reported that Trump has offered the position to Sessions. Henry failed to note, however, that Sessions was previously rejected for a federal judgeship after officials testified that he made racist statements.

Bloomberg Politics reported, “Sessions acknowledged referring to the NAACP and other organizations as 'communist inspired' and 'un-American organizations with anti-traditional American values.” And according to the Huffington Post, Sessions allegedly “called a black attorney 'boy,' suggested a white lawyer working for black clients was a race traitor, joked that the only issue he had with the Ku Klux Klan was their drug use, and referred to civil rights groups as 'un-American' organizations trying to 'force civil rights down the throats of people who were trying to put problems behind them.'” As The New York Times noted, “after officials testified that he had made racist comments,” Sessions was “rejected for a federal judgeship” in 1986. From the November 18 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:

ED HENRY (CO-HOST): Not a surprise that [Sen.] Jeff Sessions [(R-AL)] is in the running for something big. This is a senator who put his neck out there, and as I recall, was the first lawmaker to say, look, I'm behind Donald Trump. He's going to get something big, isn't he? 



BRAD BLAKEMAN: Well, look, if this is true, the president-elect couldn't pick a better candidate. This is a guy who is steeped in the law, got an excellent reputation, was appointed by Ronald Reagan in 1981 to be the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Alabama, served for more than a decade, then became the attorney general thereafter of Alabama, and then the U.S. Senator. So he's got a stellar record. I believe if he were to become the attorney general, he would be just what the doctor ordered to not only clean up that agency but to effectuate all the laws in this country to the best of his ability. 



HENRY: Brad, as a Republican, you know better than anyone -- and having been inside the White House you also know better than many -- that Republicans have been very frustrated about the Eric Holder Justice Department before Loretta Lynch, and particularly the Clinton investigation. How do you think the face of the Justice Department will change, and do you think that Jeff Sessions would be somebody, if confirmed, who would reopen the Clinton probe? 



BLAKEMAN: He is going to clean up the Justice Department. He's going to take politics out of the Justice Department. He's going to uphold all the laws and not pick and choose those laws that he seeks to enforce, and that's going to be the big difference. The rule of law is for everybody. You can't pick and choose in America the laws you seek to want to enforce. If you want fair and equitible justice, it's got to be fair for everyone.