With these events as background, when I went to the Intelligence committee's hearing on Senator Jeff Session's nomination and heard ranking member Diane Feinstein detail Session's involvement in writing the executive order banning Muslims from seven countries from entering the United States, I felt I had to also object to Sessions' nomination. Feinstein quoted the Washington Post...
"'From immigration and health care to national security and trade, Sessions is the intellectual godfather of the president's policies. Sessions' reach extends throughout the White House, with his aides and allies accelerating the president's most dramatic moves, including the ban on refugees and citizens from seven mostly-Muslim nations that has triggered fear around the globe.'"
Feinstein continued with her concerns about Sessions views on voting rights and voter fraud, reproductive choice, punishment of women who chose to have an abortion and waterboarding and other forms of torture. Feinstein ended her statement with, "I have no confidence that Senator Sessions will be an independent Attorney General. Instead, he has been 'the fiercest, most dedicated, and most loyal promoter in Congress of the Trump agenda, and has played a critical role as the clearinghouse for policy and philosophy to undergird the implementation of that agenda.' With this in mind, I must vote no."
Senator Leahy, who has been a U.S. Senator for 34 years, said, "What we saw last night illustrates what is at stake with this nomination. The President's decision to fire Acting Attorney General Sally Yates is shameful. And his accusation that she "betrayed the Department of Justice" is dangerous. The Attorney General is the people's attorney, not the President's attorney... Ms. Yates' willingness to defend the rule of law instead of defending President Trump's political whims demonstrates exactly why having an independent Attorney General is so important, and why we must be so careful in selecting our next Attorney General. President Trump has placed the independence of the Justice Department at stake. He has put the Department on notice: if you adhere to your oath of office to defend the Constitution, you risk your job.
"At this critical time we need an Attorney General who can stand up to the President. Someone with fidelity to the rule of law and not a political ideology. Someone who will support the thousands of career prosecutors in the Department who serve our Nation and defend the Constitution without fear or favor...
"I have serious doubts that Senator Sessions would be an independent Attorney General. There have been months of media coverage about President Trump's many conflicts of interest and the constitutional concerns they present. Yet Senator Sessions has repeatedly evaded my questions on this topic by claiming that he has 'not studied the issue.' He even refused to acknowledge that it is a conflict of interest for a President to have a personal financial stake in the policies pursued by his administration. This is the very definition of a conflict of interest: Presidents should not personally profit from their decisions.
"In 2015, I offered a simple resolution that expressed the sense of the Senate that ...'the United States must not bar individuals from entering into the United States based on their religion.' All Democrats and most Republicans -- including the Chairman -- voted in support of my resolution. Senator Sessions opposed it. I find that concerning. We need an Attorney General who would stand in the way o f religious discrimination, not one who endorses it. I will vote no."
With these important statements by Senators who have served in the U.S. Senate for a long time and know him well, buttressed my decision to speak out ...and be arrested. I stood up and said, "I am a retired U.S. Army Colonel and a former U.S. diplomat. I say No Hate, No Racism, No Ban on Muslims and NO Jeff Sessions."
With that I was roughly hauled out of the hearing room by Capitol police and as I emerged from the hearing room continuing to shout, was greeted with the cheers from most of the over 100 members of the public who were in line hoping to get into the hearing room.
Many people have been arrested in the other confirmation hearings and more will be in the future as we challenge the dangerous policies of the Trump administration.
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