美国国家公共电台 NPR Trump's Pick For Attorney General Known For Hard-Line Immigration Stance（在线收听）

Trump's Pick For Attorney General Known For Hard-Line Immigration Stance

play pause stop mute unmute max volume 00:0000:00repeat repeat off Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin. KELLY MCEVERS, HOST: 

Now we're going to talk about who Donald Trump wants at the top of the Justice Department, someone who drew protests on Capitol Hill today.

(SOUNDBITE OF PROTEST)

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: Reject.

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: Sessions.

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: Reject.

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: Sessions.

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: Reject.

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: Sessions.

MCEVERS: That's Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, the first Republican senator to back Trump. His tough stance on immigration and 30-year-old allegations of racism are sure to draw scrutiny. Here's NPR's Debbie Elliott.

DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE: Long before Donald Trump was winning primaries or picking up political endorsements, he had a conservative ally in the Deep South. Here he is campaigning in Alabama in August of last year.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

DONALD TRUMP: We have a man here who really helped me. And he was the one person a man here who really helped one person I sought his counsel because he's been so spot-on. He's so highly respected. Has anybody ever heard of Senator Jeff Sessions?

ELLIOTT: In a foreshadowing of the endorsement that would come later, Sessions joined Trump on stage in his hometown Mobile, donning a make America great baseball cap.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

JEFF SESSIONS: Thank you for the work that you put into the immigration issue. I'm really impressed with your plan.

ELLIOTT: Well before Trump's plan to build a wall, Sessions was a border hawk. From his post as chairman of the Judiciary Committee's immigration panel, he's long been the Senate's leading voice against illegal immigration and expanding guest worker programs. Here he is 10 years ago calling for tougher enforcement.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

SESSIONS: Do we want to have a legal system or not? Are we once again creating a facade?

ELLIOTT: The 69-year-old Sessions was first elected to the Senate 20 years ago. He's a former Alabama attorney general and U.S. attorney. In a statement from the transition team, Sessions said he embraces, quote, "Trump's vision for one America and his commitment to equal justice under the law." Civil rights groups question that commitment.

JOANNE LIN: I mean, this is reactionary.

ELLIOTT: Joanne Lin is legislative council at the ACLU. She calls Sessions the most anti-immigrant voice in Congress.

LIN: This is trying to take us back to a time when our country was anything but equal, anything but fair.

ELLIOTT: His Senate Judiciary colleagues will be looking beyond Sessions' immigration views and confirmation hearings for attorney general. Expect the last time he was there to come up. It was 1986, and President Ronald Reagan had named Sessions to a federal judgeship. But the nomination was derailed by charges of racial insensitivity. Testimony included allegations he targeted civil rights leaders for prosecution and that he joked he thought the Ku Klux Klan was OK until he found out they smoked pot. At the time, Sessions said he was not the person his detractors were portraying.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

SESSIONS: I am not a racist. I am not insensitive to blacks. I have done my job with integrity, equality and fairness for all.

ELLIOTT: Now Sessions sits on the very panel that rejected his nomination to the federal bench. Former Republican Congressman Jo Bonner of Alabama says senators won't be swayed by what he calls a character assassination from the past.

JO BONNER: That was wrong then and it is equally wrong today. I don't think that will slow his nomination down one iota.

ELLIOTT: But expect a fight. NAACP president Cornell William Brooks says the prospect of Sessions as the nation's top law enforcement officer is deeply troubling.

CORNELL WILLIAM BROOKS: The president-elect has called for an expansion of stop-and-frisk. And he's nominated a senator with an atrocious record on civil rights. A and B do not spell justice for most Americans.

ELLIOTT: In announcing his nomination for attorney general, President-elect Trump called Sessions a world-class legal mind. Debbie Elliott, NPR News.