The AG Hustle

Jeff Sessions addressing the National Organization
of Black Law Enforcement Executives in Atlanta

Now obviously a lot of people in this country, myself included, have taken Attorney General Jeff Sessions to task over the troubling allegations of racism that have dogged him ever since President Ronald Reagan nominated him to be a federal judge back in 1986.

So it was somewhat unusual to see Sessions delivering opening remarks at the annual awards luncheon of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE) in Atlanta on Tuesday.

As reporter Dave Huddleston reported for local Atlanta station WSB-TV, Sessions seemed nervous.


According to Huddleston, Sessions stumbled over and mispronounced words at times, I watched a few minutes of the full address on Youtube last night, and while Sessions is not known as a particularly engaging public speaker in the style of Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton or Barack Obama, his opening remarks and attempts at a bit of levity fell pretty flat.

And from a writer's standpoint it was a pretty poorly-written speech overall.

The assembled crowd of African-American law enforcement executives was visibly polite, but clearly subdued and Sessions was obviously uncomfortable - and understandably so.

Those executives were keenly aware of Trump's appearance in Long Island last Friday in front of members of the Suffolk County Police Department where he encouraged cops to hurt suspects being taken into custody like some kind of Third World authoritarian nitwit.

As their Website states, NOBLE represents more than 3,000 black law enforcement executives in the U.S. and around the world, "that represent chief executive officers and command-level law enforcement officials from federal, state, county, municipal law enforcement agencies, and criminal justice practitioners".

Statement issued by Suffolk County PD shortly
after Trump's comments last Friday

So the men and women in that room understand better than most that the implications of a sitting president of the United States endorsing the physical abuse of suspects in custody is tantamount to endorsing the unjustified use of excessive force against people of color.

And they were waiting for Jeff Sessions to address those comments and provide a measure of leadership from the Department of Justice.


But he side-stepped the issue like a ninny and it didn't sit well with that crowd.

In an interview after the event, Perry Tarrant, the National President of NOBLE, made clear where the members of NOBLE stand on Trump's deplorable comments, "We are not thugs, we are professionals." - echoing statements from a number of law enforcement agencies around the country including the Suffolk County PD.

So in his first high-profile appearance in front of a prominent group of African-American professionals, Sessions did almost nothing to counteract the widely-held perception of him as a right-wing bigot loyal to the ideals of the Old South in which he was raised.

This is after all, the same Attorney General who famously began his tenure earlier this year by announcing that under his oversight, the Department of Justice would drastically scale back its role as a watchdog of police departments where racially-biased policing and unnecessary use of deadly force against racial minorities was found to be rampant.

Remember, in a memorandum he issued back in April, Sessions ordered a federal review of scores of consent decrees signed between the DOJ and various local police departments that had been found to have been engaged in consistent patterns of biased policing based on race and ethnicity.

On the very same day of Session's appearance at the NOBLE award luncheon yesterday, Charlie Savage of the New York Times reported on an internal DOJ document indicating a new initiative focused on "investigations and possible litigation related to intentional race-based discrimination in college and university admissions".

Do college completion statistics support the existence of
widespread discrimination against white students?  

Meaning that under the Trump administration the Sessions-run DOJ will now shift resources within the Division of Civil Rights towards the investigation of widespread discrimination against white students in college admissions.

Are there cases of white students facing unintended discrimination in college admissions as a result of quotas intended to ensure diverse student bodies in higher education reflective of the broader society?

Of course there are.

But to many observers, such a radical shift in the mission of the DOJ seems based less on fact and sound educational policy than on reactionary conservative ideology.

Especially given the results of a 2016 Pew Research study of college completion rates along racial and ethnic lines showing that "Whites and Asian students completed their programs at similar rates - 63% and 63.2%, respectively - while Hispanic and black students graduated at rates of 45.8% and 38%, respectively".  

And that doesn't mean that it's right or fair to the qualified individual whose college application is denied due to a policy intended to bring a measure of balance to an institution of higher learning after decades of systematic discrimination to qualified students of other races or ethnicities.

But to get back to the issue at hand, it's clear that Sessions, who'd just returned from El Salvador to meet with that nation's Attorney General on ways to combat the notorious MS-13 gang before addressing members of NOBLE on Tuesday, is using his position as the head of the Department of Justice to help jump start Trump's rocky anti-immigration efforts.

Trump's boogeymen? MS-13 gang members

Evidently Trump's recent series of bizarre tweets criticizing his own Attorney General as "weak" and "beleaguered" prodded Sessions to remember that the liar-in-chief expects the Department of Justice to function as an enforcement arm.

Not of the law, but as an enforcer of the right-wing conservative ideology that now defines White House domestic policy.

Is MS-13 is a particularly violent street gang with a nationwide membership?


Sure they are, and many individuals in communities like Long Island have fallen victim to its criminal activities, but as research by FactCheck.org shows, Trump's attempt to paint MS-13 as some kind of existential threat to national security are widely overblown.

But having seen how quickly Trump fired former-FBI Director James Comey, and more recently former Press Secretary Sean Spicer and never-actual Director of Communications Anthony Scaramucci, Sessions has been quick to start dancing in tune to White House efforts to play up the threat of MS-13 as a symbolic boogeyman.

Not for the safety of American communities (if that was the case they'd be advocating for sensible restrictions on firearms and mandatory federal background checks on all firearms purchases.)

Instead they use MS-13 to try and justify Orwellian anti-immigration laws and garner support for Trump's beloved wall - which is looking more and more like just another one of the slew of empty bogus campaign promises he used to motivate his disenfranchised base of voters.

That's really why Sessions was speaking in Atlanta in front of NOBLE on Tuesday, but his message was overshadowed by the invisible tension present in the room; which, again, stems from his legacy as a federal prosecutor, and it wasn't lost on the audience.

Spencer Hogue & Evelyn and Albert Turner

As an assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama in 1985, Sessions famously filed 29 counts of voter fraud against three African-American grass roots community organizers, Albert Turner, his wife Evelyn and Spencer Hogue, Jr. - who came to be known as "The Marion Three".

In the 1960's Albert Turner had been a field organizer in rural Perry County, Alabama for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Turner marched with him in the Selma to Montgomery March in 1965 in support of voting rights - a pivotal event in the Civil Rights movement that helped lead to the passage of the Voter Rights Act of 1965.

As Evelyn Turner recalled in an interview with CNN back in January, she and her husband and associate Spencer Hogue, Jr. had been helping poor rural blacks in Marion, Alabama to register to vote for years when Session sought a grand jury indictment in federal court over 14 ballots that he claimed they had altered.

The jury found them not guilty but the case painted Sessions as a racist who had tried to use his power as a federal prosecutor to intimidate blacks at the voting booth - a dark legacy of the south that continues to this day under the guise of "voter integrity" laws passed by Republican-majority state legislators around the country.

I'd argue that his tenure as Attorney General thus far shows Sessions is really the same man today; albeit with far more reaching power.

Ever since the inauguration back in January, it's been difficult keeping up with the various categories of fallout from the White House because of the constant chaos, rampant ineptitude and jaw-dropping lack of professionalism and ethical standards.

Sessions is not a stupid man by any measure, and he could have used his speech in front of NOBLE yesterday to distance himself from Trump's endorsement of police violence against suspects in custody - but he didn't.

At the age of 71, I doubt this particular leopard has any intention, or desire to change his spots.

And any offense Sessions might have taken from Trump's dim-witted Twitter comments demeaning his tenure as Attorney General were probably just less important than the ideology he's supported all his life.

That's why he's doing the AG Hustle - he believes in the message of the music.

Daughtergate: Rampant Nepotism at 1600

German Chancellor Angela Merkel wondering why
Ivanka is seated next to her at a WH meeting

Given the troubling tendency of the current president to place loyalty over competency and professional experience regardless of the consequences, the news that his oldest daughter will now have an office in the West Wing and have access to classified information probably shouldn't come as a surprise.

But as NPR reported on Tuesday, presidential historians and experts on government ethics both agree that it raises questions about lax ethical standards at the White House.

For Trump's critics, it also tosses wood on the fire of controversy over the flagrant and unprecedented conflicts of interest that have dogged his administration since back in December when he resisted calls to place his murky tangle of global business interests into a blind trust for the duration of his presidency.

But the former reality TV show host's penchant for intentionally making impulsive and inflammatory statements and decisions to distract media attention away from the larger issues threatening his presidency is well known.

So seen in that context, Trump elevating an adult child with no government or foreign policy experience (whose chief claim to fame is being given money by her father to start a fashion line), to a roll as senior White House advisor makes perfect sense - in Trumpland.

Just consider the timing.

Trump high-fives Japanese PM Shinzo Abe as
North Korea test fires a ballistic missile 

Just a day after the heads of the NSA and FBI testified in front of the House Intelligence Committee that the FBI has been conducting an ongoing investigation into ties between senior members of the Trump administration and Russia, the White House suddenly announces that Ivanka Trump will now have her own office in the West Wing.

Where presumably, her high-profile position will help boost sales of her struggling fashion line; which we now know is a serious priority for America's Golfer-in-Chief.


Especially considering that Trump was fussily tweeting about Nordstrom's decision to drop his daughter's clothing line from their stores on February 8th when he was supposedly in a White House meeting.

Three days later he was on the golf course with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (pictured above) while North Korea was test firing a ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan back on February 11th.

Look, it was one thing when Ivanka Trump was stumping for her father on the campaign trail when he was down double digits with women in the polls; but being seated next to German Chancellor Angela Merkel at a White House meeting?

It got decidedly weirder when her wealthy New York real estate scion-husband Jared Kushner took a role as a senior White House advisor and they moved to D.C where she began appearing in the role of some kind of surrogate first lady in place of the rarely-seen Melania Trump - who largely remains ensconced in the comfy confines of Trump Tower in New York City at a cost of millions of dollars a month to the American taxpayer.

But it's another thing entirely for Ivanka Trump to take on any kind of official role in the White House where she will supposedly have access to sensitive classified information; particularly given the glaring conflict of interest her ownership of her fashion line and her husband's family's vast real estate interests presents.

Nepotism at 1600: Ivanka Trump & Jared Kushner 

A husband and wife both acting as senior advisors to the president?

Both of whom control significant private business interests with a global reach that could be affected in innumerable ways by political decisions made by Donald Trump?

As St. Louis-based journalist and writer Sarah Kendzior observed on Twitter Tuesday morning:

"Kleptocratic dynasty continues apace. There is no reason Ivanka Trump should get a security clearance allowing her access to govt. data."      

Exactly what function is Ivanka Trump going to serve in the White House?

According to Jamie Gorelick, the Washington, D.C.-based attorney she's retained to advise her on ethics, her role will ostensibly be to serve as her misogynistic daddy's "eyes and ears" and be on hand to give him her "candid advice."

Given the huge volume of classified information her father has access to on a 24-7 basis, including the CIA, FBI, NSA and Pentagon to name a few, the idea that he requires a 35-year-old former fashion model, reality TV personality and socialite to be on hand to act as his "eyes and ears" strains the limits of credulity.

Or it's a really sad statement about Donald Trump's ability to govern.

Gorelick also claims Ivanka Trump will also be in the West Wing to focus on what Trumpland likes to call "women's issues."

Good luck getting either of these two to pass a piece
of legislation supporting "women's issues

Now, the idea that the current Republican party under the leadership of Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell is going to suddenly reverse course and pick up the mantle of women's rights is laughable.

These are the same two guys trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act and defund Planned Parenthood, both of which are responsible for providing access to critical healthcare services for millions of American women.


To say nothing of the fact that the Republican-majority Congress has consistently voted against minimum wage wage increases and are already moving to slash federal funds for schools and child nutrition programs.

Maybe Ivanka doesn't realize that the Republican Senate opposed the Paycheck Fairness Act three times when President Obama repeatedly tried to get it passed to help tackle the gender gap in work compensation - paying women the same as men, yup, Republicans opposed that.

So given that her passion for "women's issues" is essentially meaningless under the Republican Congress, it's clear that her presence in the White House is little more than a transparent way to further enrich the Trump family at the expense of the American tax payers.

Her being photographed at official functions is little more than a free ad for her fashion accessories - like when she appeared on 60 Minutes then created an ad the next day about the bracelet she was wearing during the interview which (surprise!) was available to purchase.

As the Washington Post reported yesterday, a small upscale boutique in San Francisco filed a class action lawsuit against her alleging that her leveraging her White House ties and proximity to the president creates an unfair business advantage.

But as far as her White House role is concerned, whether she's willingly being used, or wants to be used (she is the sole owner of her fashion line), or her father is so bat-shit crazy at this point that other advisers begged her to take an office to try and reason with him, I don't know.

Andronico Luksic, Ivanka & Jared's landlord

She went to Wharton so I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt and saying she knows exactly what she's doing.

But the whole thing about her not taking a salary for her "adviser role" is laughable.

The money she'll make surreptitiously promoting her fashion brand dwarfs what she'd make as a White House adviser.

Frankly, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.


Did you read the story about her and her husband's new D.C. landlord?

As Jen Hayden reported in her Daily Kos article back on March 9th, Andronico Luksic is a member of one of Chile's wealthiest families, he owns a company called Twin Metals Minnesota.

He's suing the U.S. government after the Obama administration blocked the renewal of mining rights that are essential to his company's $2.8 billion dollar project located 250 miles north of Minneapolis.

Luksic bought the D.C. mansion that Ivanka and Jared now rent AFTER the November election; they're billionaires, so why that couple would rent a home is questionable enough.

How much do you want to bet that Andronico Luksic's company gets it's mineral rights renewed?

British journalist / writer Louise Mensch

So don't be fooled by Ivanka.

If, as Trump has said publicly, she "always pushes" him "to do the right thing", then she's doing a pretty crappy job.

Last night while trolling through Twitter feeds to gauge reactions to Monday's House Intelligence Committee hearings on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential elections, I read a term that effectively encapsulates the creeping controversy surrounding Ivanka Trump and the precise nature of her role in the White House.

"Daughtergate".

As far as I know, credit for that brilliant play on the historic scandal that shook the foundations of American democracy and eventually led to Richard Nixon's resignation goes to Louise Mensch, the conservative former member of British Parliament.

Back on March 4th she tweeted: "By the time we get through with Jared and Ivanka it's going to be "Daughtergate".

Mensch is going to be one of the guests on Bill Maher this Friday where I'm sure she'll be sharing her thoughts on Ivanka's new role and the unprecedented nepotism at the White House if you want to hear her thoughts live.

As Steven Perlberg reported for BuzzFeed.com on Sunday, Mensch is making headlines of her own this week over claims she made in an Op-Ed published in the New York Times last Friday where she credited herself with being the one to break the story back in November "that a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court had issued a warrant that enabled the F.B.I. to examine communications between 'U.S. persons' in the Trump campaign relating to Russia-linked banks." 

Mensch is quite clever, and a good writer.

But she has been partial to some rather questionable conspiracy theories in the past that have been widely disproven.

New York Times reporter Charlie Savage

New York Times national security reporter Charlie Savage publicly refuted her claims that a FISA court had issued such an order so it's a bit of a media kerfuffle - I'm, sure Bill Maher will get the skinny on that this Friday.

From a political standpoint, if there was any one single aspect of Trump's toxic presidential campaign that could be considered even remotely positive, it was arguably his oldest daughter Ivanka.

Given the mounting ethical questions surrounding Donald Trump, including Russia-gate, the decision to appoint his son-in-law as a senior White Houser adviser was questionable enough.

But elevating his own daughter to a position within the White House?

That gives a whole new meaning to the word nepotism.

And when things begin to unravel for her father, the ethical issues surrounding a potential "Daughtergate" could be far more problematic legally for the embattled POTUS than he even he could imagine.

And as we know, his imagination is vast.