William Smith at Sessions Hearing: ‘Enforcing Immigration Laws Is Not Out of the Main

William Smith at Sessions Hearing: ‘Enforcing Immigration Laws Is Not Out of the Mainstream’
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by JULIA HAHN
11 Jan 2017Washington D.C.

William Smith, the first African American to serve as chief counsel for a Republican on the Senate Judiciary committee, delivered a powerful rebuke of Senator Sessions’ detractors during Wednesday’s confirmation hearing. Smith suggested that those who oppose Sessions are either motivated by their own “political aspirations” or they have never spent “ten minutes talking to Senator Sessions.”

“A lot has been said about Sen. Sessions’ character. We’ve seen people who have never met Sen. Sessions claim to know him and know his heart,” Smith told the Senate Judiciary Committee. “I doubt any one of those individuals attacking Sen. Sessions outside of yesterday has spent thirty minutes in the same room as him — that’s thirty minutes in the same room as him, not talking to him. I doubt any of them have spent thirty minutes — or ten minutes — talking to Sen. Sessions.”

By contrast, Smith explained that he has come to know Sessions well: “I know Jeff Sessions. I’m not testifying as someone who just met him yesterday. I know his family. I’ve dined at his house. We’ve eaten Johnny Rockets burgers together. I’ve traveled across the state of Alabama with Jeff Sessions.”

Smith described Sessions as “a brilliant legal mind, a man of the highest character and great integrity… a man who has dedicated his public life to service and fought for the disenfranchised; he accomplished it. He fought for civil rights and against the ku klux klan and fought for people regardless of the color of their skin.”

“It’s an honor for me to be here today to support Sen. Sessions to be the next Attorney General of the United States of America. He will do an outstanding job,” Smith said.

As the intellectual thought-leader of the conservative nation-state populist movement, Sessions’ efforts to uphold the rule of law, safeguard the Constitution, and advance pro-American worker trade and immigration policies — against the wishes of corporate special interests — has understandably won him the enmity of America’s radical left. Yet, remarkably, the far-left apparently has but one single line of attack from Sessions’ decades of public service to use against him: namely, Ted Kennedy’s successful “Borking” of Jeff Sessions during his 1986 nomination for a federal judgeship.

Smith explained “every allegation” of racial insensitivity lodged against Sessions during his 1986 “Borking” has been “disproven,” and Smith called on the media to “move on.”
Smith argued that the far-left’s opposition to the populist Senator is based upon political motivations rather than the facts. Smith’s remarks condemning the “political aspirations” of Sessions’ opponents come as multiple reports have characterized Sen. Cory Booker’s unprecedented decision to testify against Sessions, whom Booker has previously said he was “blessed and honored to have partnered with,” as a “clear signal” of Booker’s “2020 maneuvering.”

“If you disagree with Sen. Sessions because of his political views, let’s have a conversation about that, but let’s do it on the facts, not on thirty years of old innuendos and allegations that have been disproven,” Smith said. “This process should be about facts– not about political aspirations. Every allegation and witness from thirty years ago has been discredited. Members in the media should move on.”

“We’ve seen members of this body and members of the House of Represenstatives just now who have worked with Sen. Sessions and praised him for his work and now turn to attack him. This should not be,” Smith added. “There is something very inconsistent about praising Sen. Sessions for aiding African American communities and working on crack and powder cocaine legislation and then criticizing him because he takes a different political view on another matter like immigration. Enforcing immigration laws is not out of the mainstream.”

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