Sessions needs to fix HIS problem(s) in the DOJ ... oh, that's right he IS the problem!
Grassley rips Sessions for opposing criminal justice bill..........What Sessions’ letter “doesn’t recognize here,†Grassley added, “and why I’m incensed about it is, look at how hard it was for me to get him through committee in the United States Senate. And look at, when the president was going to fire him, I went to his defense.â€
The Iowa Republican said “all kinds of†potentially polarizing Justice Department nominees who have proved “very difficult to get through the United States Senate†have also landed in his lap as chief of the influential Judiciary Committee.
“If he wanted to do this,†Grassley said of Sessions, “he should have done what people suggested to him before: resign from attorney general and run for the Senate in Alabama again. We’d have a Republican senator.â€
Grassley was referring to the special election for the Senate seat Sessions vacated to become President Donald Trump's attorney general. Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.) ultimately won after GOP nominee Roy Moore was hit with multiple allegations of sexual misconduct with minors. Republican leaders considered asking Sessions to join the race as a write-in candidate in a bid to save the seat for their party. Sessions has also had a tumultuous time in the Trump administration, at one point reportedly offering his resignation.
The criminal justice bill, which Grassley negotiated alongside Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), counts co-sponsorship from 18 other senators, evenly distributed between the parties. Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas), who supported the broader reform effort in the previous Congress, has shifted his focus this year to a narrower prison reform measure that he has said has a better chance of Trump signing into law.
But Grassley hasn’t abandoned the push to win floor time for the legislation, which would ease mandatory minimum sentences for certain nonviolent offenders and end the required life sentence for some repeat drug offenders. Other elements of the proposal would create new mandatory minimum sentences for other categories of offense and bolster punishment for those convicted of trafficking in drugs containing the opioid fentanyl.
Grassley disputed Sessions' characterization of the criminal justice reform bill in his Wednesday letter as bringing "potentially dire consequences" for efforts to fight the nationwide opioid epidemic............
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/14/grassley-sessions-criminal-justice-410735
