Jeff Sessions has been one busy guy. As more facts and allegations continue to spill out regarding Russia's interference in our presidential election and the Trump administration’s attempts to thwart investigations, a few names keep popping up. And other than President Trump himself, none of them is more crucial to understanding whether we are a country that follows the rule of law than Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
While juggling his day jobs, first as a senator and now as attorney general, he somehow found time to work his way into key places at key times. From meeting with the Russian ambassador multiple times during the campaign — despite claims made under oath to the contrary — to his involvement in President Trump’s firing of the FBI director leading the investigation into Russia-related wrongdoing, Sessions continues to emerge as a key figure worth examining.
Sens. Leahy and Franken asked Sessions during his confirmation hearing about his contacts with Russian officials during the campaign, and he denied any communications. But a little more than a month after being confirmed as attorney general, The Washington Post reported that Sessions met twice with the Russian ambassador during the campaign. Sessions then made lots of excuses. But he never tells us the truth about what he has done.
After he was caught lying to the Senate Judiciary Committee about never having met with any Russian officials, he gave a dizzying array of explanations.
One: “I have no idea what this allegation is about. It’s false”
Two: “I — you know, we meet a lot of people so ….,”
Three: “In retrospect, I should have slowed down and said, ‘But I did meet one Russian official a couple of times, and that would be the ambassador.’”
Four: “My answer was correct.”
And finally, five: “I don’t recall, but most of these ambassadors are pretty gossipy and they like to — this was in campaign season, but I don’t recall any specific political discussions.”
He eventually admitted that he met twice with the Russian ambassador and then recused himself from the Russia/Trump investigation. But it’s hard to know what to make of those answers other than it's time for some accountability. Here are three new routes to holding Sessions accountable.
1. Perjury investigations
Sens. Patrick Leahy and Al Franken wrote three times this spring to the FBI director to urge the bureau to investigate Sessions for perjury before the Senate Judiciary Committee during his confirmation hearing. It shows complete disregard for both the law and the Constitution's system of checks and balances for Sessions to lie under oath. How ironic it is to tell a lie to gain an office of such incredible public trust as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer.
In March, we urged the acting deputy attorney general to open a perjury investigation. Our letter, in combination with the added force of two senators lied to by a former colleague, should show the Trump administration that potential breaches of the public trust will be taken seriously.
2. Ethics complaint to the Alabama State Bar's Disciplinary Commission
This morning, on behalf of the ACLU, I amended our Alabama Bar complaint against Sessions. Our complaint, filed in March, asked the Alabama Bar to investigate whether Sessions' false statement under oath to a Senate committee violated the Alabama Bar's rules of professional conduct. We received a letter this week from the general counsel for the bar, inviting us to submit any additional information related to the complaint.
We amended our complaint today to give the Disciplinary Commission background and materials on two new allegations related to Sessions' false statement. First, CNN reported this week that Sessions may have met with the Russian ambassador not the two times that Sessions eventually admitted, but three or even four times during the campaign. Second, CNN reported last week that the Department of Justice acknowledged that Sessions did not list meetings with Russian officials on his security clearance form. The form required him to certify to the truthfulness of his answers.
You can read our initial Alabama bar complaint here, and the amendment filed today here.
3. Sessions' future testimonies before Congress
The American public deserves to hear from Attorney General Sessions. A congressional hearing was already postponed once, but on June 13, Sessions will finally testify before House and Senate subcommittees. Lawmakers can ask Sessions to answer hard questions on his own role in the firing of FBI Director James Comey as well as any continuing role Sessions may have with any of the Russia investigations or any eventual prosecutions.
These are open hearings before the House and Senate Appropriations Committees' Subcommittees on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies. They will webcast the hearings on their committee websites, and you should let your senators and representatives know that you want Sessions to be asked tough questions about his role in the Russia/Trump issue.
You can read a letter here that we sent to the subcommittees, emphasizing three key areas of essential questions for the hearings with Sessions.
As we press Congress on this issue here in Washington, I am reminded of something Ben Franklin once said. After leaving the Constitutional Convention, Franklin was asked by citizens what kind of government the delegates had formed. He replied, "A Republic, if you can keep it."
The admonition in Franklin's answer has only rarely been more apt or urgent than it is today.
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
Free Speech
National Security
ACLU and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok BanACLU and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok Ban
WASHINGTON — Today, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to block the enforcement of a law that would effectively ban people in America from using TikTok as soon as January 19, 2025. Earlier this month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected TikTok’s challenge to the law. TikTok has asked the Supreme Court for a temporary injunction to prevent the app from being banned while the court considers whether to take the case, saying that unless the justices intervene, the law will “shutter one of America’s most popular speech platforms the day before a presidential inauguration.” “The Constitution imposes an extraordinarily high bar on this kind of mass censorship,”said Patrick Toomey, deputy director of ACLU’s National Security Project. “The Supreme Court should take up this important case and protect the rights of millions of Americans to freely express themselves and engage with others around the world.” The brief argues that the D.C. Circuit failed to fully address the law’s profound implications for the First Amendment rights of the 170 million Americans who use TikTok. While the lower court’s decision correctly recognized that the statute triggers First Amendment scrutiny, it barely addressed users’ First Amendment interests in speaking, sharing, and receiving information on the platform. The court also perplexingly attempted to cast the government’s ban on TikTok as a vindication of users’ First Amendment rights, which it is not. The rights groups also explain that the law was intended to suppress certain content and viewpoints that many legislators believe could be amplified on TikTok, including the risk of foreign “propaganda.” But under the First Amendment, the government must meet a very high bar to restrict speech based on concerns about its “motivating ideology” or “perspective,” and the government has not come close to meeting that bar here. “The government should not be able to restrict speech, especially to the extent here, based on guessing about the mere possibility of uncertain future harm,” said David Greene, civil liberties director at EFF. “The Supreme Court should put the TikTok ban on hold while it considers the DC Circuit’s erroneous ruling.” Finally, the brief underscores that the government can’t impose this type of sweeping ban unless it’s necessary to prevent extremely serious and imminent harm to national security. But the government has not provided evidence of impending harm, or evidence that banning TikTok is the only available way to address its concerns. As the brief explains, the D.C. Circuit improperly treated the government’s invocation of “national security” as a trump card and failed to hold the government to its burden. “Restricting citizens’ access to foreign media is a practice that has long been associated with repressive regimes, and we should be very wary of letting the practice take root here,” said Jameel Jaffer, executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. “It would do lasting damage to the First Amendment and our democracy if the Supreme Court let this ban go into effect even temporarily.” You can find the brief online here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24/24A587/335380/20241217144322392_24A587%20TikTok%20v%20Garland%20Amicus%20Brief%20pdfa.pdf -
Press ReleaseDec 2024
National Security
Religious Liberty
ACLU Statement on New White House Strategy to Counter IslamophobiaACLU Statement on New White House Strategy to Counter Islamophobia
WASHINGTON – The Biden administration today released the first-ever national strategy to counter Islamophobia and related forms of bias and discrimination, including hate against Arab, Sikh, and South Asian Americans. In advance of the strategy, American Civil Liberties Union and its partners had urged the administration to overhaul government programs that reflect anti-Muslim discrimination. In particular, we have called for urgent action to constrain governmental agencies from continuing to exercise their authorities and technology to wrongly surveil and investigate, watchlist, and question and detain Muslims at the border, as well as deny immigration benefits to people from Muslim-majority countries. While the White House raised expectations that many of these issues would be addressed, the final strategy ended up falling far short. The following is a statement from Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project: “While this strategy acknowledges discrimination and its harms, it does little to end them and is a squandered opportunity. For decades, American officials have invoked national security to pass laws and implement programs that disproportionately harm Muslims and people perceived to be Muslim. A serious anti-discrimination strategy would concretely address multiple bias-infused government practices that deny our communities equal participation in civic life and our democracy, like federal watchlisting, surveillance, and investigation. We’re profoundly frustrated that the administration didn’t take even the basic, overdue step of recognizing that anti-Muslim discrimination is uniquely normalized and embedded in government policies.” -
VirginiaDec 2024
National Security
Trabelsi v. Crawford, et al. – Lawsuit Challenging Unlawful Detention and Inhumane Treatment of Acquitted ManTrabelsi v. Crawford, et al. – Lawsuit Challenging Unlawful Detention and Inhumane Treatment of Acquitted Man
Our client, Nizar Trabelsi, is in the United States against his will. The federal government brought him here from Belgium more than a decade ago and charged him with terrorism-related crimes. At trial, the government’s case failed: a federal jury found Mr. Trabelsi not guilty. But instead of allowing Mr. Trabelsi to return to Belgium after his acquittal, the United States placed him in highly restrictive immigration detention and began an ongoing effort to force him to Tunisia, where he was born and where he will very likely be tortured. Mr. Trabelsi’s detention violates the Constitution, immigration law, and the extradition treaty between the United States and Belgium. Through this lawsuit, he seeks to return to Belgium, and he demands an immediate improvement of his detention conditions. -
Press ReleaseDec 2024
National Security
Immigrants' Rights
Federal Judge Rejects Acquitted Man’s Argument That His Immigration Detention Is UnlawfulFederal Judge Rejects Acquitted Man’s Argument That His Immigration Detention Is Unlawful
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — This week, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled that the court does not have jurisdiction to decide whether the government can continue to detain Nizar Trabelsi, a Tunisian national who was brought to the United States against his will for prosecution and was cleared of all charges last year. The ruling means the United States will be able to continue to detain Mr. Trabelsi while it attempts to deport him to Tunisia, where he was born and where, as an immigration judge ruled earlier this year, he will likely face torture. The court also concluded that even if it did have jurisdiction over Mr. Trabelsi’s case, his claims challenging the government’s detention of him would fail. “Reviewing claims that the government is holding someone unlawfully is at the core of the judicial function, and we’re heartbroken for our client that the court got this so wrong,” said Brett Max Kaufman, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Center for Democracy. “The government’s arguments in defense of Mr. Trabelsi’s detention makes a hash of the Constitution, immigration laws, and its own extradition treaty.” In 2013, the United States forcibly extradited Mr. Trabelsi from Belgium to face criminal charges in the United States. In July 2023, after almost 10 years of highly restrictive pretrial detention, a federal jury cleared Mr. Trabelsi of all charges. But instead of releasing Mr. Trabelsi or returning him to Belgium, the U.S. transferred him to immigration detention, wrongly treating him as an applicant for admission and placing him in the deportation process. Over the years, the Belgian government has issued multiple formal diplomatic requests asking the U.S. to facilitate his return, but the U.S. has refused to send him back. Mr. Trabelsi filed a lawsuit challenging the government's authority to detain him. He also sought immediate improvements to his detention conditions. Those claims were not part of the court’s ruling today, and will continue to be litigated on a separate track. “Mr. Trabelsi only wants to return to Belgium after being illegally extradited to the United States, held for ten years, and then acquitted by a jury of any crimes,” said Nicole Hallett, clinical professor of law and director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School. “He cannot be held indefinitely and we will continue to fight to make sure that justice ultimately prevails.” Mr. Trabelsi is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the University of Chicago Law School’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, the ACLU of Virginia, and Professor Jonathan Hafetz of Seton Hall Law School. The complaint in Trabelsi v. Crawford was filed against Jeffrey Crawford, warden of the Farmville Detention Center where Mr. Trabelsi is being held; Liana Castano, ICE field office director for the Washington Field Office; Alejandro Mayorkas, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security; and Merrick Garland, U.S. attorney general.