March 5, 2017

Abusing His Power, Jeff Sessions Prosecuted Democrats Who Challenged Rethugs in Alabama

After he was appointed by Ronald Reagan in 1981, as the U.S. Federal Prosecuting Attorney for Alabama’s southern district, Jeff Sessions tenure was defined as a zealot-like crusade to prosecute, punish, and suppress those who presented a threat to the established Republiklan political and social structure and order. Using and abusing his Federal prosecuting authority and powers, Jeff Sessions left a trail of broken and destroyed lives, political careers, and civil rights repressions in his wake, wearing them as a badge of honor, of moral superiority, and of his cultural and political dominance over others who were a threat to Southern “values” and Republican power. Obviously, his foundation was and continues to be based on his racist and religious extremist “values”, which he has used to justify his vile abuse of authority and his rationale for his contempt and utter disdain for what he views as his enemy, and his apparent war on any and all forms of civil rights and equality.

Much has been publicized of his vehement prosecution of Black people who attempted to fight for their civil rights and right to vote.
So I will not go into that here.

However, Jon Swaine and Oliver Laughland, at The Guardian, have written an exceptional article researching the history of Democrats who were falsely and unjustifiably prosecuted by Jeff Sessions while he was the U.S. Attorney in Alabama. The people were prosecuted and had their lives destroyed by Jeff Sessions solely because they presented a threat to Republican officials in Alabama.

I cannot go into the detail presented in the Guardian article, so I will give a brief summary.

Please read the article in its entirety at:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/04/jeff-sessions-legal-past-democrats-trump-administration

“In September 1982, Bob Gulledge, a first-term Democratic state senator, was preparing to defend his seat when Sessions indicted him for alleged land fraud conspiracy….
A mistrial was declared after jurors could not reach a verdict. But by then, Gulledge had lost his party primary contest, and was out of his re-election race altogether”

“As the next election season approached in late 1984, Sessions struck again. The city commissioner, Gary Greenough, was sentenced to 10 years for allegedly stealing a cut of the profits from Mobile’s municipal auditorium, a city-run entertainment venue…
Greenough, who had, with Lambert Mims, pushed through municipal contracting reforms that left Sessions allies out of pocket, always maintained his innocence.

And a review of the case shows that the evidence against him was far from clear-cut. His conviction rested on the testimony of two auditorium managers, who were clearly guilty of embezzlement themselves, and made plea deals with Sessions in return for their cooperation in prosecuting Greenough.”

“In the paperwork that he submitted earlier this year to the US Senate judiciary committee for his confirmation hearings, Sessions named the Greenough case as one of the 10 most significant of his career.”

“The inquiry into Greenough was led by Jack Brennan, a senior FBI agent in Mobile who was close to Sessions. Distinctive for his puffy red face and thinning hair, Brennan would reappear several times in Sessions’ cases against local Democrats….

At 7am on 25 November 1985, Brennan and two other investigators paid a visit to the home of Gurney Owens, Mobile County’s top waste disposal official. Owens was in deep trouble….”
In a typical Law Enforcement approach, the FBI agents attempted to “squeeze” Mr. Owens and get him to roll (“snitch”) on others.

““The US attorney’s office and the FBI presented to Mr Owens a hitlist of approximately 20 people that they wanted him to snare,” Owens’s attorney, Jim Atchison, said in a statement filed to court. “It is interesting to note that every single person on the list is either a well-known Democrat or active in the Democratic party.”…

“Owens declined to take the deal. He was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

“Sessions would get really, really mad at my dad because my dad refused to roll over,” recalled Owens’s son Gerry, who said he once watched an enraged Sessions berate his father in a courthouse corridor. “He’d be sitting there calm as can be, and would then explode like a firecracker.”

Tangentially tied into the Owens case, was Mr. Douglas Wicks, a Democratic county commissioner, who had been the first black person elected to the Mobile County commission, who had voting power on who should win the contract for a landfill, which was the focus of the Owens case.

At this point in time, Reagan had nominated Sessions for a Federal judge position, for which Sessions was ultimately rejected because of his racist history.

“During the Senate hearings, future vice-president Joe Biden asked Sessions if it was true that he called Wicks a “nigger” during a break in a court hearing in November 1981.
Sessions denied using the racist term but the allegation, coupled with other first-hand accounts of Sessions use of racially insensitive language, went some way to killing his nomination.”

A few months later, his judgeship prospects in tatters, Sessions indicted Wicks after all. The indictment for extortion was publicly unveiled by Sessions two days after the Senate confirmed an attorney to take the judgeship he had been denied.”

“Sessions accused Wicks of demanding a bribe from the owner of a pumping firm in return for a permit. Owens said so, too. But the businessman testified that he voluntarily gave Wicks a campaign contribution after the permit had been given. “I don’t feel that I was extorted,” he said.”

Umm, how often, and how normal is it for government contractors to “donate” to politicians.

Mr. Wicks was eventually convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

In 1989, Sessions really went to great lengths to terminate an election threat by a Democrat, Lambert Mims, to the Republican Mayor of Mobile, Alabama, Arthur Outlaw, a close friend of Sessions.

“Sessions indicted Mims on criminal corruption charges relating to obscure four-year-old negotiations over a planned recycling plant. Mims was the ninth notable Democrat in the area to be indicted by Sessions since the young Republican was appointed by President Ronald Reagan. He would not be the last.

Opponents concluded that Sessions used his federal prosecutor’s office, and the FBI agents who worked for him, as political weapons, according to more than half a dozen veterans of Mobile’s 1980s legal and political circles. Some alleged in court filings that the ambitious young Republican actually worked from a “hitlist” of Democratic targets.

“Sessions was a gun for hire,” said Tom Purvis, a former sheriff of Mobile County, “and he went after political enemies.” Purvis was acquitted of charges against him that Sessions oversaw after Purvis unseated another Outlaw ally from the elected sheriff’s position.”

So, now, America’s Judicial system is controlled by this man, Jeff Sessions, a vile corrupt bastard, wholly and totally devoid of any and all sense of morals and ethics. And he is all that stands between uncovering the truth of Trump’s corruption and financial ties to Russia versus protecting Trump’s corruption and Fascism.
Jeff Sessions must resign as Attorney General of the United States of America.