[Breitbart] The organized left’s kitchen sink tactic seen throughout the week against Senator Jeff Sessions’ (R-AL) nomination for the next U.S. Attorney General included a bold effort tell the Senate Judiciary Committee directly that the nominee’s record of prosecuting federal voter fraud defendants served as an example of voter intimidation.
The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund’s opposition campaign formally expanded this week to include the promotion of a letter from former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick (D), who previously served as a staff lawyer for the organization before advancing to be Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights in the Clinton Administration.
The document, directed to Senate Judiciary Committee leadership, charged that Sessions’ judgment should be questioned after bringing a case against three black, Alabama voters for what Patrick describes was an effort to "help someone else to vote or advise them how to vote--even if and when they ask for such help." The defendants named in the case (the Perry County Three) were Albert Turner, Spencer Hogue, Jr., and Evelyn Turner. Patrick reports that he served as counsel to Mr. Hogue. The former governor further charged that the case was an example of Sessions’ "extraordinary quasi-judicial activism" and noted that Sessions targeted his efforts on "black voters and only where white incumbents were losing political ground." Finally, the letter argued that the former U.S. Attorney’s decision to give 20 local government witnesses armed protection when traveling to testify led some to believe there was a "campaign to intimidate" the group into "believing that voter assistance was illegal." |