By Sen. Orrin G. Hatch
Washington Times
Americans spoke resoundingly last month that they want our country to chart a new course. A newly-elected president’s first decisions are typically his Cabinet choices, and President-elect Trump is already charting that new course. Nominees such as Sen. Jeff Sessions to be attorney general show that Mr. Trump is serious about getting that job done.
Nearly two-thirds of Americans say that the country has been on the wrong track. That certainly describes the Department of Justice. Just last year, I spoke out about how the department had been politicized, compromised, weakened, and even corrupted. Jeff Sessions is the right person to put the Justice Department back on track.
No attorney general in American history has had Mr. Sessions’ combination of hands-on experience in both criminal justice policy and its implementation. He was a front-line prosecutor for 18 years, 12 of them as United States Attorney. At his confirmation hearing in January, he will appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee on which he has served for 20 years.
The Senate is receiving letters endorsing Mr. Sessions’ nomination from those who know best what the job of attorney general requires. One letter from 10 former attorneys general and deputy attorneys general over the past three decades says that he is “a person of honesty and integrity” who is “superbly qualified by temperament, intellect, and experience to serve as this nation’s chief law enforcement officer.” Another letter from a bipartisan group of former DEA administrators praises Mr. Sessions’ commitment to “the just and fair enforcement of the laws that Congress has written” and concludes that “he is a protector of civil rights and defender of crime victims.”
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