Anticipating what could be a grueling confirmation fight, supporters of attorney general nominee Jeff Sessions plan to launch a website they hope will serve as a clearinghouse for information on Sessions as well as a daily rebuttal of the charges Democrats launch against him.
The site, ConfirmSessions.com, is expected to go live Wednesday morning. It will be a project of Judicial Crisis Network, a conservative legal group last in the news with a splashy effort to stop the Supreme Court nomination of Merrick Garland.
“We think people deserve to have the full story on Sen. Sessions, and not a one-sided view,” said Carrie Severino, a former clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas who now serves as Judicial Crisis Network’s chief counsel and policy director. “We want people to know about Sen. Sessions’ great story, his integrity, his public service, his whole career from a prosecutor to his time in the Senate.”
Severino said the site would feature biographical information on Sessions, in-depth material on his record, a collection of endorsements of his nomination, like those from several former attorneys general and the Fraternal Order of Police, and also be a source for pro-Sessions articles or pieces rebutting attacks on him.
Obviously, the pro-Sessions forces would not be setting up a site if they thought his confirmation would be a walk in the park. In fact, Sessions is likely to face determined opposition from Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, as well as from the liberal outside groups that usually work to defeat Republican judicial nominations. Already, many of Sessions’ opponents have resurrected the accusations of racial insensitivity that led to the defeat of his nomination to the federal bench in 1986. Others have focused on Sessions’ opposition to comprehensive immigration reform in an effort to portray him as anti-immigration, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim extremist.
Whatever the lingering effects of Sessions’ confirmation fight 30 years ago, the Sessions team appears more concerned about the precedent set in the 2001 Senate confirmation fight of John Ashcroft, the Republican senator who was George W. Bush’s nominee to be attorney general.
Ashcroft was ultimately confirmed, but not before a protracted and sometimes ugly fight. Looking back, Sessions’ boosters believe Ashcroft and his supporters were caught flat-footed, not prepared for the attacks they faced and forced to play catch-up to react to each day’s new stories.
The Sessions confirmation website is designed as part of the effort to prevent that happening this time around. Sessions’ supporters expect him to win confirmation, especially in light of Democratic Leader Harry Reid’s decision to end filibusters for executive nominations. But they don’t expect it to be easy.
