Jeff Sessions: From a Blocked 1986 Judgeship to Attorney General Recusal

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Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III was born on December 24, 1946 in Selma, Alabama, named for his father and grandfather and, through them, for Jefferson Davis and P.G.T. Beauregard. He grew up in Camden, where his father ran a general store and later a farm equipment dealership, became an Eagle Scout, served as student body president at Huntingdon College in 1969, attended the University of Alabama School of Law and was a captain in the Army Reserve. In 1981 President Ronald Reagan named him U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Alabama, where his office helped bring federal charges in the Klan murder of Michael Donald in Mobile and, in 1985, prosecuted three Black Belt organizers known as the Marion Three, including Albert Turner, who were acquitted after about three hours.

Reagan's 1986 nomination of Sessions to a federal judgeship was blocked by a Republican controlled Judiciary Committee after Justice Department colleagues testified about his remarks, making him only the second nominee in 48 years stopped that way. He became Alabama attorney general in 1994 and won a U.S. Senate seat in 1996, where he used procedure to slow legislation and opposed comprehensive immigration reform. He was the first sitting senator to endorse Donald Trump in 2016 and became attorney general in 2017, but after reports of two 2016 meetings with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak he recused himself from the election interference investigation. He resigned at the president's request in November 2018 and lost the 2020 Senate runoff to Tommy Tuberville.

• The civil suit that followed the Michael Donald case bankrupted the United Klans of America.
• Assistant U.S. attorney Thomas Figures testified about a remark on the KKK and marijuana that Sessions called a joke and later apologized for.
• In the Senate he relied on holds, quorum calls and waves of amendments to stall bills.
• As attorney general he ordered prosecutors to seek maximum penalties and moved to cut federal grants to sanctuary cities.
• His zero tolerance border policy required prosecution of every illegal crossing and led to family separations.