Is Jeff Sessions a Racist?

Is Trump's Attorney General Jeff Sessions a racist? TYT's Eric Byler ( ) spoke to Civil Rights Attorney J. Gerald Hebert, a key witness who testified in the 1986 Senate confirmation hearing for Jeff Sessions' judicial appointment by Ronald Reagan. Sessions was forced to withdraw his name when Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee chose not to recommend him for a confirmation vote, based on racially insensitive attitudes and remarks. Hebert would not say that Sessions was a racist in 1986. Byler asked him if his view had changed based on Sessions voting record as a U.S. Senator.

TYT Politics

Here is part 2 of this interview

Hebert wrote in an editorial published in the Washington Post:

"I was a young lawyer in the civil rights division at the Justice Department in 1981 when I first encountered Jeff Sessions. At the time, Sessions was the new U.S. attorney for Alabama. I met him while I was handling a major voting rights case in Mobile, and I relayed a rumor I’d heard: A federal judge there had allegedly referred to a civil rights lawyer as 'a traitor to his race' for taking on black clients. Sessions responded, 'Well, maybe he is.'

"Five years later, that startling incident came up again, after Sessions was nominated for a federal judgeship. The American Bar Association contacted me and my supervisor to ask for background on Sessions, as was standard in those days for judicial confirmations. I told the ABA about conversations I’d had with the U.S. attorney in which he referred to the NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union as 'un-American.' As he saw it, by fighting for racial equality, these groups were “trying to force civil rights down the throats of people who were trying to put problems behind them.”

Special thanks to Corey Goldstone and Nick Cockrell of Campaign Legal Center for faciliting this interview.

For more, subscribe to TYT Politics