Troubling record for both Sessions and Flynn.
Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions is likely to be the next US Attorney General. The 69-year-old senator from Alabama, a staunch anti-immigration critic, is a staunch supporter of Trump.
According to a report by CNN, Trump intends to nominate Sessions as his Attorney General. Currently serving his fourth senate term, Sessions, who was the first sitting senator to endorse Trump, has played a vital role in the campaigning of the Republican candidate.
“Jeff has been a highly respected member of the U.S. Senate for 20 years,” Trump said in a statement. “He is a world-class legal mind and considered a truly great Attorney General and US Attorney in the state of Alabama. Jeff is greatly admired by legal scholars and virtually everyone who knows him.”
A close aide of Trump, Sessions has served a key role within the Republican Party to gather support for the candidate. Along with his top policy adviser, Stephen Miller, Sessions helped Trump draft his national security policy. Like Trump, Sessions also keep a strong stance against illegal immigration that was a key point of discussion during election campaigns.
Sessions has a long history of criticizing President Obama on various grounds. While serving on the Judiciary Committee, he voted against the nominees of the president to the Supreme Court. He has also criticized Obama’s handling of Syria saying “a wise statesman could have foreseen some of the difficulties we’re facing today (in Syria).”
Former President Ronald Regan had to drop his plan to appoint Sessions to a Federal District Court after a former Justice Department employee testified that Sessions had made racially tinged remarks. He sparked controversy when he denounced the 1965 Voting Rights Act and had labeled the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP “un-American.”
NBC News reported that former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Michael Flynn, may be appointed as the National Security Advisor of Donald Trump.
The former military officer made a surprise political entry by criticizing Hillary Clinton during election campaigns of Trump. He was touted to be the vice president running-mate for Trump in 2016. A senior transition official told NBC News that Flynn has been asked by Trump to serve as his national security advisor.
Flynn has served in various capacities such as the commander of the Joint Functional Component Command for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, chair of the Military Intelligence and Assistant Director of National Intelligence.
His report entitled Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant in Afghanistan had criticized the intelligence community for lacking an understanding of the human-socio context of the battlefield in Afghanistan. This report paved the way for him to head the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2012.
Like Sessions, Flynn also has stoked many controversies in the past. His biased views against Muslims cropped up on Feb. 26, when he tweeted, “Fear of Muslims is RATIONAL.”
“General Flynn has also made inflammatory remarks regarding Islam, and not always distinguished between a faith practiced by millions of Americans and important allies around the world, and the perversion of that faith by the likes of ISIS and Al Qaeda,” Rep. Adam Schiff of California, said in a statement.