Wednesday on CNN’s “Newsroom,” Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) defended Attorney General Jeff Sessions, his former U.S. Senate colleague from Alabama, in the wake of President Donald Trump’s continuing criticisms of him.
Shelby said, “Well, he is a strong guy a man with integrity and purpose. I told him to hang in there and he will, I hope. He deserves better than this. He is not the president’s lawyer. He is the attorney general of the United States. He took an oath to the Constitution, not to the president. And I think the president needs to realize that, that he is not his lawyer. He recused himself when he thought he had a possible conflict, and I think he did the right thing. He has had a lot of experience in law enforcement. He is on the judiciary committee, former United States attorney for a long time. He is a man with a lot of friends and a lot of respect.”
He continued, “I think Jeff Sessions deserves better than he is getting. I do believe he has a lot of friends; he has a lot of respect around the country as a man of integrity. That’s a job for integrity. He is not the president’s lawyer. He is not going to be. Nobody should be as the attorney general of the United States. I think Jeff Sessions, at the end of the day, deserves much more respect than he is getting now.”
He added, “Well, I don’t know what we could do. But we don’t have to sit around and say we like what’s going on and we like somebody obviously being brutalized when he shouldn’t be, and he doesn’t deserve it.”
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