Attorney General Jeff Sessions responded to Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee’s (D-TX) rapid-fire questioning at his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee Tuesday as she pressed him on the sexual misconduct allegations lodged against the GOP nominee to succeed him.
“Do you believe these young women?” Jackson Lee asked Sessions after she confirmed if he believed in “this book, the Constitution of the United States.”
“I have no reason to doubt these young women,” the attorney general told the committee under oath as Rep. Jackson Lee waved black and white printouts of the accusers from behind the dais and cited Sessions’s history of trying to prosecute child molester and abusers.
Sessions declined to answer as to Moore’s suitability to be seated if he were elected. He cited DOJ ethics officials who, “Advised me that the attorney general should not be involved in this campaign.”
Despite the fact the statute of limitations has long since run for any of the conduct so far alleged, Jackson Lee repeatedly pressed Sessions on whether he would initiate a Department of Justice inquiry into Moore’s alleged conduct. “We will evaluate every case, this would normally be a state case,” was Sessions’s response
Two women have now come forward to say Judge Roy Moore touched them in a sexual manner while they were teenagers in the 1970s. One, Leigh Corfman, claims the touching took place while she was 14, under the age of consent. Another, Beverly Young Nelson, was 16 when she claims Moore tried to force himself on her. Three other women were of-age but still teenagers when they say Moore took them out on dates.
Moore and his campaign have repeatedly denied any sexual misconduct and point to political motives in the woman coming forward nearly four decades on.
After he had answered about Moore, Rep. Jackson Lee continued peppering Sessions with questions on topics ranging from the DOJ’s report on “Black Identity Extremists,” to his testimony on Russian contacts, which he refused to reverse himself on. She also called “law and order” policies “discredited” and “Nixon-era.”