Alt-right leaders praise Sessions as attorney general pick
By David Weigel
Richard Spencer, president of the National Policy Institute and popularizer of the term “alt-right,” told reporters in Washington on Saturday that Donald Trump could achieve some of the white nationalist movement’s goals by making Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) his attorney general.
“Jeff Sessions is someone who is not alt-right but seems to see eye-to-eye with us on the immigration question,” Spencer said. “The fact that he is going to be at such a high level is a wonderful thing. What Jeff Sessions is not going to do, in terms of not prosecuting federal diversity and fair housing, I think is just as powerful as what he might do.”
Sessions, who was denied a federal judgeship in 1986 after the Senate heard testimony about his criticism of the NAACP, has been a resilient foe of the Obama administration’s housing and legal priorities. He led a group of Republicans opposing the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing plan, which encouraged more development of public housing and transportation in cities. At his 1986 hearing, he admitted calling the Voting Rights Act “intrusive legislation,” and since the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision he has dismissed calls for a restoration of the act’s pre-clearance provision.
Spencer made the remarks at an afternoon news conference in a ballroom of the Ronald Reagan Building, where NPI had gathered more than 100 activists for a postelection conference. The “ask anything” presser began with a request for journalists not to photograph attendees without express permission, and for the news media to stand up when alt-right figures were harassed by protesters or banned from social media.
more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/11/19/alt-right-leaders-praise-sessions-as-attorney-general-pick/?wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1
