Sen. Chuck Grassley said Thursday he was “irritated” that Attorney General Jeff Sessions had criticized his sentencing reform bill, especially after Grassley defended Sessions in public and said President Trump shouldn’t fire him.
“I’m really irritated that he would send that letter considering the fact that it was very controversial before this committee to be attorney general,” Grassley said at a hearing at the Senate Judiciary Committee, which Grassley chairs. “Considering that most assistant attorney generals had been sent up here have been very controversial and difficult to get through this committee. Considering the fact that the president was going to fire him last spring, and I went to his defense. I don’t think that’s something that somebody should do for friends.”
Before Sessions was confirmed to lead the Justice Department last year, he helped kill a version of Grassley’s bipartisan bill, the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act. On Wednesday, Sessions sent a letter to Grassley calling the latest version a “grave error,” saying it would lighten sentences for dangerous drug traffickers.
“In recent years, convicted drug traffickers and other violent criminals have received significant sentencing breaks from the federal courts and the United States Sentencing Commission,” Sessions wrote. “Passing this legislation to further reduce sentences for drug traffickers in the midst of the worst drug crisis in our nation’s history would make it more difficult to achieve our goals and have potentially dire consequences.”
In a tweet later Wednesday, Grassley said he was “incensed.”
“Incensed by Sessions letter An attempt to undermine Grassley/Durbin/Lee BIPARTISAN criminal justice reforms This bill deserves thoughtful consideration b4 my cmte. AGs execute laws CONGRESS WRITES THEM!” he wrote on Twitter.
Grassley added Wednesday that he heard the Sessions letter went through the Office of Management and Budget, “so the White House approves of it.”
“For the very same reasons that I’ve done things, trying to help an administration to be successful, if they’re involved in this letter, that also irritates me,” Grassley said.
In his prepared statements, Grassley discussed the broad support his legislation has, and again needled Sessions. Sessions is no longer attorney general, Grassley said, and because of that he should not be “interfering with the legislative process.”
“Certainly we value input from the Department of Justice, but if [Attorney General] Sessions wanted to be involved in marking up this legislation, maybe he should have quit his job and run for the Republican Senate seat in Alabama,” he said.
The Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act introduced by Grassley and Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., in October would reduce mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent repeat drug offenders, and eliminate the three-strike mandatory life in prison provision that critics said dramatically increased the nation’s prison population.
