Washington’s most prominent Indian-American regulator supports the appointment of Sen. Jeff Sessions for attorney general, saying the Alabama Republican has “long employed a diverse staff” and that Sessions supported him in his career as a first-generation immigrant.
“I had the honor of working for Sen. Sessions on the Senate Judiciary Committee, when he chaired the Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts,” Ajit Pai, an outspoken Republican member of the Federal Communications Commission, wrote in a Friday statement.
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(4) All of us were grateful to @SenatorSessions as a boss: always supportive of our careers, inquisitive about/appreciative of our families.
— Ajit Pai (@AjitPaiFCC) November 18, 2016
“Sessions was and is a good man and a superb senator: honorable, thoughtful, devoted to the Constitution and deeply committed to equal justice and the rule of law. He has long employed a diverse staff of attorneys,” Pai wrote. ”
During my tenure, his staff consisted of an African-American man, two women and me, a first-generation Indian-American, all of whom worked every day to fulfill his vision of a just and free America. I commend Sen. Sessions’ nomination without reservation. The Department of Justice and the American people will benefit from his leadership.”
Pai, who went to Harvard University and the University of Chicago Law School, worked as a congressional staffer before his appointment as an FCC commissioner in 2012, noting in his confirmation hearing that his parents came to the United States with “about $10 in their pockets, a willingness to work very hard and a belief in the American Dream.”
He has since become one of the most vocal Republican regulators in Washington, dissenting from rulings pushed through by his agency’s Democratic majority and supplementing his critiques with messages on social media.
Adding to his statement on Twitter on Friday, Pai emphasized his support for Sessions. “All of us were grateful to Sen. Sessions as a boss: always supportive of our careers, inquisitive about/appreciative of our families.”
