by Chuck Ross
Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions kicked off his campaign to reclaim his Alabama Senate seat Thursday with a full-throated endorsement of President Donald Trump.
In a 30-second segment entitled “Great Job,” Sessions touted that he has not criticized Trump even after he was unceremoniously fired a day after the November 2018 midterm elections.
“When I left President Trump’s cabinet, did I write a tell-all book? No,” Sessions noted in the ad.
“Did I go on CNN and attack the president? Nope.”
“Have I said a cross word about our president? Not one time,” said Sessions in the ad, adding that to do so would be “dishonorable.”
“I was there to serve his agenda, not mine.”
“The president’s doing a great job, for America and Alabama. And he has my strong support.”
Trump has made no secret for his disdain for Sessions for recusing himself from overseeing the investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government. Sessions’s recusal in March 2017 paved the way for a special counsel, Robert Mueller, who led a sprawling 22-month investigation that morphed into an obstruction of justice investigation.
Trump has privately opposed a potential Sessions’ run for his old Senate seat, which he held from 1997 until his confirmation as attorney general Feb. 8, 2017.
Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby said in July that Trump indicated in a private conversation that he was “not on board” with Sessions entering the campaign.
Sessions, 72, enters a crowded Republican field that is hoping to unseat Democratic Sen. Doug Jones. Jones won a special election in December 2017 to fill the seat left open by Sessions. He won thanks in large part to the weakness of his opponent, former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, who was ensnared in a controversy over his alleged relationships with underage girls in the 1970s and 1980s.
Sessions will face off against Moore, former Auburn University football coach Tommy Tuberville, and Alabama Rep. Bradley Byrne.
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Chuck Ross is a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “Jeff Sessions and Tucker Carlson” by Fox News.
