Attorney General Jeff Sessions says he should have reminded a group of high school students about due process after they called for Hillary Clinton’s imprisonment.
Sessions was delivering a speech on Tuesday at the Turning Point USA High School Leadership Summit in Washington, D.C., when the students started chanting, “Lock her up,” referring to Clinton. Sessions repeated the phrase, laughed, and said, “I heard that a long time over the last campaign,” before going back to his speech. “Lock her up” chants were a frequent feature of then-candidate Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign rallies, as many conservatives were upset that Clinton wasn’t prosecuted for using a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state.
At a press conference today, Sessions was asked about his response to the students’ chant. “I perhaps should have taken a moment to advise them” that “you’re presumed innocent until cases are made,” he replied.
AG Sessions on echoing a “lock her up!” chant earlier this week: “I perhaps should have taken a moment to advise them that … you’re presumed innocent until cases are made.” pic.twitter.com/f909WUIC18
— NBC News (@NBCNews) July 26, 2018
It’s encouraging to see that the attorney general of the United States knows due process exists. Those accused of a crime are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, which the high schoolers chanting “lock her up” would have done well to remember. And though Sessions didn’t actually join in on the chant (as some in the mainstream media seemed to imply), it wasn’t a good look for him to act so amused. Due process rights should have nothing to do with politics, and as the country’s top law enforcement officer, Sessions certainly shouldn’t be laughing at the idea of a former political foe facing jail time without a trial.
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