The members of Donald Trump’s administration not only don’t read—they take great pride in their incredible ignorance. One would think that since they don’t know much about anything, they’d keep a low profile on matters of importance. Not so with this bunch. They keep talking and digging themselves deeper into a hole, all the while dragging those of us who did not vote for this madness right along with them.
Take Jeff Sessions, for instance. One would think that since he has refused to read reports from the Obama administration’s Department of Justice on policing in Chicago and Ferguson that, when asked, he might say that he looks forward to learning more and working toward police accountability, transparency, and civilian safety in the next four years. But of course, we know that Ol’ Jeff has no plans of the sort. In fact, he seems poised to make sure that under the DOJ, police are supported to do anything they want to—accountability be damned.
He had this to say about the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division’s plans to take on police abuse.
“We’ve got to go back and make sure that our police departments understand that they’re being supported, both by the Department of Justice as an ally, and by the American people,” Sessions told reporters at DOJ headquarters on Monday, in a preview of a speech he will give before a gathering of the nation’s attorneys general on Tuesday.
Supporting the police sounds fine. But when they commit crimes against the people they are supposed to protect and violate their rights, we need enforcement and action, not the DOJ being an “ally” of the cops.
As to the DOJ investigative reports on Ferguson and Chicago that the last administration spent nearly two years compiling, Jeff doesn’t feel that they contain information worth reading or taking seriously.
Asked by The Huffington Post whether he had read the Civil Rights Division’s investigative reports on the police departments in Chicago and Ferguson, Missouri, Sessions conceded he had not. But, he said, he didn’t think they were necessarily reliable.
“I have not read those reports, frankly. We’ve had summaries of them, and some of it was pretty anecdotal, and not so scientifically based,” Sessions said.
Will someone please tell Jeff that qualitative research is actually a thing? And that it can be used in conjunction with quantitative research to get the full scope and breadth of a problem? Too bad that ignorance and willful neglect are Jeff’s default positions. Had he taken the time to read those reports, he would know that they reveal disturbing patterns of abuse, structural racism, and systematic deficiencies, including violations of the Constitution. But then again, can a man who has said in the past that he finds the Voting Rights Act to be intrusive and who worked against equal funding in Alabama schools really be trusted to work to improve legal structures that marginalize vulnerable people?
Even though he hasn’t read a single word of the report on its police department, Jeff remains “deeply worried” about Chicago. So much so that he is wondering why on Earth there would be a reduction in stop-and-frisk there. And, finally, he had this wisdom to offer to the citizens across the country who might be wondering about his plans to protect the public safety.
“Sometimes local police departments really step up and do a great job. It’s almost disrespectful [to] them for the feds to go in and try to take it over,” Sessions said in response to a question from The Huffington Post.
Sessions also said the nation had “gotten a little overconfident” about public safety and it affected how police responded to violence.
There go any hopes for police accountability, training, and increased public safety for the next four years. If nothing else, this administration is certainly consistent.