Jeff Sessions – Know him Better

Jeff Sessions – Salary and Net Worth

As an Attorney General of the United States, Sessions earned an annual salary of $210,700 as a Level I employee of the US government.  His net worth is estimated to be around $7.5 million.

Who is Jeff Sessions?

Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III is a reputed American politician and lawyer who served as the US Attorney General under the Trump Administration, for one year from 2017 to 2018. He was formerly a U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama, the Attorney General of Alabama, and a US Senator.

Early Life and Education

Jeff was born on 24^th December, 1946, in Selma, Alabama to Abbie Powe and Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, Jr. His father was the owner of a farm equipment dealership and a general store.

Sessions did his schooling at Wilcox County High School located near Camden. He then went to Montgomery’s Huntingdon College and graduated in 1969 with a Bachelor’s in Arts degree. At college, Jeff was president of the student body and actively involved in the ‘Young Republicans.’ He later enrolled at the Alabama School of Law University and graduated in 1973 with a Juris Doctor degree.

Career

Jeff began his career as a private lawyer in Russellville in Arkansas, and then in Mobile, Alabama. In the 70s, he was a part of the Army Reserve and rose up to the rank of a captain.

In 1975, Jeff worked in the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama as an Assistant US Attorney. In 1981, he was nominated by President Reagan for the post of Southern District of Alabama’s US Attorney. He retained that post for 12 years till Janet Reno, the Clinton US Attorney General, asked him to resign. In 1986, Sessions was nominated by President Reagan to the post of a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama. He was not confirmed.

In November 1994, Sessions won the Attorney General of Alabama elections against incumbent Jimmy Evans. He held the post till 1997.

• In 1996, he lost the Gay Lesbian Bisexual Alliance v. Sessions suit after the court ruled that the law denying funds to student organizations that supported homosexuality at public schools/universities as being unconstitutional.
• He also lost his defense of the Alabama State’s school funding plan; the court deemed the model as unconstitutional as it had disparities between poor, mostly black, and rich, mostly white, schools.

Sessions ran for the US Senate in 1996 on a Republican ticket. It was left empty by Senator Howell Heflin who had retired. Jeff won the primaries and then defeated Roger Bedford of the Democratic Party in the November 1997 general elections. He won the US Senate elections in 2002 and 2008. He won his fourth term to the Senate in 2014; no Republican contested him in the primaries and the only Democrat opponent was write-in candidate Victor Sanchez Williams.

• As a Senator, Jeff was on the Senate Budget Committee as the ranking Republican member; on the Armed Services Committee as a senior member; and on the Senate Judiciary Committee as a former ranking member. He was also a part of the Environment and Public Works Committee.
• Throughout his tenure in the Senate, Jeff was considered a budget hawk and an old-guard conservative with focus on law enforcement, a strong military, illegal immigration crackdown, and restriction of government role. He actively worked against the 2007 immigration reform plan of President George W. Bush but supported his tax cuts.

• Sessions was one of the earliest supported of Trump’s presidential campaign. He formally endorsed Trump in Feb 2016 and thus became the first senator to do so. On 18^th November, 2016, Trump stated that he would be nominating Jeff as the US Attorney General. He was confirmed by the Senate on 8^th Feb, 2017 and sworn in a day later.

 

• During the confirmation hearing, Sessions stated under oath that he had no contact with Russian officials during the presidential campaign of 2016. He also stated that he did not know if there was any contact between the campaign members of Trump and Russian officials. However, as per news reports in March 2017, it was revealed that Sessions had met Sergey Kislyak, the Russian Ambassador, two times in 2016. Subsequently, Jeff recused himself from all investigation pertaining to interference of Russians in the 2016 elections. In November 2017, while giving his testimony to the House Intelligence Committee, Carter Page stated that he had told Jeff about his July 2016 meetings with Russian officials. This contradicted the denials made by Jeff and many believe that Sessions had committed perjury.

• As the US Attorney General Sessions has signed a civil asset forfeiture order which allowed law enforcement agencies to take the property of people who were suspects of crimes but not formally charged. He has overturned former US Attorney Eric Holder’s memo about avoidance of mandatory sentencing to control mass incarceration and commanded federal prosecutors to go for the highest applicable criminal charges. He is a supporter of the DOJ prosecuting medical marijuana providers. He has stated that cities that offer sanctuary to illegal immigrants and fail to follow the US immigration policies will not get federal funds.

Personal Life and Trivia

• Sessions is married to Mary Blackshear. The couple has 3 children and 6 grandchildren.
• Jeff Sessions is not tall; he stands at 5 feet 4 inches.
• Sessions and his family are United Methodist. Jeff and his wife are members at the Ashland Place United Methodist Church located in Mobile, Alabama. Jeff is a Sunday School teacher at this church.
• He became an Eagle Scout in 1964. He has received the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award for his service over several years.
• Sessions has been named after his father, who was his grandfather’s namesake, who got his name from P. G. T. Beauregard and Jefferson Davis. The former was the Confederate general who led Fort Sumter bombardment which began the American Civil War, while the latter was the president of the Confederate States of America.

Jeff Sessions stint as Attorney General

As the Attorney General,  Sessions ordered federal prosecutors to seek for maximum charges for a criminal offence.  He also signed an order for the ‘civil asset forfeiture’ which means permitting law enforcement to seize property of individuals who are suspected but not tried for their crimes.  He also stood by the Department of Justice’s stance to prosecute suppliers of medical marijuana. A long-standing opponent of illegal immigration, Sessions told the media that cities that did not fall in line, would lose federal funding.  However, the administration’s move to do so was successfully challenged by the city of Francisco, and stopped from being enforced by a federal judge.

Why did Jeff Sessions resign?

On March 1, 2017, there were reports that Sessions had been in touch with the Russian government authorities during the 2016 Presidential Election, even though he denied these allegations.  News reports began pouring in that Sessions had spoken twice to Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States.

Later after outright denial of  meetings with Kislyak, Sessions stated that during his meetings with the Russian envoy, he did not discuss the election campaign and met him only in the position of a U.S. senator.

The senators asked the FBI to conduct criminal perjury investigation into the case; the  lawyer representing Sessions stated that the investigations did not find anything to the contrary of what hsi client had been saying, all along.

President Trump would hint that he was looking into the possiblity of firing Sessions, after the November 2018 elections. Sessions did not want to resign, from what he had told his associates.  However, on November 7, 2018, Sessions tendered his resignation to John Kelly, Chief of Staff, at President Trump’s request.

Jeff Sessions is also known to make more than $2.5 million from real estate properties, which contributes to his net worth.