Margaret Carlson, Columnist

Jeff Sessions' High-Wire Act

In his nomination hearings, he tried to balance the law and his fealty to Donald Trump.

January 13, 2017 at 2:15 PM UTC

Margaret Carlson was a White House correspondent for Time, a weekly panelist on CNN’s “Capital Gang” and an editor at the New Republic.

More nuance.
Photographer: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

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Back in October, when the release of a recording of Donald Trump boasting of groping women rocked the presidential campaign, Senator Jeff Sessions minimized the severity of his candidate's comments: “I don’t characterize that as sexual assault. I think that’s a stretch.” He advised the Republican leadership to “take a deep breath.”

Although he almost immediately softened those comments, he tried to put the matter to rest this way: "This thing is overblown. Everybody knows that Trump likes women," Sessions said. "This is not a disqualifying event."