WASHINGTON, Nov 8, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Former Alabama senator Jeff Sessions,
who was forced out as attorney general by President Donald Trump after less
than two years in office, on Thursday announced his bid to reclaim his Senate
seat.
Sessions, 72, represented the conservative southern state in the Senate
from 1997 to 2017, when he resigned to become Trump’s attorney general.
His relations with Trump quickly soured, however, after Sessions recused
himself from the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential
election.
Trump repeatedly insulted Sessions on Twitter until he finally resigned as
attorney general in November 2018.
“When I left President Trump’s cabinet, did I write a tell all book? No.
Did I go on CNN and attack the President? No,” Sessions said in a statement
announcing his candidacy.
“When President Trump took on Washington, only one Senator out of a hundred
had the courage to stand with him: me. I was the first to support President
Trump. I was his strongest advocate. I still am,” the veteran Republican
added.
“Our freedoms have never been under attack like they are today. We have
major party candidates for president campaigning on socialism, confiscating
firearms, and closing down churches they disagree with.
“I’ve battled these forces my entire life, and I’m not about to surrender
now. Let’s go!”
The Republican primary is to be held in March to decide who will be the
party standard-bearer in November. Several other candidates have already
declared their intentions to seek the nomination.
Sessions remains popular in Alabama. He last ran for the Senate seat in
2014, when he was unopposed and won 97 percent of the vote.
The seat is currently held by Democrat Doug Jones, who defeated an
unpopular Republican candidate in a special election in December 2017.
Alabama is one of the Senate seats the Republican Party is hoping to
reclaim as it seeks to hold on to its slim 53-47 majority in the chamber in
2020.
Republicans are already facing an uphill climb. They are forced to defend
23 seats while just 12 Democratic seats are at stake.
Sessions’ entry into the race would put Trump in a position of having to
endorse him or some other Republican.
Trump remains enormously popular in Alabama, where he won 62 percent of the
vote in 2016.