ATTORNEY GENERAL/CRIME/DRUGS/OBAMA/TRUMP PEOPLE/JEFF SESSIONS: “Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered federal prosecutors late Thursday [5-11-2017] to pursue the toughest possible charges and sentences against crime suspects, reversing Obama administration efforts to ease penalties for some nonviolent drug violations.
The dramatic shift in criminal justice policy, foreshadowed during recent weeks, is Mr. Sessions’s first major stamp on the Justice Department, and it telegraphs his priorities to target drug dealing, gun crime and gang violence. The Justice Department released the new directives on Friday.
In an eight-paragraph memo to the nation’s prosecutors, Mr. Sessions returned to the guidance of President George W. Bush’s administration by calling for more uniform punishments — including mandatory minimum sentences — and directing prosecutors to pursue the strictest possible charges. Mr. Sessions’s policy, however, is broader than that of the Bush administration, and will be more reliant on the judgments of United States attorneys and assistant attorneys general.”
-Rebecca R. Ruiz, “Attorney General Orders Tougher Sentences, Rolling Back Obama Policy,” The New York Times online, May 12, 2017