Jeff Sessions Levels Ilhan Omar Before Hitting Her with Uncomfortable 'Brother' Question
Well, Jeff Sessions certainly hasn’t lost a step.
Sure, he’s not the darling of anti-establishment conservatives that he was when he endorsed Donald Trump for president or became Trump’s attorney general. There are, um, reasons for that, which is why he’s no longer Trump’s attorney general and ended up leaving the White House under conditions a bit more acrimonious than your average Trump administration departure.
Sessions is trying to win his old Senate seat back from Doug Jones, the Democrat who won a 2017 special election mostly because of sexual misconduct allegations against then-Republican nominee Roy Moore. (This, for those of you who don’t remember the days before Tara Reade, was when sexual misconduct allegations against a candidate were considered materially important by the media.)
And, if his recent sparring match with Rep. Ilhan Omar is any indication, Sessions hasn’t exactly been dulled by age.
In a Twitter exchange Friday with the firebrand Minnesota Democrat, Sessions excoriated Omar for suggesting the Minneapolis Police Department needed to be disbanded, tussled with her over remarks they’d made in the past and concluded by saying, “How’s your brother, by the way?” — an allusion to reports that Omar engaged in a sham marriage with her brother in order to commit immigration fraud.
The opening salvo was this tweet from Omar, in which she said it was time to disband her home city’s police department. Not quite sure how that’s supposed to work, but it sounded good, so whatever:
The Minneapolis Police Department has proven themselves beyond reform.
It’s time to disband them and reimagine public safety in Minneapolis.
Thank you to @MplsWard3 for your leadership on this! https://t.co/AQfHM5M6eR
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) June 5, 2020
Omar said in place of the current police department, it was time to “reimagine public safety in Minneapolis.”
I’m reimagining it and it seems a lot less safe, but public policy rarely develops out of 280 characters or less, so I wouldn’t worry.
Sessions retweeted Omar and criticized her response.
“Radical Leftists like Ilhan Omar and the rest of ‘the Squad’ are dead wrong,” Sessions said.
“Don’t defund the police. Defund the thought police.”
Radical Leftists like Ilhan Omar and the rest of “the Squad” are dead wrong.
Don’t defund the police. Defund the thought police. https://t.co/NfrQnB4zSM
— Jeff Sessions (@jeffsessions) June 5, 2020
Omar responded by essentially calling Sessions a bigot.
You called the NAACP Un-American and said you thought the Klu Klux Klan were okay until you learned they smoked pot.
Maybe sit this one out. https://t.co/PWIqzGuj3c
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) June 5, 2020
“You called the NAACP Un-American and said you thought the Klu Klux Klan were okay until you learned they smoked pot. Maybe sit this one out,” the Minnesota representative wrote.
Sessions’ comments about the NAACP are a complicated and debated matter regarding private conversations that we could spend an hour on. The whole part about him thinking the KKK was “okay” until he found out they smoked marijuana was an obvious joke.
The part about Omar wanting to disband the police, however? That doesn’t exactly sound jokey.
Anyhow, Sessions fired back at Omar with a criticism of remarks she hadn’t made in jest — like downplaying the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
“You brushed off the 9/11 attacks as ‘some people did something,'” he tweeted. “You’ve celebrated anti-Semitism. You have a habit of rooting for the bad guys, and you should stop unfairly demonizing our brave law enforcement officers. I for one will never sit out defending those who defend us.”
Oh, and then a second tweet: “How’s your brother, by the way?”
How’s your brother, by the way?
— Jeff Sessions (@jeffsessions) June 5, 2020
The last part was a jab at her marriage to Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, a man some have claimed is her brother; the marriage, they say, was merely to bypass immigration laws.
Omar has denied the allegations.
Whether or not she married Ahmed Nur Said Elmi as part of an immigration fraud scam — conservatives have pointed to her refusal to hand over important documents or answer specific questions regarding the marriage when asked by the media, while the left has claimed such a fraudulent marriage would be unnecessary — Omar’s complicated marital history has continued to dog her.
Her latest marriage, her third, is to a political operative whose company received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Omar’s campaign.
As for Sessions, he’s in a bit of electoral trouble, given the fact that a May poll found him down over 20 points to former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville, according to AL.com. The two men are facing off in a Republican primary runoff election on July 14.
Perhaps a flash of the Sessions of old — combined with a takedown of the ludicrous idea of disbanding the Minneapolis Police Department — could help close that gap.
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