Sessions, Jeff (1946-…), served as the attorney general of the United States in the Cabinet of President Donald J. Trump in 2017 and 2018. The U.S. attorney general is the nation’s chief law officer. Sessions previously served as a member of the United States Senate from 1997 to 2017. Sessions, a Republican, represented Alabama.
Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III was born in Hybart, Alabama, on Dec. 24, 1946. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Huntingdon College in 1969 and a law degree from the University of Alabama in 1973. Sessions served as assistant U.S. attorney for the South District of Alabama from 1975 to 1977 and from 1981 to 1993. In that position, he established a reputation for prosecuting drug dealers. From 1994 to 1996, Sessions served as Alabama state attorney general.
Sessions was elected to his first term in the U.S. Senate in 1996. He took office in 1997. He was reelected in 2002, 2008, and 2014. In 2009 and 2010, Sessions served as the ranking Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Sessions also served on the Senate Budget, Armed Services, and Environment and Public Works committees.
After Trump was elected president in 2016, he nominated Sessions to serve as attorney general of the United States. The nomination was confirmed by a Senate vote in February 2017. A month later, Sessions drew Trump’s anger after recusing (withdrawing) himself from the U.S. Department of Justice investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. The investigation sought to discover whether Trump or any of his political or business associates had secretly worked together with Russia to influence the election. Sessions said he felt his involvement in the case would be improper because he had worked on Trump’s campaign. In November 2018, Trump asked for, and received, Sessions’s resignation.
Sessions soon sought to return to the Senate. In late 2019, he began campaigning for the 2020 Republican nomination for U.S. senator from Alabama. In March 2020, Sessions finished a close second in primary balloting to former Auburn University football coach Tommy Tuberville. Tuberville defeated Sessions in a July runoff election and won election to the Senate in November.
