Dems aim to hobble Jeff Sessions, knowing he's likely to be confirmed

Barring something extraordinary, Sen. Jeff Sessions will have little trouble getting confirmed as Donald Trump’s attorney general. But some activists on the left still see a way of getting a win out of his confirmation hearing: They hope the process generates significant media scrutiny of his time at the Justice Department, and that he will take on a political toxicity that will hurt the moderate Republicans who back him…

Nominees who survive their Senate grillings can still emerge damaged. Hans von Spakovsky, a Heritage Foundation legal scholar and former Justice Department official under George W. Bush, said some of Bush’s appointees held back from pursuing conservative policies because they were so jarred by their confirmation processes.

“I occasionally saw political appointees who—it did scare them off from taking what I consider to be the correct positions on issues because they were afraid of what I would almost call the mad-dog left,” he told The Daily Beast. “If you get somebody up there who’s not tough, who doesn’t understand just how nasty and mean Washington is these days, it might have an effect.”