California Gov. Jerry Brown fired back at Attorney General Jeff Sessions and President Donald Trump on Wednesday after their lawsuit challenging the state’s immigration laws, calling the administration “full of liars” and repeatedly referencing the special counsel investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 US election.
The Democratic governor was speaking on the heels of Sessions’ visit to Sacramento to announce a lawsuit against California for its so-called sanctuary policies of non-cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.
In slamming Sessions’ appearance as a “political stunt” that was full of “lies” and untruths, Brown needled Sessions personally and his relationship with the President, which is famously fraught.
“I do think this is pure red meat for the base, and I would assume — this is pure speculation — that Jeff thinks Donald will be happier with him and I bet Donald will be tweeting his joy with this stunt,” Brown said.
Special counsel Robert “Mueller is closing in. There are more indictments to come. So obviously the attorney general has found it hard to be just a normal attorney general. He’s been caught up in the whirlwind,” Brown added.
Brown accused the administration of “going to war” with California and said Sessions was acting “more like Fox News than a law enforcement officer” in his visit.
“Look, we know the Trump administration is full of liars,” he said. “They’ve pled guilty already to the special counsel. … What Jeff Sessions said is simply not true and I call upon him to apologize to the people of California for bringing the mendacity of Washington to California, and trying to insert discord and dysfunction … to a state that’s actually working.”
In a speech laden with tough rhetoric for his critics and immigration advocates, Sessions on Wednesday morning had decried officials who support sanctuary city policies as “extremists” promoting “open borders.”
“Stop treating immigration agents differently from everybody else for the purpose of eviscerating border and immigration laws and advancing an open borders philosophy shared by only a few, the most radical extremists,” Sessions said.
