Mr. Sessions was nominated to be a federal judge by Ronald Reagan but was rejected by the Senate Judiciary committee. Jeff sessions later served as Alabama Attorney general and spent 20 years in the u. S. Senate. Heres a portion of his confirmation hearing from january. The attorney general of the United States is, of course, the nations chief Law Enforcement officer. He or she is not the president s lawyer, nor is he the president s wingmen, as attorney general holder described himself. Rather, he or she has an independent obligation to the constitution, and to the American People. I know you care deeply about this foundational principle, so i am going to ask you a question i have heard you ask other nominees for attorney general. Occasionally, you will be called upon to offer an opinion to the president who appointed you. You will have to tell him yes or no. Sometimes president s dont like to be told no. So i would like to know, will you be able to stand up and say no to the president of the United States, is in your judgment the law in your duty demands it . The reason i ask that is because i know you worked very hard with the president elect. Mr. Chairman, i understand the importance of your question. I understand the responsibility of the attorney general. And i will do so. You simply have to help the president do things that he might desire in a lawful way and have to be able to say no, before the country, the legal system, and for the president to avoid situations that are not acceptable. I understand that duty. I have observed it through my years here. I will facilitate responsibility. So my colleagues dont think im taking advantage of time, somebody start the clock. Oh, ok. The light isnt working, im sorry. So i heard what you said, but just to emphasize, let me follow up. If you disagree with the president s chosen course of andon, and you told him so, he intends to pursue that course of action anyway, what are your options at that point . Anmr. Chairman, i think attorney general should first work with the president , can hopefully that attorney general would have the confidence of the president and avoid a situation that would be unacceptable. I do believe that if an attorney general is asked to do something that is plainly unlawful, he cannot participate in that, and that person would have to resign ultimately before agreeing to execute a policy that the attorney general believes would be unlawful or unconstitutional. I think mr. Chairman that there are areas that are rightly clear and right, areas that may be gray, and areas that are unacceptable. A good attorney general needs to know where those lines are to help the president , where possible, and to resist improper, unacceptable actions. You served in this department for 14 or 15 years. You served as your states attorney general. And of course you serve on this committee for a long time. We have oversight over the department that you had. You have done that over 20 years. I have had my share of disagreements of the departments leadership over the last few years. Some of those were purely policy disagreements, but some issues were especially troubling to me the department failed to perform fundamental functions to enforce the law. As attorney general, day in and day out, you will be faced with difficult and sometimes thorny legal problems. What will your approach be to ensuring that the department enforces the law, and more broadly, what is your vision for the department . Mr. Chairman, the ultimate responsibility of the attorney general and the department of justice is to execute the laws passed by this congress and to follow the constitution in that process. You can be sure that i understand that. We may have had disagreements about whether the law should be passed but once passed i will do my dead level best to ensure it is properly and fairly enforced. Ado believe that we have problem i wont go into it unless you want me to to describe what we can do to address that. There are other challenges this country faces. I would be pleased to recognize the influence of the legislative thech and to welcome insights that you might have. Thats a very important issue with me and i suppose every colleague here. Let me emphasize by saying, is it fair to say, then, that regardless of what your position may have been as a legislator, your approach as attorney general will be to enforce the law regardless of policy differences . Absolutely, mr. Chairman. I dont think i have any hesitation or any lack of an ability to separate the roles that i have had, to go from the executive from the legislative branch to the executive branch, is a transfer of not only position, but of the way you approach issues. I would be an executive function on enforcement of the laws this great legislative body might pass. As you know, the department of justice has at its heart the career prosecutor and attorney core that staffs it. On social media, conservative bloggers are circulating names of career attorneys in the department who they say should be demoted or reassigned because of positions they argued under attorney general holder and lynch. One commentator for the Heritage Foundation has made the comparison to filth within the department of justice and said you need to run rivers through the department and wash out the agency from top to bottom, and you yourself have criticized Department Attorneys for being secular. Now that was as recently as november. Now in rhode island, we have a long tradition back to Roger Williams of separating church and state, and as an attorney general and u. S. Attorney, we also have a tradition of allowing career attorneys to follow the policy dictates of other administrations and not holding the career people responsible for that. I am wondering how you will react to this. Do you have a problem with career attorneys . If their private, religious goiefs are secular ones that secular ones . And will you support the career attorneys against the pressure from these rightwing organization seeking to wash them out like filth, to paraphrase the Heritage Foundation. The department of justice is composed primarily of career professionals, as you know , senator whitehouse. You served a believe there as u. S. Attorney, and i give them highest respect. Most of those attorneys reach high standards and they are willing to follow lawful orders and directions from their superiors, even if they might have a different philosophy. I do think it it is often that they are put into noncareer spots. You can go back to career spots, but i dont know how exactly that works, so you would normally expect, and i am sure the Obama Administration made changes in the leadership of the department. They put career people in positions they thought would be most advantageous for them to advance the causes they believed in, and that is sort of within the rules of the game, but the to target people and demean them if they are fine public servants, following the law, and carrying out the legitimate policy of their supervisors would be wrong, and we should respect them. Does a secular attorney have anything to fear from attorney general sessions in the department of justice . No, and i use that word at the 90,000 foot level. A little concern i have that we as a nation are reaching a level in which truth is not sufficiently respected, that the very ideal, the idea of truth is not believed to be real, and that all of life is just a matter of your perspective and my perspective, which i think is contrary to the american heritage. Lets just say we are not a theocracy. Nobody should be required to believe anything. I share Thomas Jeffersons words, and i think we should respect peoples views and not demand any kind of religious test for holding office. A secular person has just as good a claim to understanding the truth as a person who is religious . Well, im not sure. In what method . An attorney would bring to bear let me just say, we will treat anybody with different views fairly and objectively, and the ideal of truth and trying to achieve the right solution to me is an important goal of the american jurisprudential system, actually our legislative system. What is the right thing . What is the truth . And lets act on it and do the right thing. A little over a month after winning the president ial election, donald trump chose Rex Tillerson for secretary of state. He was confirmed by the senate 5643 on february 1. Mr. Tillerson spent his entire professional career at exxon mobil, starting at the company in 1975 as a Production Engineer and rising through the ranks to eventually become chairman and ceo. There is a portion of his confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign relations committee. I have found the russians to be very strategic in their thinking, very tactical, and they generally have a very clear plan that they have laid before them, so in terms of when i make the statement they are not unpredictable, if, if one is able to step back and understand what their longterm motivation is, and you see they are going to chart a course, then it is an understanding of how are they likely to carry that plan out, and where are all the elements of that plan that are on the table . In my view, the leadership of russia has a plan. It is a geographic plan that is in front of them, and they are taking actions to implement that plan. They are judging responses and then making the next step in the plan based on the response in that regard. They are not unpredictable. If russia does not receive an adequate response to an action, they will execute the next step of the plan. Give me some specifics and summarize that plan you see they have. Well, russia more than anything wants to reestablish its role in the global world order. They have a view that following the breakup of the soviet union they were mistreated in some respects in the transition period. They believe they deserve a rightful role in the world global order because they are a nuclear power, and they are searching as how to establish that, and for most of the past 20 plus years since the demise of the soviet union, they were not in a position to assert that. They have spent all of these years developing the capability to do that, and i think that is now what we are witnessing, an assertion on their part in order to force a conversation about what is russias role in the global world order, and some of the steps being taking are simply to make that point, that russia is here, russian matters, and we are a force to be dealt with, and that is a fairly predictable course of action they are taking. I think the important conversation we have to have with them is, does russia want to now and forever be an adversary of the United States . Do you want this to get worse, or does russia desire a different relationship . We are not likely to ever be friends. As others have noted, our values systems are starkly different and we did not hold the same values, but i also know the russian people because of having spent so many years in russia. There is scope to define a different relationship that can bring down the temperature around the conflicts we have today. As secretary gates alluded to an secretary none of diluted to in their opening remarks, dialogue is critical so these things do not spin out of control. We need to move russia from being an adversary always to a partner at times, and on other issues, we will be adversaries. It is not unlike my comments on china, at times china is friendly, and at times an adversary, but with russia, engagement is necessary to define what is that relationship going to be, and then we will know how to chart our own plan of action to respond to that. In my mind, if i take a look at the spectrum of americas relationship to different nations, you have friends and allies, friendly rivals, unfriendly adversaries, enemies, and right now you are basically putting russia in the unfriendly adversary category . Well, unfriendly to enemies. I think at this point, they are clearly in the unfriendly adversary category. I hope they do not move to enemy , because that would imply more direct conflict with one another. You do not hold out much help that we can move them into the friendly rival category . Maybe partners where we have mutual interests . I tend to think in three categories, they are our friends, our partners, and adversaries. At times, certainly our friends are partners from time to time on specific actions. Our adversaries from time to time can be partners, but on other issues, we are not going to agree, so we remain adversaries. An adversary at the ideological level is one thing. And adversary at the direct conflict level, that is very different. I want to switch subjects are little bit. I agree with former senator nunn , your background and your relationship with putin is an asset coming into this position. I come from the private sector. I think that perspective is sorely needed. I dont think we have enough from people from the private sector. I think economic strength is inextricably linked to national strength. Your background traveling the world, i know i ask you how many countries have you traveled to . I have never counted them up. I would say 4050. I have never counted them. How many countries have you done deals with . Where you dealt with top leadership . I have never counted those, but it is certainly probably between 1020 where i was directly engaged in a significant way. Let me ask you as someone from the private sector being asked to serve your nation, i understand you will be going through processes like this, understanding all the disclosure, leaving the life behind that im sure you value. What was your greatest reservation saying, yes. Senator, when i went to all the analysis come all the reasons i had for saying no, which is your question, were also as reasons, so i had no reason to say no. You obviously had a responsibility as the ceo of exxon mobil, a fiduciary responsibility. Your role is going to change. Do you have any reservation come reservation, and can you just describe what your mindset is from making that transition . Senator, i have no reservations about my clean break with my private sector life. It was a wonderful 41. 5 year career and i am extraordinarily proud of it. I learned an awful lot, but now i am moving to a completely different responsibility. My love of country and my patriotism is going to dictate that i serve no ones interests but that of the American People in advancing our own National Security. As you have traveled the world with the business mindset, working at developing projects around the world, obviously you are hearing from people around the world. Former president carter in june 2015 was commenting on president obamas foreign policy, and here are some excerpts from his quotes. He said he cant think of many nations in the world where we have a better relationship then when president obama took over. The United States influence and prestige is probably lower than it was six years ago. Is that your sense as you travel around the world, that our power, influence, prestige, respect is lower, that we have not developed better relationships around the world . I dont know i remember if i shared it with you in the meeting we had. I know i shared it with others in meetings. In many respects, i spent the last 10 years on an unintended listening tour as i traveled about the world conducting affairs, engaging with top leadership, heads of state in many of these countries, and i have had the opportunity to listen to them express their frustrations, their fears, the concerns, as to the withdrawal and stepping back of americas leadership, the lack of that engagement, and they are yearning and want American Leadership reasserted, and when i met with the president elect and we were meeting about his ultimately asking me to do this, i indicated to him i said, mr. President , we have a tough hand of cards that you have been dealt, but i said there is no use whining, complaining, or pointing fingers at anyone. We are just going to play that handout. America still holds all the aces. And that leaders around the world want our engagement. I said, you will be pushing on an open door because people want america to come back. Since you have worked in one sector for one company throughout your entire career, getting a sense of your worldview is incredibly important since you will be the chief advocate and advisor to the president elect on those issues, so i would like to go through a series of questions. I think many of them can be answered by a simple yes or no. Others will probably take greater, more extensive answers, and you alluded to some of this in your Opening Statement, so let me go through several of them. Do you believe it is in the National Interest of the United States to continue to support International Laws and norms that were established after world war ii . Yes, sir. Do you believe the International Order includes respecting the territorial integrity of sovereign countries and the inviability of their yes, sir. Did russia violate this order when it annexed crimea and invaded ukraine . Yes, it did. Did russias occupation of countries by late International Countries violate International Norms . Im not sure which countries you are referring to. The annexation of crimea, eastern ukraine, georgia just to mention a few. Yes, sir. Syriasrussia and targeted Bombing Campaign and aleppo on hospitals violate this International Order . Yes, that is not acceptable behavior. Do you believe these actions constitute war crimes . Again, senator, i dont have sufficient information to make that type of serious conclusion. Coming to that conclusion will require me to have additional specific facts. You understand what the standard is . I do. And knowing that standard and all within the realm of public information, you cannot say whether those actions constitute a war crime or not . I would not want to rely on what has been reported in the public realm. I would want confirmation from agencies who would be able to present me with into suitable present me with indisputable fa