After the Big Three networks spent days forwarding accusations that Senator Jeff Sessions was a bigot, the time for his first confirmation hearing had finally arrived. The hearing was interrupted some nine times by roughly 25 people. This caught the attention of Senator Ted Cruz who made it his mission to set the record straight on his colleague’s history of combating racism and dared the liberal media to report the truth. ABC, CBS, and NBC all failed Cruz’s challenge Tuesday evening.
“And I'll issue a challenge to our friends in the news media. I noticed every time a protester jumped up, all the photographers took pictures of the protesters,” remarked the senator, predicting that the protesters would be what was covered, “Tell the story on the 6 o'clock news about Jeff Sessions helping prosecute a Klansman who murdered an African-American man and put him on death row and bankrupting, helping bankrupt the Klan in Alabama.”
And it was an inspiring story, to say the least. “In 1981 in Mobile, Alabama, the Ku Klux Klan ordered the murder of a random African-American man, Michael Duncan,” Cruz recalled, “They beat him, they strangled him, they cut his throat, and they hung him from a tree, absolutely shameful and disgraceful.”
Cruz read testimony from Sessions colleagues on the case who stated under oath that he pulled every string he could to give them the resources to see justice served. With the help of Sessions, Klansman Henry Hayes was sentenced to death by the electric chair, and his accomplice James Tiger Knowles was sentenced to life in prison.
“And this made Hayes the first white man executed in Alabama for murdering a black person since 1913,” Cruz added. But Sessions was not done with Alabama’s KKK, again reading from testimony Cruz said:
And beyond that, your office cooperated with Morris Des and the Southern Poverty Law Center to bring a suit against the KKK and Mr. Galanos explained, quote, “After the criminal case was over, the Southern Poverty Law Center took the evidence we had developed and gave it to them, and they sued civilly and got a $7 million verdict on behalf of Ms. Donald. And the $7 million civil judgment against the KKK in Alabama bankrupted the Klan, leading to its demise in the state.”
Sessions added addition detail, “In fact, they sold the Klan headquarters to help satisfy the judgment.”
Senator Cruz’s prediction was correct, none of the networks reported the story while highlighting the protesters chanting K-K-K. On ABC’s World News Tonight, reporter Mary Bruce hyped the sheer number of interruptions and shared none of Cruz’s facts. She also touted the opposition’s testimony occurring Wednesday, “But in a rare move, three African-American democratic lawmakers will soon testify against Sessions. One of them, civil rights icon, Congressman John Lewis.”
Even though the KKK prosecution was briefly mentioned (but not the bankruptcy) on CBS Evening News, they still painted Sessions as a racist for working on a case involving African-Americans accused of altering ballots. Reporter David Begnaud teed up one of the accused to attack the senator:
DAVID BEGNAUD: What do you believe this was an attempt to do, these charges?
EVELYN TURNER: To stop black people from voting.
Hypocritically, none of the networks reported the racist twitter triad targeting Sessions and his Asian granddaughter by MTV News reporter Ira Madison III, who told the senator, “Sessions, sir, kindly return this Asian baby to the Toys 'R' Us you stole her from.”