trying something new, like trump? well, it turns out one thing they may have to lose is their vote. that is according to some civil rights experts. much political attention on russia this week. meanwhile, attorney general sessions backed out of a key part of the challenge to voter i.d. laws, which judges had held discriminate against black vetters that have some concerned that sessions may not apply some laws on the books like the voting rights act, which is part of the job of the acting attorney general. lehigh professor james peterson, university of baltimore professor michael higgenbothom, author of the ghosts of gym crow, and back with us again matt miller. what does this mean on the votivot voting rights act? jeff sessions as attorney general has directed the justice
if, in fact, the fbi was engaged in some investigation related to national security, the fbi may have gone forward seeking a fifsa order with regard to that national security threat. that wouldn t be ordered by the president. the statements made by president obama s former spokesperson for president obama, they clearly said that the president didn t order that. i don t know that anybody has clearly denied that it ever happened. it s unclear what happened here. we ve got right. let s pause on that point here, especially for folks watching, trying to keep up with it. just on what director comey is trying to do here. let me read from the new york times. statement by the justice department or comey refuting trump s allegations would be, quote, a remarkable rebuke of a sitting president, putting the nation s top law enforcement officials in the position of questioning the truthfulness of the government s top leader. what do you think of that piece of it, comey v. trump?
breaking moments ago, the new york times reporting fbi director james comey is asking the justice department this weekend to reject publicly trump s claim that president obama ordered the wiretap. that is a huge piece of news we ll dig into. the justice department obviously hasn t done that yet. key issues here are broader than just trump tower, the building, as the attorney general recuses himself as president trump says he discovered his own watergate how will the investigation get to the bottom of it all? former fbi official sean henry, mad miller and jeremy bash, former cia official. let s start with the fbi here and james comey basically saying, according to the new york times, that he wanted to get to the bottom of this with regard to whether a president would order this kind of wiretap. you or a senior fbi official. how do you see this? i don t see that the president would make that order.
he is not standing up. we have a letter we sent to him over 4,000 faith leaders and activists, said stand up, call for the full restoration of the voting rights act. that is what the justice department is supposed to be about. we had 22 states that have passed many since the shelby position in north carolina, strict photo incht d. was unconstitutional, trying to roll back same day registration, early vote was unconstitutional. lastly in those states that passed voter suppression, 54% of african-americans live in those states and almost 250 electoral votes. this is dangerous to our democracy when we are going backwards across the bridge rather than forward. professor peterson, you look at this and in the trump tape, what do black voters have to lose, what s the answer to that?
cornerstone of american democracy, the right to vote. he talked about that history. he s really talking out of two sides of his mouth in the sense of saying the justice department is important in protecting voting rights and then instructing the justice department to take a different position on this texas voter inc i.d. law. that s behind the scenes in court, to some extent. jeff sessions was in the senate before he went to the ag s office. in the senate, he was part of those people like ryan and mcconnell who, for 1349 days today refused to fix the voting rights act. that s like a 1349-day filibuster, 1349 strom thurman filibuster act. he is an adversary to voter rights, makes the justice department adversarial to voting rights rather than an advocate for voting rights.