CBS News: Trump Offers Jeff Sessions Attorney General Post

President-elect Trump has offered Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions the post of attorney general, sources directly involved in the selection process tell CBS News.

The choice of the Alabama senator to be the nation’s top prosecutor is sure to be controversial.

Sessions has been one of Mr. Trump’s closest and most consistent allies.

But when Sessions faced Senate confirmation for a job 30 years ago, it didn’t go well.  Nominated for a federal judgeship in 1986, Sessions, R-Ala., was dogged by racist comments he was accused of making while serving as U.S. attorney in Alabama.  He was said to have called a black assistant U.S. attorney “boy” and the NAACP “un-American” and “communist-inspired.”

Sessions was the first senator to back Mr. Trump during the campaign and is an architect of Mr. Trump’s immigration, counterterrorism and trade policies.
His name has been floated for attorney general and secretary of defense.

The Trump transition team released a statement Thursday saying the president-elect is “unbelievably impressed” with Sessions, citing his work as a U.S. attorney and state attorney general in Alabama.

If Sessions is nominated for a position in the Trump Cabinet, his confirmation hearing could occur as early as January. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.