GOP senator: Sessions's push for tougher sentences highlights 'injustice'
© Greg Nash
 
"Mandatory minimum sentences have unfairly and disproportionately incarcerated too many minorities for too long. Attorney General Sessions’ new policy will accentuate that injustice," he said in a statement. 
 
Sessions released a memo on Thursday night that requires prosecutors to disclose "all facts that impact the sentencing guidelines or mandatory minimum sentences." 
 
"It is a core principle that prosecutors should charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offense," Sessions wrote in the memo. "The most serious offenses are those that carry the most substantial guidelines sentence including mandatory minimum sentences."
 
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The move is a break from the Obama administration and has sparked anger from Democrats and outside groups. 
 
Paul ripped the memo, saying the Trump administration "should treat our nation’s drug epidemic as a health crisis and less as a ‘lock ‘em up and throw away the key’ problem," instead of imposing harsher sentences.
 
Paul and Sessions were on opposite sides of the push to pass criminal justice reform legislation when Sessions was a member of the Senate. Paul was one of 37 senators who supported the Criminal Justice and Sentencing Reform Act, which would reduce some mandatory minimum sentences. 
 
 
But the legislation stalled amid division within the GOP caucus. Sessions—who has long advocated for tougher sentencing—was one of the loudest critics of the bill. 
 

“I agree with Attorney General Sessions that law enforcement should side with the victims of crime rather than its perpetrators," he said in a statement. "This policy is simply common sense and will help reduce crime and drugs in our neighborhoods."

Tags Jeff Sessions Tom Cotton Rand Paul Mike Lee