Sessions on Rolling Back Obama’s Mandatory Minimums: I Was Restoring What Was Previously Set

‘If we had serious problems with it, we would revisit it’

EXCERPT:

SESSIONS: "I was restoring what was previously set and I was determined to have a simple directive to our capable assistant United States attorneys, not have a long six-page memorandum. We submitted a slightly over one-page memo to them and it said, 'If you think that’s not just and you clear it with your U.S. Attorney or the designee of the U.S. Attorney, you can charge less than the most serious readily approvable offense. Don’t have to call Washington. Don't have to get some bureaucracy. We’ll trust you.' I told them I hope that would work. If we had serious problems with it, we would revisit it. And by the way, it only requires that the minimum sentence be imposed. Minimum mandatory doesn’t require the maximum sentence, as some have said. It simply says that if you commit a serious crime that Congress says should carry a certain sentence, you shouldn’t fail to charge that because you want to have a different sentencing result."

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