Sessions defends comments on Hawaii judge who blocked travel ban

AG Jeff Sessions clarifies his comments about the Hawaiian judge who ruled on the President’s travel ban https://t.co/Pbj17ZBKH5

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) April 21, 2017

Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Friday defended his criticism of a Hawaii-based federal judge’s injunction blocking President Trump’s travel ban, saying that he wouldn’t have wanted to phrase it any differently. 

“I don’t know that I said anything I’d want to phrase differently,” Sessions said during an appearance on CNN. “No, we’re going to defend the president’s order. We believe it’s constitutional. We believe there’s specific statutory authority for everything in that order.”

Sessions asserted that the president’s executive order barring citizens of six Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. was completely constitutional and permitted by law. 

{mosads}”I got to tell you it is a point worth making that single sitting district judge out of 600, 700 district judges can issue an order stopping a presidential executive order that I believe is fully constitutional designed to protect the United States of America from terrorist attack.”

In an interview with conservative radio host Mark Levin aired Wednesday, Sessions expressed frustration with the Hawaii-based federal judge’s order blocking the order.

“I really am amazed that a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific can issue an order that stops the President of the United States from what appears to be clearly his statutory and Constitutional power,” Sessions said.

The comment quickly drew backlash, with critics accusing the attorney general of speaking as if Hawaii wasn’t a U.S. state or was less important because of its location.