Clinton FBI chief backs Trump’s attorney general pick: report

Former FBI Director Louis Freeh is supporting President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), according to a new report.

Freeh sent a letter Tuesday to the Senate Judiciary Committee giving his “strong recommendation” for Sessions, ABC News reported.

“I have known Jeff since 1989 when we worked together as prosecutors on one of the most important civil rights cases investigated and prosecuted by the United States Department of Justice,” he wrote.

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“[I] have always been greatly impressed with his commitment to the rule of law, his fair and balanced prosecutorial judgment and his personal dedication to protecting civil rights,” added Freeh. “I believe that Jeff will be an outstanding attorney general for this nation.”

Freeh was appointed by then-President Bill Clinton in 1993 to head the FBI and served in that post until June 2001.

Freeh said Sessions has proven himself on civil rights. He cited his work in 1989 prosecuting the murderer of a federal judge in Alabama and a NAACP official in Georgia.

“I was struck with Jeff’s fierce determination to solve these civil rights murders, which so greatly impacted the rule of law and the guarantee of civil rights in America,” he wrote.

“Jeff and his office were key decision-makers in formulating and implementing the investigative strategy which ultimately led to the arrest and conviction of Walter Moody for these murders.”

Trump chose Sessions to lead his Justice Department last month, making the senator the first of the president-elect’s Cabinet-level picks for his incoming administration.

Democrats have signaled Sessions may face an uphill battle to confirmation, however, citing past controversies over race.

Sessions was denied a federal judge position 30 years ago over allegations he had called the NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union “un-American.” The Alabama senator also allegedly said he thought the Ku Klux Klan was “OK, until he learned that they smoked marijuana.”

Sessions has fiercely denied the claims, and defenders argue he has a better record on civil rights than he receives credit for.

Although appointed by Clinton, Freeh had an at-times strained relationship with the former president and criticized him publicly after both had left office.

“The problem was with Bill Clinton – the scandals and the rumored scandals, the incubating ones and the dying ones never ended,” Freeh said during an Oct. 7, 2005 CBS interview.  “Whatever moral compass the president was consulting was leading him in the wrong direction.  His closets were full of skeletons just waiting to burst out.”

Updated at 5:10 p.m.