According to CNN , Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his audience chanted “lock her up” during a scheduled university event on Tuesday morning.
Attending a high school leadership summit at George Washington University for the conservative organization Turning Point USA, Sessions gave a speech promoting and encouraging conservatism and urging the importance of freedom of speech.
Expressing his disappointment with the more liberal atmospheres on many college campuses, Sessions claimed that too many students have been “coddled” ever since the last presidential election.
At the event, Sessions said, “After the 2016 election, for example, they held a ‘cry-in’ at Cornell. I hope they had plenty of tissues for ’em to cry on. They had therapy dogs at the University of Kansas. Play-Doh and coloring books at the University of Michigan for heaven’s sakes.”
“You know, give me a break,” Sessions continued. “Students at Tufts were encouraged to ‘draw about their feelings.’”
Addressing the audience, Sessions added, “Well I can tell this group isn’t going to have to have Play-Doh when you get attacked in college and you get involved in a debate. I like this bunch, I gotta tell you. You’re not going to be backing down. Go get ’em. Go get ’em.”
The audience then proceeded to chant, “lock her up!” Sessions repeated the well-known phrase and laughed, telling the audience that he had not heard that phrase in a long time.
During his 2016 presidential campaign, then-candidate Donald Trump used the “lock her up” chant as a rallying cry against his opponent Hillary Clinton, who had been under FBI investigation for using a private email server at the time.
The chant essentially called for the former secretary of state’s imprisonment. Clinton, however, was never charged for any crimes, as former FBI Director James Comey and former Attorney General Loretta Lynch made clear. Even though no charges were filed or pursued, Trump still used this chant at rallies to fire up his crowd, often referring to, what he called, Clinton’s “crimes,” throughout his various speeches.
Towards the very beginning of his presidency, Trump pressured Attorney General Sessions to further investigate Clinton’s private and deleted emails. When Sessions proved to be reluctant to pursue this, President Trump called him out on Twitter several times, calling him “very weak” at one point. Sessions initially appointed a “federal prosecutor to look into various matters surrounding Clinton, but stopped short of formally appointing a special counsel earlier this year.”
