61-Year-Old Woman Faces Jail Time For Laughing At Attorney General Jeff Sessions

 

According to the Huffington Post, trial begins this week for a 61-year-old woman for whom federal prosecutors are seeking charges for laughing out loud while U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions was going through his confirmation hearing.

Desiree Fairooz, who is an activist with the group Code Pink, laughed out loud when Republican Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby claimed that Sessions spent his career “treating all people equally before the law” last January. U.S. Capitol Police escorted her out and arrested her.

Prosecutors insist that her behavior was “disorderly and disruptive conduct” meant to “impede, disrupt, and disturb the orderly conduct” of the hearing.

She was charged with disorderly conduct, which carries a fine of up to $500 and up to six months in jail.

Fairooz was also charge for parading, picketing or demonstrating within the Capitol, which is a misdemeanor.

“I felt it was my responsibility as a citizen to dissent at the confirmation hearing of Senator Jeff Sessions, a man who professes anti-immigrant, anti-LGBT policies, who has voted against several civil rights measures and who jokes about the white supremacist terrorist group the Ku Klux Klan,” said Fairooz.

“As an American who loves the constitution and the rule of law, I felt compelled to protest the nomination of Senator Jeff Sessions to become the number one law enforcement officer in the country,” added Tighe Barry, another member of Code Pink. “His nomination and confirmation as Attorney General make a mockery of our judicial system and our constitution in general. Time has shown that our concerns were valid. Session is a terrible attorney general and is already setting back progress this country has made in the area of civil rights and race relations.”