70-Year-Old Retired Army Colonel Arrested Protesting Sessions' Confirmation Hearing 

By Anna Merlan  |  January 31, 2017 | 5:15pm
Politics


Col. Ann Wright, a 70-year-old retired United States Army colonel and former U.S. State Department official, briefly disrupted the hearing Tuesday where lawmakers are expected to confirm Jeff Sessions as Attorney General. “I’m 70 years old and I’ve got a hip replacement” she protested, as she was manhandled out of the room and arrested by Capitol police.

This morning, a group of our limpest lawmakers in the Senate Judiciary Committee have gathered together to praise Sessions, a man with a documented history of racism, or else say a couple mean things about him before voting to confirm him.

Wright, now an activist with the group Code Pink, stood up after Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy finished a long tirade about the many ways that Sessions isn’t qualified.

“I say no to Jeff Sessions, no to hatred, not to racism, not to the ban on refugees,” she yelled, before being grabbed by police. “Oh, ow! I’ll go out but you don’t need to drag me. I’ve got a hip replacement. I’m 70 years old and I can make it out on my own.” She persisted as she was dragged from the room: “But no to racism, no to hate, no to Jeff Sessions, no to the ban on refugees!”

Wright received the State Department’s Award for Heroism in 1997 for her work evacuating refugees in Sierra Leone. The same year, an Alabama judge accused the State Attorney General’s office, then headed by Jeff Sessions, of gross prosecutorial misconduct.

Moments after Wright was arrested, another demonstrator, a man, was also removed, because Jeff Sessions is having the day he deserves.

 
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