Department of Justice

Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced an initiative on Wednesday aimed at boosting the Justice Department’s role protecting religious institutions from cumbersome zoning rules. “Under the laws of this country, government cannot discriminate against people based on their religion — not in law enforcement, not in grant-making, not in hiring and not in local zoning laws,”

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has often used “religious freedom” to justify what would otherwise be considered a potential violation of the separation of church and state, but now he has taken it a step further. Without announcement, Sessions inserted a policy requiring all U.S. Attorneys’ offices in the country to assign a staff member to monitor litigation and