Perry County Commissioner Albert Turner Jr., whose parents were unsuccessfully prosecuted for voter fraud by then-U.S. Attorney Jeff Sessions in the 1985, endorsed Alabama’s junior senator Wednesday for U.S. attorney general.
The Perry County voter fraud case against Albert Turner Sr., and his wife, Evelyn Turner, set off allegations that Sessions’ unfairly treated black defendants in such cases while turning a blind eye to voter fraud perpetrated by whites. The Turners were acquitted.
The older Turner, who was an aide to Martin Luther King Jr. and died in 2000, told NBC News at the time that he thought “the case was political.”
“I actually don’t think Jeff Sessions ever came in with an ounce of evidence,” he said.
Evelyn Turner told USA Today on Wednesday that her son did not speak for the family and that she did not agree with his endorsement of Sessions.
“That is not going to change as long as I’m black, I don’t think a change is in the cards,” she said, adding that Sessions “shouldn’t be named to catch dogs.”
The younger Turner’s views are at odds with his father.
“I have known Sen. Sessions for many years, beginning with the voter fraud case in Perry County in which my parents were defendants. My differences in policy and ideology with him do not translate to personal malice. He is not a racist,” the Perry County commissioner said in a statement. “As I have said before, at no time then or now has Jeff Sessions said anything derogatory about my family. He was a prosecutor at the Federal level with a job to do. He was presented with evidence by a local District Attorney that he relied on, and his office presented the case. That’s what a prosecutor does. I believe him when he says that he was simply doing his job.”