Kushner and Sessions at odds

In the final months of the Obama administration, the Justice Department announced a new approach to preparing prisoners for life beyond their cells. Officials created a prison school system, pledged money for technology training and promised to help prevent former inmates from returning to prison.

Almost immediately after taking office, Trump administration officials began undoing their work. Budgets were slashed, the school system was scrapped and studies were shelved as Attorney General Jeff Sessions brought to bear his tough-on-crime philosophy and deep skepticism of Obama-era crime-fighting policies.

  NYT

Bad on Trump. Very bad. But bad on Obama as well. Why did they wait until the last days and then try to cram through a bunch of stuff? They had eight years to reform the prison system.

Now, nearly a year and a half later, the White House has declared that reducing recidivism and improving prisoner education is a top priority — echoing some of the very policies it helped dismantle.

This whiplash approach to federal prison policy reflects the tension between Jared Kushner, the president’s reform-minded son-in-law and senior adviser, and Mr. Sessions, a hard-liner whose views on criminal justice were forged at the height of the drug war.

[...]

On Capitol Hill, a wholesale reconsideration of American sentencing laws and prison policies has bipartisan support. Dozens of senators have sponsored a bill to change mandatory-minimum sentences and ease drug laws that have been used to seek lengthy sentences for nonviolent offenders. The bill also includes provisions to expand education, worker training and drug rehabilitation programs in prison

Mr. Kushner, administration officials say, supports such sweeping change. Mr. Sessions is adamantly opposed.

[...]

Mr. Kushner’s father served prison time for tax evasion, witness tampering and making illegal campaign donations. His son has convinced advocates for an overhaul, even those who are not natural allies, that he personally cares about the issue.

Kushner may be thinking ahead to the day when he gets sentenced to some hard time, and Jeff Sessions may be too ignorant to realize he's in any danger of the same.

Mr. Sessions promised last fall that he would work with the Senate to address those laws. “We’ve never had any dialogue since,” said Mr. Grassley, one of Mr. Trump’s most important Capitol Hill allies during his first year in office. “I resent the president not helping me more, when I worked so hard to push along his judicial nominees.”

Did Grassley pay no attention at all to Trump's record on returning favors to anyone who doesn't have anything on him?

Mr. Grassley said that he while appreciated Mr. Kushner’s desire to get something done, he did not support any effort to try to address prisons without fixing what he saw as fundamental unfairness in sentencing laws. And he believes Mr. Kushner shares his views. “But he sees a chance of getting half a loaf, and he’s willing to settle for a half a loaf,” Mr. Grassley said. “I’m not going to.”

I'm not feeling as confident about Mr. Grassley's prospects as he appears to be.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.