Updates | The Week of October 16
DOJ will assist in the prosecution of a man charged with murdering a transgender teenager in Iowa, reportedly at the urging of Attorney General Jeff Sessions (NYT, WaPo, The Hill).
- Attorney General Sessions’s move to intervene in a hate crimes case does not change his assault on LGBT rights, argues Ian Thompson at The Hill.
President Trump reportedly “joked” that Vice President Pence “wants to hang” gay people (New Yorker).
- Chad Griffin, President of the Human Rights Campaign, responded, calling the remark “disturbing” and “sickening” (HRC).
Lambda Legal and other LGBT advocacy groups spoke out against President Trump’s nomination of Jeff Mateer to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas (Lambda Legal).
DOJ's brief in Masterpiece Cakeshop threatens the integrity of the First Amendment, argues Robert Post on Take Care.
The Human Rights Campaign filed a FOIA request with the State Department for records on a letter sent from Secretary Tillerson to the Russian Foreign Minister (HRC).