Sessions has acted on that belief by trying to scuttle police reform in Baltimore. The city, its mayor, and police commissioner had implored the Department of Justice in October 2014 to assist them with their troubled police department, and the Obama administration responded with a damning federal investigation and a mutually agreed consent decree. All that was left was for a judge to hold a hearing and sign off on the path forward, but on the eve of that hearing last April, Sessions’s lawyers insisted the government needed more time to review these measures. At the hearing, John Gore, the federal government’s acting civil rights chief, told the court that Sessions had “some grave concerns” about whether going ahead with a court-enforced reform plan was in Baltimore’s best interests.