Kathmandu (Pahichan) July 31 – Donald Trump is angry with Jeff Sessions for recusing himself in the Russia collusion investigation. But that hasn’t stopped Trump from giving Sessions carte blanche to enforce his brutal hard-right agenda ― one reason why, in fact, conservatives have defended Sessions against Trump’s attacks ― and that includes what are clearly his plans to dismantle LGBTQ rights.

The reason Sessions had to recuse himself from the Russia investigation, of course, is because it became known that he had several meetings with Russian officials during the election, while serving in the Trump campaign, though he claimed during his confirmation hearings that he hadn’t ever met with such officials.

But now we know that’s not the only thing Sessions lied about.

In his opening statements back in January, Sessions said, ”I understand the demands for justice and fairness made by our LGBT community. He vowed to “ensure … protecting their rights and their safety,” which he said would be “fully enforced.”

But last week Sessions’ Justice Department used precious time and federal expense to tell a federal appeals court, via a 36-page brief, that employers should legally have the right to fire gay, lesbian and bisexual people based on their sexual orientation. If employers deem homosexuality as immoral, Sessions believes they should be able to tell gay, lesbian or bisexual employees to pack their things and go if they are found out, destroying lives, affecting their families and livelihoods. It’s abhorrent ― and the complete opposite of what the civil rights office at the Department of Justice should be doing.

The DOJ isn’t party to this case. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals didn’t invite it to file a brief. Sessions clearly decided to take it upon himself to influence the court, in a case in a which a now diseased skydiver claimed he was fired from his job because he was gay (his survivors have continued with the case). According to the Center for American Progress, 10 percent of gay, lesbian and bisexual people report having been fired because of their sexual orientation while a staggering 47 percent of transgender people have reported being fired based on their gender identity.

The ACLU’s Ria Tabacco Mar, in a New York Times op-ed, explained the significance of the case that Sessions is attempting to sabotage using the influence of the DOJ:

This latest blow to civil rights by the Trump administration comes at a moment of tremendous promise: The Second Circuit appears poised to expand protections for lesbian and gay workers under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the federal law that bars on-the-job discrimination on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin and religion.

Earlier this year, it agreed to reconsider a pair of its decisions from the 2000s that wrongly concluded that discriminating against people based on their sexual orientation isn’t covered by the statute’s ban on sex discrimination.

Coming on the heels of a landmark decision in April from the federal appeals court in Chicago that overruled similar precedent, the news that the Second Circuit would revisit its old conclusions was applauded by the L.G.B.T. community as heralding the end of another barrier to equality.

Trump has given all of his anti-LGBTQ lieutenants ― from Betsy DeVos and Tom Price to Ben Carson and Mike Pence ― free reign to assault LGBTQ rights and, just as profoundly, he has listened to their counsel on the issue. That’s why we’ve seen protections for transgender and gay students threatened, elimination of data collection on LGBTQ seniors and a devastating attack, via Twitter, on transgender people serving in the military.

For Sessions, if he remains at the Justice Department (there have been unconfirmed reports that Trump is thinking of moving him to head up Homeland Security), it means a sustained assault at a time when LGBTQ people are subject to hate crimes attacks more than any other minority group, with transgender women of color disproportionately affected in the worst way.

During his confirmation hearings, senators pointed out how Sessions had vehemently opposed adding gay and transgender people to existing hate crimes laws, which the justice department is charged with enforcing ever since the bill he opposed became law in 2009.