Jeff Sessions Withdraws From Anti-Online Gambling Debate
July 4, 2017 12:03 pmAfter Jeff Sessions was confirmed as the new U.S. Attorney General in February, there were concerns that he might make good on his promise to revisit and possible reverse the 2011 opinion made by the Department of Justice that saw the Wire Act as applying only to sports betting. Such a decision would have put online poker firmly in the cross hairs of a possible federal shutdown of the industry, but now the anti-online gambling movement has just lost its chief influential ally after the Attorney General has recused himself from all legislative debates related to the matter.
Jeff Sessions was forced to remove himself from further discussions on the issue due to a conflict of interest in which he had recently hired a lawyer by the name of Charles Cooper to represent him throughout the investigation into whether he had colluded with the Russians during the 2016 presidential campaign. The conflict as far as online gambling is concerned is that in back May Charles Cooper had already been recruited as a lobbyist for the Coalition to Stop Internet Gambling (CSIG), and with Cooper revealing his connection on June 15th, Sessions has subsequently withdrawn from the online gambling debate completely for fear of being accused of another type of collusion.
As followers of the online gambling legislative news know, the CSIG, with the backing of Las Vegas Sands CEO Sheldon Adelson has been lobbying hard over the years to have a federal ban placed on internet gambling, with one of the key pieces of legislation introduced with that in mind being the infamous Restoration of America’s Wire Act (RAWA). Fortunately, the organization’s efforts thus far have failed to gain sufficient support on Capitol Hill.
With Sessions now withdrawing from the debate, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will be heading matters concerning the Wire Act and internet gambling, with the US Attorney in Maryland having made the gambling headlines in the past for his involvement in seizing bank accounts and web domains during the Black Friday shutdown of 2011.