If you are wondering why we seem obsessed with Attorney-General, Jeff Sessions, it’s because the man seems to be just one #AccessHollywood scandal away from being voted “Most Controversial” Washington veteran.

Anyway, yesterday’s long and winding testimony sparked off a memory – a not-too-distant one. As Mr Sessions gave in to darkly humorous schadenfreude by blatantly laughing when people like freshman Senator Harris could not complete their questioning due to time constraints and Senator McCain’s oh-so-very-annoying manterruption. And as the Attorney-General chuckled (quite cutely, we hate to admit) at he and Senator Tom Cotton’s espionage banter, we were suddenly reminded of Desiree Fairooz.

Desiree Fairooz is another controversial Washington veteran. Except she’s more of a specialist in the protesting department. If you remember this incident, then you are well-acquainted with her legend:

Yeah, she cray cray.

If you are not familiar with her legend, Desiree is an tough activist in her 60s.  She was once a children’s librarian and a teacher. She’s now with the liberal CODEPINK NGO which rallies local women to campaign towards ending all wars and militarism.

Desiree showed up (along with two other friends) at Jeff Sessions’ Senate confirmation hearing on the 10th of January. She was dressed for business a pink get-up topped off with a paper crown that announced her affiliation.

As Sessions’ confirmation began, Tighe Barry and Lenny Bianchi, Desiree’s friends who came dressed as KKK fanclub for Jeff Sessions had just been arrested and escorted out of the room. Desiree remained inside, even though she was uneasy.

When Senators started to giving opening addresses as to why Jeff Sessions was qualified for the position and Senator Richard Shelby, said Sessions’ record of “treating all Americans equally under the law is clear and well-documented”, The Guardian reports that Desiree laughed out loud twice.

She fondly remembered being unable to hold in her chortle at the absurdity of Senator Shelby’s claim “because his history shows otherwise”.

A little backstory here…

Jeff Sessions should have beccome a federal judge in 1986. It was during the tenure of President Reaga and Mr Sessions was still US district attorney. Sessions’ confirmation hearing that year failed because senators Joe Biden (went on to become the best Vice President there ever was) and Ted Kennedy (later assassinated) led a charge against him on account of his “racist history”.

Coretta Scott King, Martin Luther King’s wife’s letter was admitted as proof that Sessions had dismissed organisations such as the NAACP and the ACLU as “un-American” and suggested a white civil rights attorney was a race traitor for taking on a voting rights case in Alabama during the 1980s.”

He was also accused of having “referred to a black official in his US attorney’s office as “boy” and told him to be careful what he said to white people.” He denied the charges but it did not help that he’d once admitted to having “admired the KKK until he found out they smoked marijuana”.

More recently, Mr Sessions has been reported to have referred to the Black Lives Matter movement as a “really radical” group responsible for a spike in violent crime in some US cities.

So it was indeed laughable to hear another Senator saying Jeff Session had a history of treating all Americans equally.

It is widely reported that Desiree was then escorted from the room only to be charged for “disorderly or disruptive conduct” with the intent to disrupt congressional proceedings, as well as “parading, demonstrating or picketing”.

The charges filed against her read that “her disruptive behaviour included yelling that Senator Sessions’ ‘voting record was evil’ and waving a sign that read: ‘Support civil rights, stop [S]essions’ and that her disorderly conduct grew louder and more disruptive as she was being removed from the room”.

The Huffington Post reported that Desiree was arrested by “a rookie cop who had never conducted an arrest before nor worked at a congressional hearing.”

Desiree’s view is that it was her “responsibility as a citizen to dissent at the confirmation hearing of Senator Jeff Sessions, a man who professes anti-immigrant, anti-LGBT policies, who has voted against several civil rights measures and who jokes about the white supremacist terrorist group the Ku Klux Klan”.

Her trial held on the 1st of May before a jury which found (her and two friends) guilty of the charges. They ought to be sentenced this month and may be facing jail time for their offences misdemeanors).

Desiree has said that she does not think hat the jury understood their instructions but is optimistic because she believes that the “judge has recommended, or kind of intimated, that our lawyers should give themselves lots of time before sentencing and so our attorneys think—these are court appointed attorneys—think that that means he’s suggesting that they file motions to have the judgment vacated, overturning the decision of the jury.”