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  • 2017-01-19 (xsd:date)
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  • Did Coretta Scott King Criticize Jeff Sessions' Record? (en)
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  • Alabama senator Jeff Sessions was nominated by President-elect Donald Trump to serve as his administration's Attorney General, and as Sessions' confirmation hearings unfolded in January 2017, criticism of his record by civil rights activist Coretta Scott King resurfaced after two decades. Coretta Scott King, who founded the King Center for Nonviolent Change following the 1968 assassination of her husband, civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., wrote the Senate Judiciary Committee in March 1986 urging the committee not to confirm Sessions' appointment as a federal judge. The letter was never entered into the congressional record by the committee head, Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, but the Washington Post published it in its entirety on 10 January 2017. King's letter accused Sessions of abusing his authority while investigating voter fraud allegations two years earlier as a federal prosecutor in Alabama, stating in part: Making Sessions a federal judge, she wrote, would irreparably damage the work of my husband and other advocates for voting rights: On 7 February 2017, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) attempted to read King's letter on the Senate floor to protest Sessions' nomination, but was forced to stop after Republican senators voted to silence her. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) invoked Senate Rule 19, which states that directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator. By reading King's letter, McConnell argued, Warren had impugned the motives and conduct of our colleague from Alabama. (en)
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