Democrats turn up heat at Sessions grilling

WASHINGTON—Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., loomed large before the Senate Judiciary Committee today without ever stepping foot in the room.

Yesterday, Sessions endured more than 10 hours under the spotlight in his job interview to become the next U.S. attorney general, defending his record as a prosecutor and fitness for the position. Today, Sessions stayed home and a double panel of witnesses duked it out on his behalf.

The most striking comments came from unprecedented oppositional testimony from Sen. Corey Booker, D-N.J., who became the first sitting senator to appear against one of his colleagues seeking a Cabinet position.

“I know that some of my colleagues are unhappy that I’m breaking with Senate tradition to testify against the nomination of one of my colleagues,” Booker said. “But I believe, like perhaps all of my colleagues, that in the choice between standing with Senate norms or standing up for what my conscience tells me is best for our country, I will always choose conscience and country.”

Booker called it a moral obligation to speak out against Sessions because he believes the nominee will not make civil rights, voting rights, and reforming the criminal justice system priorities with the Justice Department’s limited resources.

Although several of President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees appeared on Capitol Hill this week for Senate grilling, no confirmation hearings have been more politicized than the prospective attorney general’s. Weeks before hearings ever started, Democrats highlighted Trump’s pick to lead the Justice Department as an appointment they wanted to block.

Republicans have a 52-48 majority in the Senate and don’t need any help from Democrats to confirm Trump’s Cabinet picks, but Democrats hope to pummel Sessions into damaged goods before that vote ever happens.

“You all must face a choice: Be courageous or be complicit,” Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-La., who chairs the 49-member Congressional Black Caucus, told the Senate Judiciary Committee. “If you vote to confirm Sen. Sessions, you take ownership of everything he may do.”

Richmond joined Booker on the final, six-person, all African-American panel to testify against Sessions. The witnesses included Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., and others who had previously worked with the Republican senator.

But several of Sessions’ closest friends rallied to his defense.

“After 20 years of knowing Sen. Sessions I have not seen the slightest evidence of racism because it does not exist,” said William Smith, an African-American and former Sessions Senate employee. “I know a racist when I see one, and I’ve seen more than one, but Jeff Sessions is not one.”

During the first panel of the day, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey said Sessions is more than qualified to lead the Justice Department.

“[O]f all the insidious practices that have crept into our politics in recent times, I know of none more insidious than casual and unjustified accusations of racism, smears that once leveled are difficult to wipe clean,” Mukasey said in his written testimony.

Former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson agreed. Thompson worked with Sessions as a U.S. attorney in the 1980s and said he never saw him treat minorities unfairly.

After hearing NAACP President Cornell Brooks call Sessions unfit to be attorney general, Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., poked fun at the witnesses’ partisanship, reading the organization’s scorecard ratings for each member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. No Republican scored above 26 percent, and all but one Democrat was a perfect 100.

“I hope that doesn’t make us all racist and all of them perfect,” he said.