ACLU: Dems should block vote on Sessions until "Muslim ban" is gone. https://t.co/GuRBYW6QK7
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) January 30, 2017
Good for them. From the Washington Post:
Senate Judiciary Committee members on Tuesday sparred over whether Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) can operate independently of the president if confirmed as attorney general — a debate that took on new importance after President Trump’s late-night firing of acting attorney general Sally Yates for refusing to defend his immigration order.
Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), the committee’s chairman, said that Sessions will “follow the law, regardless of whether he would have supported it as a matter of policy as a senator.” He said Sessions offered no help in drafting Trump’s order, although it is “not clear to me why it would be a problem even if he had been involved.”
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the panel, attacked Trump’s order and noted that Sessions’s ideals seem to have at least shaped it. She read aloud from Yates’s memo declaring that she did not find Trump’s immigration order lawful, then referenced the “Saturday Night Massacre,” when two top Justice Department officials resigned over an order from President Richard Nixon…
The committee scheduled a vote on Sessions’s nomination for Wednesday morning. A vote by the full Senate is expected later in the week….
Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) said he will vote against the nominee because of concerns about Sessions’s civil rights record, his failure to address Russia’s interference in the November presidential election and ethical conflicts in the Trump administration, among other issues. He took aim Tuesday at Trump’s firing of Yates, saying the president had “placed the independence of the Justice Department at stake.”…
…[N]o Democrat on the committee has declared an intention to vote for Sessions, and Democrats are increasing efforts to delay the confirmation of several of Trump’s Cabinet nominees.
Jefferson Beauregard Sessions is every terrible political idea of the last hundred-plus years wrapped in the skin of a depraved leprechaun, and he no more deserves to be in a position of power than… Donald Trump.
We are asking all people of good will to call 1-877-959-6082 to make your opposition to @SenatorSessions known. We must #stopsessions pic.twitter.com/oZYbJOY86f
— NAACP (@NAACP) January 30, 2017
call the number and put in your zip code and it connects the call to your senator. couldn't be easier. https://t.co/J6E4gWyF8a
— Churlish (@Cryptoterra) January 31, 2017
Open Thread: Democrats Standing Up Against SessionsPost + Comments (21)