During a press briefing Wednesday, White House press secretary Sean Spicer defended attorney general nominee Sen. Jeff Sessions’ (R-AL) record on civil and voting rights as “outstanding.”
Spicer praised Sessions’ record after he was asked about a letter from Coretta Scott King, harshly critical of Sessions, that several Democratic senators read on Senate floor on Tuesday and Wednesday. Senate Republicans voted to silence Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) Tuesday evening when she read the letter.
That letter and Democrats’ continued protests against Sessions’ nomination have shed new light on his prosecution of black voter outreach activists in Alabama in 1984.
“We have a lot of respect for her and the sacrifices that she made, and the sacrifices that frankly she endured in her life, but I would respectfully disagree with her assessment of Sen. Sessions then and now. His record on civil and voting rights I think is outstanding,” Spicer said.
He referred to the late Sen. Arlen Spector (R-PA), who said he regretted voting against Sessions for a federal judgeship more than two decades after the vote.
“And like Arlen Specter, the late Arlen Specter, I can only hope that if she was still with us today, that after getting to know him and to see his record and his commitment to voting and civil rights, that she would share the same view that Sen. Spector did,” Spicer said. “He said, although I voted against him, getting to know the man that he is now, I regret that vote.”
Spicer went on to call Sessions “a tireless advocate for civil rights.”
Sessions, he said, “stood up for voting rights, he prosecuted the Klan, [and] stood up for Coretta Scott King getting the gold medal,” presumably referring to the Congressional Gold Medal awarded posthumously to both Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King.
