Jeff Sessions confirmation hearing to shine light on history of racism claims

Trump nominee for attorney general will face testimony
by the ACLU’s legal director as the Alabama senator is
accused of ‘30-year record of insensitivity’

Jon Swaine and Oliver Laughland in New York
Monday 9 January 2017 19.18 GMT

Donald Trump’s nominee for US attorney general will on Tuesday be forced to defend a career dogged by claims of racism and bigotry, as Democrats begin a struggle to block cabinet appointments made by the president-elect.

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Bakari T Sellers
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Jeff Sessions, a law-and-order Alabama conservative loathed by civil rights activists, is due to be questioned by senators at the first confirmation hearing of an overloaded week in Washington, where Republicans are moving to steamroll opposition to nine of Trump’s contentious selections.

Democratic Senate leaders have accused Trump of trying to “jam through unvetted nominees”, while in an extraordinary statement, the nonpartisan Office of Government Ethics condemned the “vote-a-rama” strategy as unprecedented in its four-decade existence.

The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, dismissed such concerns on Monday. “Everybody will be properly vetted as they have been in the past,” he told reporters after meeting Trump in New York, “and I’m hopeful that we’ll get up to six or seven – particularly national security team – in place on day one.”

The selection of Sessions, who was denied a federal judgeship 30 years ago amid explosive allegations of racial discrimination, has met especially strong opposition from campaigners distressed by the senator’s record on a wide range of issues.

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