The Senate Judiciary Committee is voting Tuesday morning on the nomination of Sen. Jeff Sessions as attorney general, a politically charged pick that’s receiving even more scrutiny in the wake of President Donald Trump’s executive orders on immigration.
The panel is expected to approve and advance Sessions for a vote in the full Senate
Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley opened the session with a pre-emptive defense of Sessions.
“He knows the department better than any nominee for attorney general, he’s a man of his word, and most importantly he will enforce the law no matter whether he would have supported that law as a member of the Senate,” Grassley, R-Iowa, said.
The Senate Judiciary Committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, lit into Sessions by tying him to the travel ban and other actions from the new Trump administration.
“Not one order, idea or pronouncement is meant to bring this country to gether, they only serve to drive us further apart,” Feinstein said. “It is in this context we are being asked to consider this nomination.”
Feinstein read from a Washington Post article that touted Sessions’ deep influence in Trump’s new administration — including highlights of the Alabama senator’s loyalists working on policy.
“How could we possibly conclude that this nominee is going to be independent?” Feinstein said.
Sessions has denied he was involved in drafting Trump’s travel ban. In written responses to the Judiciary Committee, he wrote: “Neither I, nor any of my current staff, had such a role.”
“During the campaign, President Trump sought my and my staff’s input on a number of matters on which I have taken very public positions as a Senator; however, it would be impossible for me to know the degree to which that input was relied upon in formulating or drafting the Executive Orders in question,” Sessions wrote.
Grassley echoed that Tuesday morning.
“Some on the order side have raised concerns about Sen. Sessions, whether he’s involved, if he was involved in drafting the executive order. It’s not clear to me why it would be a problem if he was involved. But the fact of the matter is he was not involved,” Grassley said.
