1986 letter from MLK’s widow opposing Sessions resurfaces

Martin Luther King Jr.’s widow implored the Senate to block Jeff Sessions from becoming a federal judge in 1986.

The letter from Coretta Scott King was published by The Washington Post Tuesday, as Sessions, now an Alabama senator, begins his confirmation hearings to become President-elect Donald Trump’s attorney general.

In the letter, King says Sessions would “irreparably damage the work” of Martin Luther King Jr.

The nine-page letter was previously unavailable to the public, as it was not entered into the congressional record, the Post reported. 

“Anyone who has used the power of his office as United States Attorney to intimate and chill the free exercise of the ballot by citizens should not be elevated to our courts,” King wrote in the letter.

{mosads}The Senate blocked Sessions’s nomination to serve as a federal judge in Alabama under Ronald Reagan’s administration. At the time, Sessions was accused of making racist comments, claims he vehemently denied then and this week, and faced scrutiny for his record on voting rights, particularly over his prosecution of black activists for voter fraud; they were later acquitted.

“The irony of Mr. Sessions’ nomination is that, if confirmed, he will be given a life tenure for doing with a federal prosecution what the local sheriffs accomplished twenty years ago with clubs and cattle prods,” she wrote.

“Based on his record, I believe his confirmation would have a devastating effect on not only the judicial system in Alabama, but also on the progress we have made everywhere toward fulfilling my husband’s dream that he envisioned over twenty years ago,” the she added.

The Post’s report on the letter comes after the first day of Sessions’ confirmation hearing to become attorney general under Trump.

“Thirty years ago, the Senate rejected Sessions’ appointment to a federal judgeship because he was deemed too extreme then,” Democratic National Committee chairwoman Donna Brazile said in a statement Tuesday morning. “If they confirm him now, Republicans will be turning back the clock on all the progress we’ve made as a nation.”