Senate

NAACP protests Sessions’s nomination in Alabama office

by Jordain Carney - 01/03/17 4:15 PM ET

NAACP protesters staged a sit-in on Tuesday at the Mobile, Ala., office of Sen. Jeff Sessions, Donald Trump’s attorney general pick, telling him to ask Trump to withdraw his nomination.

The Alabama Republican’s nomination has earned backlash from Democrats and outside groups, who have questioned if he would be able to apply the law equally to all Americans. Accusations that Sessions made racist comments when he was a U.S. attorney in Alabama sunk his 1986 nomination to serve as a federal judge.

“In the midst of rampant voter suppression, this nominee has failed to acknowledge the reality of voter suppression while pretending to believe in the myth of voter fraud,” NAACP President Cornell William Brooks told CNN from Sessions’s office.

{mosads}He added that the country needs an attorney general who “acknowledges the reality of voter suppression, someone who is going to stand at the side of people who need the defense of the attorney general and a Justice Department that works for everyone.”

He said in a separate tweet that the protestors would stay in the Alabama senator’s office until Trump withdraws Sessions from consideration or the protesters were arrested.

The @NAACP & @AlabamaNAACP are occupying the Mobile office of @jeffsessions–untill he withdraws as a AG nominee or we’re arrested.@tvonetv pic.twitter.com/7uceDDpz1Y

— Cornell Wm. Brooks (@CornellWBrooks) January 3, 2017

Sessions was nominated by Trump in November, and the Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to hold confirmation hearings for him next week.

Sessions highlighted his work to combat voter suppression in documents he handed over to the committee, noting he worked on the “first voter suppression lawsuit” brought by the Department of Justice.

Sessions has repeatedly denied the accusations that foiled his 1986 nomination. Still, almost 150 outside groups have announced plans to rehash the alleged comments during his confirmation process.

Tags Donald Trump Jeff Sessions