WASHINGTON (AP) – A letter sent by Coretta Scott King saying Jeff Sessions would be a bad choice for a lifetime federal judgeship is receiving new attention after Sen. Elizabeth Warren was rebuked Tuesday evening for quoting King’s letter on the Senate floor.
Staffers from the Alabama senator’s original hearing say a clerical error must have kept it from being included in the original record.
In the 1986 letter and statement, the widow of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. said Sessions’ actions as a federal prosecutor in Alabama were “reprehensible” and said he used his office “in a shabby attempt to intimidate and frighten elderly black voters.”
But the letter and statement never appeared in Sessions’ hearing record in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Sessions was eventually rejected as a federal judge, but went on to become Alabama’s U.S. senator. He was confirmed by the Senate Wednesday to be U.S. attorney general.
In her letter, King said a previous appointment kept her from being in Washington personally to speak against Sessions.