A divided Senate Judiciary Committee voted along party lines Wednesday to approve the nomination of Sen. Jeff Sessions for attorney general, rejecting Democrats’ concerns about the independence of President Trump’s pick after a dust-up this week over Justice Department leadership.
The 11-9 vote was taken a day later than expected, after Senate Democrats doubled down on their opposition during a Tuesday meeting. Democrats questioned Mr. Sessions’ ability to stand up to Mr. Trump on legal matters, pointing to the president’s Monday night dismissal of acting Attorney General Sally Q. Yates as a need for independence in the office.
Mr. Sessions’ nomination now advances to the full Senate, where Republicans hold a 52-seat majority and are expected to approve him.
Opposition continued Wednesday ahead of the committee vote, as Sen. Al Franken, Minnesota Democrat, raised questions about Mr. Trump’s pledges to investigate allegations of voter fraud in the 2016 election. Mr. Trump obtained enough votes in the Electoral College to win but lost the popular vote to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton by about 2.8 million votes.
“Before the members of this committee vote on Sen. Sessions’ nomination, we deserve to know whether the president intends for the attorney general or the Justice Department to lead this investigation,” Mr. Franken said. “When the president of the United States lies about the existence of massive widespread fraud, it is the job of the attorney general to call him out on it. The attorney general has an obligation to tell it like it is.”
Mr. Sessions, a Republican who has represented Alabama in the Senate for 20 years, already has faced a difficult nomination. Civil rights groups pushed lawmakers to reject his nomination over past allegations of racism and his record on voting and gay rights. During a two-day hearing, Mr. Sessions defended himself against charges that he made racially insensitive comments about black colleagues in the 1980s — allegations that derailed his bid for a federal judgeship in 1986.
Republicans characterized the Democrats’ dissent as bitterness over Mr. Trump’s electoral victory and sought to separate Mr. Sessions’ nomination from the controversy over the president’s executive orders.
Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, said Tuesday that voters viewed Mr. Sessions as “an antidote to the politicization of the Department of Justice” under Attorneys General Eric H. Holder Jr. and Loretta E. Lynch. Other Republicans said they have disagreed at times with Mr. Sessions but believe they can count on him to uphold the law.
“Members of the Judiciary Committee, especially many of us who have served alongside Sen. Sessions for many years, know that he is a man of integrity and a man who will uphold and enforce all laws equally,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley, Iowa Republican and committee chairman. “In more than 10 hours of testimony before this committee and in answers to more than 700 written follow-up questions, Sen. Sessions pledged to be independent, fair and evenhanded, even with laws that he may have voted against as senator.”
During his confirmation hearing in January, Mr. Sessions reiterated that if an attorney general is asked to do something unlawful, “he cannot participate in that.”
“That person would have to resign ultimately before agreeing to execute a policy that the attorney general believes would be unlawful or unconstitutional,” he said.
Ms. Yates was fired Monday and replaced by Dana Boente, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, after she defiantly announced her refusal to defend in court the president’s executive order banning refugees and travelers from some Muslim-majority countries.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Tuesday that Ms. Yates’ actions “took guts.”
“That is what an attorney general must be willing and able to do,” Mrs. Feinstein said. “I have no confidence that Sen. Sessions will do that.”
Mr. Trump’s order, signed Friday, indefinitely halts the resettlement of Syrian refugees in the U.S. and temporarily bars travel to the U.S. by nearly all citizens of seven countries.
Reaction to the Judiciary Committee’s vote was swift, with law enforcement groups supportive of Mr. Sessions’ nomination and urging the full Senate to approve him.
“Jeff Sessions is a man who can and has reached across the aisle to get things done for the rank-and-file officer as well as a man who will support those same officers, even when it is unpopular to do so,” said Chuck Canterbury, president of the National Fraternal Order of Police. “The men and women serving in law enforcement will be proud to have Sen. Sessions as our top cop.”
But civil liberties groups that have protested the nomination said they will continue to try to block Mr. Sessions’ Senate confirmation.
NAACP President Cornell Williams Brooks and 10 other activists were arrested and charged with trespassing Monday after staging a sit-in outside Mr. Sessions’ office in Mobile, Alabama. Mr. Brooks said during Mr. Sessions’ hearing that the former federal prosecutor’s record “evinces a clear disregard, disrespect, and even disdain for the civil and human rights of racial and ethnic minorities, women, the disabled and others who suffer from discrimination in this country.”
The organization issued an action alert Wednesday urging people to contact senators ahead of the pending vote.
• Andrea Noble can be reached at anoble@washingtontimes.com.
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