sessions walks back that claim and says he only provided assistance. case six, which senator cruz took pains to mention, and which senator sessions claimed credit for supervising was not was not a civil rights case. it was a public corruption case. senator cruz cleverly attempted to conflate the cases in order to make it seem as if senator sessions had supervised litigation in a civil rights case. senator cruz deflected to point out that all four of the civil rights cases at issue here had either concluded or were still active back when senator sessions appeared before this committee in 1986. 30 years ago, though, senator sessions did not list any of
what s wrong with that. but if the views the president wants to execute are unlawful, should the attorney or the deputy attorney general say no? last page, ms. yates responded, quote, senator, i believe the attorney general or the deputy attorney general has an obligation to follow the law. and the constitution and to give their independent legal advice to the president. and as everyone here should agree, that s exactly what ms. yates did monday night, whether you agree with it or not. this nation owes her a debt of gratitude. but chairman grassley, senator sessions has not demonstrated that he is capable of fulfilling the same obligation. before this committee votes to advance this nomination, it s important we know whether senator sessions is able, or willing to separate fact from fiction and speak truth to
as you re talking, there s a lot of action. he didn t even notice because he s so focused and so good. phil, thank you so much. let s bring in the aforementioned former senator rick santorum, also he ran for president as well. mark preston from cnn is here, simone sanders is here as well, she was the press secretary for bernie sanders presidential campaign. senator, you sat here us with as we saw the tail end of that very passionate and emotional back and forth going on in the senate judiciary. the vote happened, it moves to the floor. why did this get so heated? less about sessions, more about the white house? yeah, i have to tell you, this was surprising, the level of rancor that i saw. and it s not that i haven t seen it before on other nominations or other things. the thing that really was surprising, this is a fellow member of the senate. i m just telling you, you don t do this. this just doesn t happen, for
then i asked him whether he had talked to the president-elect about the issue and senator sessions said, quote, i have not talked to him about that in any depth. flo now, the department of justice under the attorney general s leadership and direction is tasked with protecting the right to vote and with prosecuting fraud. so it seems unusual to me that the president-elect would not would make such a bold claim asserting that a fraud of truly epic proportions had occurred and that he wouldn t bother to discuss it with the guy he appointed to be the nation s top cop. that didn t seem to bother senator sessions. i know you re looking at the time, but i was interrupted and i would like to finish my remarks as everyone else here got to yesterday. there s only a few pages remaining. proceed. thank you, mr. chairman. and i don t suppose this should
senator cruz did not mention that. i wonder what changed between 1986 and now that caused these four civil rights cases to take on new significance for the nominee. it s hard to say. look, senator cruz is a brilliant attorney. but he doesn t have a case here. and the fact of the matter is that senator sessions misrepresented his record by claiming to have personally handled cases that he simply did not handle. and the supplement he filed doesn t explain that misrepresentation away. it lays it bare for all to see. senator sessions would not have tolerated that kind of misrepresentation from a nominee