Two protesters dressed as KKK members disrupted the Senate confirmation hearing for Trump Attorney General nominee Jeff Sessions before it began, according to reports on social media.
Watch it LIVE here.
Protesters dressed as KKK members shout before Sessions hearing begins. Removed by Capitol Police pic.twitter.com/072axGCe4f
— Bridget Bowman (@bridgetbhc) January 10, 2017
Sessions hearing interrupted before it began. Sessions walks in, two men in audience purport to be KKK members, yell 'Jefferson Beauregard!'
— Byron York (@ByronYork) January 10, 2017
Sessions was denied a federal judgeship as a US Attorney in 1986 in Alabama because the Senate Judiciary Committee heard testimony about Sessions’ racist remarks and that he labeled the NAACP and ACLU “un-American.”
As far as Sessions’ homophobia goes, the Alabama senator has been a vocal opponent of marriage equality. He also grilled then Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan on her opposition to ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell during her senate confirmation hearings and said he would do crack cocaine at Sonia Sotomayor’s hearings. He also opposed the Matthew Shepard hate crimes act and supports the First Amendment Defense Act, the heinous bill that would allow businesses to cite religious beliefs as justification to discriminate against LGBT people. In 1996, as Alabama’s attorney general, Sessions fought tooth and nail to stop the Southeastern Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual College Conference from meeting at the University of Alabama but did not prevail.
In an unprecedented move, Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) plans to testify against Sessions today, the first time that a senator has testified against another sitting senator in a Cabinet confirmation hearing.
