Democrats stall Jeff Sessions appointment by one more day

Democrats have successfully stalled the approval of one of Donald Trump’s most controversial picks, Jeff Sessions for Attorney General, for another day.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said the Democrats were “frankly outrageous” for delaying the confirmation.

“I know I’ve repeated this every day but honestly it’s getting a bit ridiculous,’ said Mr Spicer, calling the Democrat filibustering and boycotting “embarrassing”.

“The mere idea that they’re not even showing up to hearings is truly outrageous,” he added.

As Mr Spicer was giving a briefing, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer announced he would invoke the “two-hour rule”.

Mr Schumer tweeted on Monday: “The American people need answers on exec orders from Sen Sessions. [Senate] Judicial Committee shouldn’t proceed until we get them so I’ll invoke the two-hour rule.”

The senate panel was expected to approve and advance Mr Sessions for a vote in the full senate on Tuesday, but have delayed the committee vote until Wednesday morning.

The rarely-invoked senate tool to delay the vote comes as strong opposition remains to President Trump’s pick for one of the highest offices in the nation. Democrats have tied Mr Sessions to the so-called travel ban of refugees and immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries.

“Not one order idea or pronouncement is meant to bring this country together; they only serve to drive us further apart,” Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein said.

“It is in this context we are being asked to consider this nomination.”

Mr Session was deemed too racist to serve as a federal judge in the 1980s due to allegations of racial discrimination. He was given a Senate hearing at the time, and they heard that he dismissed organisations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) and the American Civil Liberties Union as “un-American”. He was also accused of suggesting a white civil rights lawyer was a “race traitor” for taking on a voting rights case in Alabama.

This month, Democratic Senator for Minnesota Al Franken grilled Mr Sessions on his claims that he had filed dozens of lawsuits in his home state to challenge segregation in schools. He admitted his name had been on the paperwork but that he was not at the head of these cases or was as involved in them as was previously suggested. During the time he claimed to file these lawsuits, most schools in the state had already been desegregated.

He was also accused of sympathising with the Ku Klux Klan at this time.

“These are damnably false charges,” he insisted at his Senate hearing on Tuesday.

“I never declared the NAACP was un-American or that a civil rights attorney to be a disgrace to his race,” he added. “There is nothing I am more proud of than my 14 years in the Department of Justice."

When same-sex marriage was legalised at a federal level in the summer of 2015, he said the move was an “effort to secularise, by force and intimidation”.

He was asked at his Senate confirmation hearing if he still believed that Roe v Wade, a 1973 law that guaranteed a woman a right to an abortion at certain stages of her pregnancy, was the most “erroneous” decision the Supreme Court had ever made.

He said at the hearing that he would not actively seek to overturn the law, but did not clarify what he would do if lawmakers moved to repeal the laws.

Mr Sessions was key in persuading Mr Trump to hire Mike Pence as Vice President, a man who consistently fought women’s reproductive rights as Indian Governor.