Al Franken: “Thank you, Mr. President. I rise in opposition to the nomination of Senator Jeff Sessions to serve as our Nation's next…”

“Thank you, Mr. President. I rise in opposition to the nomination of Senator Jeff Sessions to serve as our Nation's next Attorney General. The U.S. Attorney General has a job like none other. Our Nation's top law enforcement officer doesn't enforce just the laws designed to protect national security and keep the public safe but also the laws designed to protect Americans' civil rights and civil liberties, the laws that guarantee each and every American access to the same opportunities and to participate fully in our democracy. I know Senator Sessions. He and I have served on the Judiciary Committee together since I joined the Senate back in 2009, and I have a good relationship with Senator Sessions. I respect him as a colleague. But as anyone who has observed Senator Sessions or me in a Judiciary Committee hearing could probably tell you, he and I have very different views about many of the issues that he stands to influence as Attorney General, particularly matters of equal justice. So once the President announced his nomination and after Senator Sessions submitted his material to the committee, I reviewed his background carefully, and I paid special attention to how he described his work on civil rights. I noticed some discrepancies in the way he described his involvement in civil rights cases filed during his time as U.S. attorney.…”