Rejected on Senate Floor, Sen. Elizabeth Warren Takes Speech to Facebook

Sen. Elizabeth Warren late Monday night took the letter she intended to read on the Senate floor and instead read it on her Facebook page.

Warren, D-Mass., was formally silenced by leadership from reading a letter written by Coretta Scott King, widow of Dr. Martin Luther King, nearly 30 years ago about Sen. Jeff Sessions.

Coretta King, then in 1986, wrote the letter regarding Sessions' nomination for federal judgeship, for which he was ultimately rejected.

Warren has been an outspoken critic of Sessions' nomination for attorney general.

"During the debate on whether to make Jeff Sessions the next Attorney General, I tried to read a letter from Coretta Scott King on the floor of the Senate. The letter, from 30 years ago, urged the Senate to reject the nomination of Jeff Sessions to a federal judgeship. The Republicans took away my right to read this letter on the floor — so I'm right outside, reading it now," Warren posted on Facebook, also her intro to the speech.

"Mr. Sessions has used the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens in the district he now seeks to serve as a federal judge," Warren quoted from King's letter.

"Mr. Sessions' conduct as a U.S. attorney … indicated he lacks the temperament, fairness and judgment to be a federal judge," King wrote back then.

Warren's reading of the letter on the Senate floor technically put Warren in violation of Senate rules for "impugning the motives" of Sessions.

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