McConnell Praises Sessions: 'Believes Strongly in the Rule of Law'

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Tuesday praised Sen. Jeff Sessions, who is undergoing confirmation hearings as attorney general, as "someone who believes strongly in the rule of law."

"We know he's a forthright colleague, an experienced attorney," the Kentucky Republican said on the Senate floor. "We know that he'll reach across the aisle as well.

Sessions, an Alabama GOP member first elected in 2006, was undergoing confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.

President-elect Donald Trump nominated Sessions as the nation's top attorney in November. Sessions was the first sitting senator to endorse Trump's candidacy.

The Republican has come under strong attack by Democrats and civil rights groups, charging that he has a history of making racist comments and as someone who would work against laws created to protect voting rights for minorities.

In 1986, Sessions had his nomination for a federal judgeship scuttled when character witnesses testified that he had made racist comments.

"A lot of unfair things have been said about our colleague from Alabama in recent weeks," McConnell said Tuesday. "I'm glad he's finally getting the chance to show Americans in the committee the Sen. Sessions we all know and serve with.

"I look forward to the Senate's fair treatment of our colleague's forthcoming nomination, just as it fairly processed an incoming President [Barack] Obama's pick for attorney general — a nominee, who, as I noted, Sen. Sessions supported."

McConnell was referring to Eric Holder, whom Obama nominated in 2009. He opposed Obama's nomination of Holder's successor, Loretta Lynch, in 2015.

The majority leader also called on Senate Democrats to give all of Trump's nominees "serious consideration and cooperation" — noting that Republicans confirmed seven of Obama's appointees on Inauguration Day in 2009.

"These nominees were hardly centrists," McConnell said. "We had reservations about many of them.

"But Democrats had won the presidency and the Senate, and we hadn't.

"I ask our friends across the aisle to now demonstrate the same courtesy and seriousness for President-elect Trump's nominees, especially his national-security team.

"This is a time for serious consideration and cooperation," he said. "Americans aren't looking for partisan games."

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