Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, Donald Trump's pick for attorney general, will face the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday and Wednesday for his confirmation hearing. Sessions, a Republican who has served in Congress for two decades, has had his nomination protested for his record on civil rights, voting rights and criminal justice. A key controversy: In 1986, the Judiciary Committee rejected Sessions' nomination to be a federal judge.
As NPR's Carrie Johnson has reported, the lifetime-tenured judgeship was denied "after lawyers testified he had a record of making racially insensitive statements. Sessions denied he was a racist, but he acknowledged he made a joke about thinking members of the KKK were all right — until he learned they smoked marijuana."
Read more about those hearings in this piece by NPR's Nina Totenberg: Who's The Real Jeff Sessions? Two Hearings In 1986 Show A Conflicting Picture
You can view the live stream of Tuesday's hearing above; here are five things to watch for.
Copyright 2017 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.
