Senator had come under fire for his views on race and civil rights in a tempestuous confirmation process that strained the upper chamber’s norms

A closely divided Senate confirmed the nomination of Jeff Sessions to be attorney general on Wednesday after a historically tumultuous confirmation process that saw the senator from Alabama come under fire for his views on race and civil rights.

Why is Jeff Sessions such a controversial pick for US attorney general? Read more

All but one Democrat voted against confirming Sessions, while his Republican colleagues unanimously backed him. The final tally of senators was 52 to 47.

Many senators broke into applause after the vote over one of the chamber’s own members being elevated to the cabinet. But they were almost all Republicans. A handful of Democrats, including Joe Donnelly of Indiana and Bill Nelson of Florida, gave a few polite claps.



The confirmation process for Sessions, a four-term senator, tested the Senate’s norms of treating colleagues with deference.

Democrat Cory Booker of New Jersey became the first sitting senator ever to testify against the nomination of a colleague, and growing tensions on the floor led to the rare use of Senate procedure on Tuesday to silence Democrat Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts for quoting a 30-year-old letter attacking Sessions written by Coretta Scott King, the late widow of Martin Luther King Jr.

Sessions came under scrutiny for his record on civil rights. He had previously been nominated to be a federal district judge in 1986 by the then president, Ronald Reagan, but allegations of racism torpedoed his nomination, which was voted down in committee.

Sessions rebounded politically to become Alabama attorney general and then win election in 1996 to the Senate, where he became one of the leading immigration hawks in the Republican caucus. Sessions helped lead the effort to derail comprehensive immigration reform in 2013 and formed a close alliance with the far-right website Breitbart in the process. Breitbart’s editor at the time, Steve Bannon, is now a top White House aide.

The Alabama senator became the first federal elected official to endorse Donald Trump’s campaign, in February 2016, not long after his longtime aide, Stephen Miller, joined Trump’s campaign as a speechwriter and warm-up speaker at rallies. His close ties to Trump raised concern from Democrats, who worried that he would be insufficiently independent of the White House as attorney general.

With his confirmation, Sessions takes over a justice department that has already seen significant drama since Trump took the oath of office. The new president fired the acting attorney general, Sally Yates, last week after the Obama holdover announced that she would not defend his executive order banning entry to the United States from seven Muslim-majority countries.

Trump's cabinet Confirmed

James Mattis (Defense), John Kelly (Homeland Security), Rex Tillerson (State), Elaine Chao (Transportation), Nikki Haley (United Nations), Betsy DeVos (Education), Jeff Sessions (Attorney General), Tom Price (Health and Human Services), Steve Mnuchin (Treasury), David Shulkin (Veterans Affairs), Scott Pruitt (Environmental Protection Agency), Wilbur Ross (Commerce), Ryan Zinke (Interior), Rick Perry (Energy), Ben Carson (Housing and Urban Development), Sonny Perdue (Agriculture), Alexander Acosta (Labor) Awaiting Senate approval

Linda McMahon (Small Business Association), Mick Mulvaney (Office of Management and Budget director), Robert Lighthizer (US trade representative) Withdrawn

Andrew Puzder (Labor) Not yet announced

Council of Economic Advisers chair



The outgoing Republican senator also leaves a Senate ferociously divided as it continues through a series of bruising, partisan confirmation fights over Trump’s nominees. Democrats are planning on keeping the chamber in session through Saturday and dragging out the debate on the nominations of Tom Price to be health and human services secretary and Steven Mnuchin to be secretary of the treasury. Both are expected to be confirmed on party lines.

Sessions gave a conciliatory speech from the floor after his vote where he expressed his hope for reduced tensions and more civil debate after the hard-fought battle over his nomination. He amplified this on his way out, expressing his appreciation for “the friendship of my colleagues, even those who, many of them, didn’t feel able to vote for me. They were cordial, so we’ve continued to have good relations.�?

The one Democrat to vote for Sessions, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, explained his decision to reporters after the vote. “You know, in West Virginia, we basically build on a relationship if we have a relationship, and Jeff Sessions and I have had a relationship for over six years. And everything he was accused of, I’ve never seen, so I am basing on what my knowledge of Jeff Sessions is and I think he’ll be fair and very deliberate in what he does [as attorney general].�?

Manchin, who threw Sessions a thumbs-up on Wednesday night as he headed to place his vote, added that he was confident that when he addressed his constituents, “I can explain my relationship with Jeff Sessions and I’m proud to vote for him.�?

Sessions’ confirmation leaves his Senate seat vacant. Once Sessions formally resigns later Wednesday night, Alabama governor Robert Bentley will appoint his successor, who will run in a special election in 2018 for the remainder of Sessions’ term.

The favorite is state attorney general Luther Strange, who is currently investigating Bentley’s relationship with a former aide, with whom he allegedly had an extramarital affair. By appointing Strange to the Senate seat, Bentley would delay the investigation into his conduct and be responsible for appointing Strange’s replacement.

Once Sessions leaves the Senate and until his replacement is appointed, the GOP will be left with a 51-seat majority as they vote on Trump’s remaining nominees, many of whom are controversial in their own right.</s>WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - The US Senate has confirmed Jeff Sessions as United States Attorney General.



One of Trump's most controversial nominees, Sessions was confirmed head of the Justice Department with a 52-47 vote.



Democratic senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia voted for the Alabama Republican Senator.



Sessions is only the eighth member of the Trump Cabinet to be confirmed. The others are the secretaries of State, Defense, Homeland Security, Education and Transportation, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, US Representative to the United Nations Nikki R. Haley, and CIA Director Mike Pompeo. The heads of several other Departments still await Senate confirmation.



Democrats had raised concerns about Sessions' level of independence from President Donald Trump as well as his record on issues such as immigration, civil rights, women's health, and voting rights.



During the debate, Democratic US Senator Elizabeth Warren was forced to stop reading a letter written by the widow of Martin Luther King Jr. on Tuesday after Senate Republicans voted to formally silence her for impugning a peer.



Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel attacked the Democrats for their effort to block Session's nomination.



'His long and lauded career proves Sen. Sessions is exactly the type of leader we need at the Department of Justice, and I am glad he will finally be able to take his place at the helm,' McDaniel said in a statement congratulating Sessions on his confirmation.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX</s>U.S. Senate moves Jeff Sessions toward confirmation as attorney general

WASHINGTON, Feb 7 (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate on Tuesday, in a procedural vote, cleared the way for confirming President Donald Trump's nomination of Senator Jeff Sessions to be the next attorney general.

By a vote of 52-47, the Republican-controlled Senate agreed to limit debate on Sessions. A final vote on confirming him to head the Justice Department, the nation's top law enforcement job, is likely sometime this week.

Sessions, as is the custom for senators voting on their own nominations, cast a vote of "present."</s>US Senate(WASHINGTON) — Sen. Jeff Sessions has been confirmed as the new attorney general of the United States.

The Senate voted tonight 52-47 in favor of Sessions’ confirmation, marking the conclusion to a bitter battle over his nomination.

Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia was the lone Democrat to vote for confirmation, while Sessions himself voted present.

The Alabama Republican, 70, faced a contentious confirmation process. His nomination for the position had been strongly opposed by Democrats and civil rights groups since then-President-elect Donald Trump tapped him in mid-November. Many critics have cited concerns about past allegations of racism, his record on civil rights and immigration and his failure to be confirmed as a federal judge in 1986 as key points of contention.

Sessions attempted to address some of these concerns during his cabinet hearing in early-January. Speaking to allegations that he had made racist remarks decades ago as Alabama attorney general, 

Sessions said, “I hope my tenure in this body shows you that the caricature of me wasn’t accurate. It wasn’t accurate then, and it’s not accurate now.”

His reputation and qualifications for the attorney general post were also defended by a number of his Republican colleagues.

“He is a man of honor and integrity, dedicated to the faithful and fair enforcement of the law, who knows well and deeply respects the Department of Justice and its role,” Senate Judiciary 

Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said in his opening remarks.

The two days of hearings were marked by intense grilling from Democrats and numerous interruptions by protesters. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., both testified against 

Sessions.

“Those who are committed to equal justice in our society wonder whether Sen. Sessions’ call for ‘law and order’ will mean today what it meant in Alabama, when I was coming up back then,” Lewis said 

in his testimony. “The rule of law was used to violate the human and civil rights of the poor, the dispossessed, people of color.”

Democrats were successful in delaying the Senate Judiciary Committee vote on Sessions once. Before tonight’s floor vote, they held around-the-clock speeches in opposition to his confirmation.</s>The Senate has confirmed President Trump's nominee Jeff Sessions to be the next attorney general, bringing an end to a bitter confirmation fight that has dredged up past accusations of racism against the Alabama senator.

The vote was largely along party lines, 52-47, with only centrist Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia voting yes. Sessions himself voted "present" on his own nomination.

During the past month, Democrats have brought up the past allegations of racism against Sessions, which sank his nomination by President Ronald Reagan three decades ago to be a federal judge. The then-U.S. attorney admitted he had made insensitive remarks and called some top civil rights groups such as the ACLU "un-American."

In his confirmation hearing, Sessions pushed back, saying that his comments were taken out of context.

"I did not harbor the kind of animosities and race-based discrimination ideas I was accused of. I did not," Sessions told the Senate Judiciary Committee, though he admitted that, "I didn't know how to respond and didn't respond very well" during his first failed confirmation.

However, his nomination had drawn some strong and unprecedented rebukes from his colleagues across the aisle.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., was formally silenced by the Senate after she read a letter Coretta Scott King, the widow of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., wrote in 1986 objecting to Sessions' ultimately unsuccessful nomination to the federal bench. The unusual rebuke came because of a rule barring senators from using "any form of words impute to another Senator."

Last month, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., became the first sitting senator ever to testify against a fellow senator's confirmation, arguing he has concerns regarding Sessions' commitment to defending minorities, the LGBT community and voting rights. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., the legendary civil rights leader with whom Trump got into a spat just before his inauguration, also testified against Sessions.

Sessions is the former Alabama attorney general and was first elected to the Senate in 1996. He is one of the most conservative senators in the GOP conference and has been an outspoken opponent of illegal immigration.

It was that shared worldview that led Sessions to become the first senator to endorse the billionaire real estate mogul back in February 2016. One of Sessions' former top aides, Stephen Miller, left his office to work for Trump's campaign and is now a senior White House adviser for policy who has had a heavy hand in crafting many recent executive orders.

With Sessions' confirmation, Trump will have one of his closest allies at the Justice Department at a critical time when the president needs help defending his controversial immigration and travel ban in the courts.

Last month Trump fired Acting Attorney General Sally Yates, a holdover from the Obama administration, after she announced she would not defend his executive order on immigration, replacing her with Dana Boente, the top federal prosecutor in suburban Virginia. Now, Sessions will assume the role of overseeing the defense of the executive order that halts people from seven Muslim-majority countries from coming into the U.S. and stops any resettlement of Syrian refugees.

Over the weekend, a federal judge temporarily blocked the ban from taking effect. On Tuesday night, Washington v. Trump was heard before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where the Department of Justice argued that the president has wide purview over immigration and implementing national security measures and that the ban should be reinstated.</s>The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Sen. Jeff Sessions to be attorney general in the Trump administration despite fierce Democratic opposition to the Alabama Republican over his record on civil rights and immigration.

The 52-47 nearly party-line vote capped weeks of divisive battles over Sessions, an early supporter of President Donald Trump and one of the Senate's most conservative lawmakers. After the vote was announced, Sessions' Republican colleagues applauded the outcome while barely a handful of Democrats did the same.

In a post-vote valedictory speech, Sessions alluded to the bitter partisanship and wished for more collegiality.

"Denigrating people who disagree with us, I think, is not a healthy trend for our body," he said.

Since Trump tapped Sessions, Democrats have laced into the lawmaker, casting him as too cozy with Trump and too harsh on immigrants. They asserted he wouldn't do enough to protect voting rights of minorities, protections for gays and the legal right of women to obtain an abortion. They fear immigrants in the country illegally won't receive due process with Sessions as the top law enforcement officer.

"His record raises doubts about whether he can be a champion for those who need this office most and it also raises doubts about whether he can curb unlawful overreach" by Trump, said Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va.

Republicans say Sessions has demonstrated over a long career in public service — and two decades in the Senate — that he possesses integrity and honesty and is committed to justice.

"He's honest. He's fair. He's been a friend to many of us, on both sides of the aisle," Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said. "It's been tough to watch all this good man has been put through in recent weeks. This is a well-qualified colleague with a deep reverence for the law. He believes strongly in the equal application of it to everyone."

Sessions won unanimous backing from Senate Republicans but picked up the support of just one Democrat, Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley is expected to name a replacement for sessions as early as Thursday. Bentley has named six finalists for the Senate appointment, including state Attorney General Luther Strange and GOP Rep. Robert Aderholt.

Strange is considered a leading candidate for the job since Bentley interviewed potential replacements for state attorney general, according to people close to the process. However, Bentley's office has said he has not made a decision.

Wednesday's vote came amid rising tension between Republicans controlling the chamber over delaying tactics by minority Democratic that have left fewer of Trump's picks in place than President Barack Obama had eight years ago. Democrats no longer have filibuster power over Cabinet picks, however, after changing Senate rules when they controlled the chamber in 2013.

Next up for the Senate is Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., Trump's pick for health secretary. A final vote on Price could come late Thursday and success seemed certain.

Democrats have solidly opposed Price, a staunch advocate of repealing Obama's health care overhaul and reshaping and scaling back the Medicare and Medicaid programs that provide health care to older and low-income people.

But they've mostly accused Price, a wealthy former orthopedic surgeon, of conflicts of interest by acquiring stocks in health care companies and pushing legislation that could help those firms.

They've especially targeted his acquisition of shares in Innate Immunotherapeutics, an Australian biotech firm that's said Price got a special insider's deal. Price, who has said he learned of the opportunity from a fellow lawmaker, Rep. Chris Collins, R-N.Y., had testified to Congress that the shares were available to all investors.

"If I were a prosecutor, I'd say this case has real potential," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Wednesday.

This week has featured overnight, round-the-clock Senate sessions as GOP leaders are grinding through a thicket of controversial picks.

Epitomizing the sharp-edged partisanship surrounding confirmation of Trump's Cabinet nominees, Sen. Elizabeth Warren was given a rare rebuke Tuesday evening for quoting Coretta Scott King, widow of the late civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., in her 1986 criticism of Sessions.

King wrote that as an acting federal prosecutor in Alabama, Sessions used his power to "chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens."

McConnell held that the Massachusetts Democrat had run afoul of rules about impugning a fellow senator.

Sessions' nomination to a federal judgeship was rejected three decades ago by the Senate Judiciary Committee after it was alleged that as a federal prosecutor he had called a black attorney "boy" and had said organizations like the NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union were un-American.

At his hearing last month, Sessions said he had never harbored racial animus.</s>WASHINGTON: The US Senate confirmed Jeff Sessions as attorney general Wednesday, despite vitriolic debate over his civil rights record and whether he can serve as the nation's top law enforcement officer independent from President Donald Trump.

Lawmakers greenlighted Senator Sessions as the 84th US attorney general on a mostly party line vote of 52 to 47, with just one Democrat - Joe Manchin of West Virginia - joining the Republican majority.

Sessions voted present, and when the tally was announced many senators broke into extended applause for their colleague.

Trump has harangued Democrats for slow-walking his nominees, blasting their unprecedented obstruction as a "disgrace."

He appeared particularly angered by the delay on Sessions, who as attorney general would wield enormous power regarding the administration of justice, including on the issue of voting rights.

Sessions, widely seen as an inspiration for Trump's anti-immigration policies, is just the sixth of 15 cabinet members to be confirmed, in addition to the cabinet-rank positions of CIA director and US ambassador to the United Nations.

A day earlier senators broke into fiercely personal debate, which saw the Democrat Elizabeth Warren barred from speaking after she was deemed to have broken chamber rules on decorum.

Sessions takes charge of the Justice Department and its 113,000 employees, including the 93 US attorneys throughout the country.

He steps in amid a swirling legal debate over Trump's most controversial White House action to date, an executive order temporarily blocking all refugee arrivals and immigration from seven mainly Muslim countries.

The genteel Sessions, who like the president is 70, was an early loyal Trump supporter who became a pivotal figure in his campaign and transition team.

He was a US attorney for the southern district of Alabama from 1981 to 1993, before serving two years as the state's attorney general. He won a seat in the US Senate in 1996.

But in 1986 his career was almost derailed when a US Senate panel rejected his nomination for a judgeship amid concerns over past comments he made about blacks, and over remarks that appeared sympathetic to the Ku Klux Klan.</s>WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate has confirmed Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions to be attorney general in the Trump administration.

The 52-47 vote broke largely along party lines and capped weeks of divisive battles over Sessions, an early supporter of Donald Trump and one of the Senate's most conservative Republicans.

Democrats laced into Sessions over his ties to Trump and his record on civil rights and immigration. Republicans lauded his four decades in public service and his commitment to fairness and the rule of law.

The nomination drew wide attention after an imbroglio in which Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren earned a rare rebuke for quoting Coretta Scott King, widow of the late civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., criticizing Sessions in 1986.

Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>In this Jan. 10 photo, Attorney General-designate, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Senate is working overtime toward confirming President Donald Trump's close ally, Sessions, to become the nation's top law enforcement officer as attorney general. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)</s>The Senate confirmed Republican Senator Jeff Sessions on Wednesday night as attorney general.

On Tuesday, Sessions had cleared a procedural hurdle in the Senate.

Confirmation was expected on Wednesday in spite of Senate Democrats’ opposition to their colleague.
The United States Senate, in a 52 to 47 vote, confirms the nomination of Jeff Sessions as United States Attorney General.