Sen. Tim Scott, the only black Republican in Congress, said he has done the research on the allegations of racism against Sen. Jeff Sessions’ nomination to be attorney general and has not found “any indication that he is a racist at all.”
In the weeks since President-elect Trump nominated Sessions to become the chief law enforcement officer of the land, Democrats and many liberal civil rights organizations have renewed allegations of racism that sunk Sessions’ nomination to a federal judgeship 30 years ago
Scott hasn’t shied away from speaking out against racism, talking publicly last year in very personal terms about several instances in which he believes police have treated him unfairly because of the color of his skin. He relayed one instance in which a Capitol Police officer stopped him even though he was wearing a member’s pin and said police have pulled him over seven times in one year.
When it comes to the allegations against Sessions, Scott said he has done his homework.
“I can tell you what I’ve done is taken the time to do the research to understand and appreciate what is fact and what is fiction,” he said, readily acknowledging that any charges of racism and “provocative comments,” no matter how old, deserve fresh scrutiny.
“I have found that accuracy matters, and the accuracy of some of the ways they have been portrayed are inconsistent with reality,” he told the Washington Examiner Wednesday. “The more I research it, the more I find that the way that it’s been portrayed is not the way that people remember it.”
Asked point blank if he believes Sessions is a racist, Scott said he has not seen any evidence to support it.
“I have not seen any indication that he is a racist at all — but I do think the research is important, and that’s what I’m doing,” he added.
The allegations of racism stem from a deeply divided 1986 Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing for his nomination to a federal judgeship by President Reagan.
During the hearing, a handful of witnesses leveled accusations against Sessions for remarks he made while serving as a U.S. attorney in Alabama, while other civil rights leaders and co-workers testified to Sessions’ dedication to trying civil rights cases.
The committee voted to deny Sessions the federal judgeship. He went on to become state attorney general before winning a Senate seat and a slot on the Senate Judiciary Committee that once denied him the judgeship. He eventually rose to become the chairman of the panel.
Sessions has defended himself against the allegations several times over the course of his Senate career, saying the charges have no merit and have been extremely painful to him. Sessions and his supporters cite his civil rights prosecutions to desegregate Alabama schools and his successful trial of a top Alabama Klansman for killing a black teenager selected at random.
The Klansman, Henry Francis Hays, son of Alabama Klan leader Bennie Hays, received the death penalty, and the prosecution led to a $7 million civil judgment against the Alabama Ku Klux Klan.
Democrats often counter the argument by citing reservations Sessions has expressed about the Voting Rights Act, which imposed federal oversight over local and state elections in Alabama and elsewhere to protect against voter discrimination.
Even though Sessions voted for the law’s renewal in 2006, which passed 98-0, Democrats argue that he later supported Supreme Court rulings placing new restrictions on the act.
One of the harshest allegations of racism came during from the late Thomas Figures, a former U.S. attorney who worked with Sessions for several years.
Figures, an African-American, said Sessions and others in the office regularly called him “boy.” But there were no witnesses willing to corroborate the accusation. Instead, one of the witnesses he cited, a former assistant U.S. Attorney Ginny Granade, denied his testimony, along with another colleague, Ed Vulevich.
Figures also modified his version of events within the course of the 1986 hearing for Sessions, saying later that he wasn’t called boy “regularly.”
Vulevich, who has served in his federal prosecutor role through both Republican and Democratic administrations, also testified that Figures had trouble “getting along with people” and kept “very much to himself.”
Another allegation of racial insensitivity stems from Sessions decision to try a 1985 voter fraud case. Democrats argue that Sessions chose to prosecute the voter-fraud case against prominent civil rights activists, including a husband and wife team with close ties to Martin Luther King, Jr., as evidence that he was trying to intimate the activists working to strengthen black voting rights in Alabama in the 1980s.
A jury found the defendants not guilty. But basic details of the case reveal that it involved charges that the activists sought to illegally boost the candidacy of one black local candidate the activists wanted to win against another. Indeed, the complainants and defendants were both black. Several media reports about the case, including one in USA Today, have failed to mention that the voter fraud case involved allegations that the activists were trying to boost the candidacy of one black candidate over another.
