White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Wednesday that he hoped Coretta Scott King, the late wife of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr., would agree with a former Democratic senator who publicly retracted his opposition to Sen. Jeff Sessions, President Trump’s attorney general nominee, after voting against Sessions for a different position years earlier.
Former Sen. Arlen Specter, who died in 2012, said in 2009 that he regretted voting against Sessions’ confirmation to a federal judgeship in 1986 over allegations of racism because, after getting to know the Alabama lawmaker, he learned that Sessions was “an egalitarian.”
“Like the late Arlen Specter, I can only hope that if she was still with us today, that after getting to know [Sessions] and to see his record and his commitment to voting and civil rights, that she would share the same views that Sen. Specter did,” Spicer said Wednesday.
His comments came a day after progressive Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren was barred by Republican leaders from reading aloud a letter King had written in 1986 denouncing Sessions’ nomination to a federal court. Warren was attempting to read the letter Tuesday evening during a floor debate ahead of Sessions’ confirmation as attorney general, which is slated for Wednesday evening.
In the letter, King urged lawmakers to oppose Sessions’ nomination based on allegations that he had used his position as Alabama attorney general to suppress black voters’ access to ballots.
“I would respectfully disagree with her assessment of Sen. Sessions then and now,” Spicer said. “His record on civil and voting rights, I think, is outstanding.”
