Coretta Scott King in 1986: Jeff Sessions's judgeship nomination threatens "my husband's dream"

[DonViejo]

The wife of Martin Luther King Jr. previously spoke out against Trump’s pick for attorney general.

Updated by German [e-mail]@vox.com Jan 11, 2017, 10:10am EST

This week isn’t the first time Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general, has sat in front of the Senate under scrutiny over a nomination to a position in the federal government. Previously, Sessions also faced a Senate panel for a federal judgeship in 1986 — and that nomination drew all sorts of criticism, including from Coretta Scott King, the wife of Martin Luther King Jr.

In a letter newly obtained by the Washington Post, King took on Sessions’s record as a federal prosecutor, particularly the faulty charges he pursued to go after a local civil rights activist who signed up black voters.

“Anyone who has used the power of his office as United States Attorney to intimidate and chill the free exercise of the ballot by citizens should not be elevated to our courts,” King wrote. “Mr. Sessions has used the awesome powers of his office in a shabby attempt to intimidate and frighten elderly black voters. For this reprehensible conduct, he should not be rewarded with a federal judgeship.”

“The irony of Mr. Sessions’ nomination is that, if confirmed, he will be given a life tenure for doing with a federal prosecution what the local sheriffs accomplished twenty years ago with clubs and cattle prods,” she later added. “I believe his confirmation would have a devastating effect on not only the judicial system in Alabama, but also on the progress we have made toward fulfilling my husband’s dream.”

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http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/1/11/14236810/jeff-sessions-king-letter