Senator Sessions is a well-known quantity having been in the Senate for almost 20 years. No need to bow down to foot-dragging Democrats.
Republicans won’t delay the confirmation hearing for attorney general nominee Jeff Sessions, despite the urging of Democrats who are demanding additional answers about Sessions’ congressional questionnaire.
“Senator Sessions has provided this committee with fulsome responses clearly resulting from a good faith effort to answer the questionnaire,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, wrote in a letter sent to the panel’s top Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.
Sessions will appear before the panel Jan. 10 and 11. Two GOP sources said the goal is to have the Senate confirm Sessions on Feb. 3.
Democrats are threatening a tough confirmation battle for Session, R-Ala., who they oppose because of his stance against illegal immigration and his support of voter identification laws.
Feinstein is leading the charge as the ranking member on the Judiciary Committee, which will give Democrats their only real chance to slow or muddle his confirmation.
Feinstein wrote to Grassley last week asking for a delay in the hearing, arguing that Sessions had not fully responded to the congressional questionnaire and had excluded some political speeches from the file provided to the committee earlier this month.
But Grassley, in the letter sent to Feinstein, said Sessions had given them enough material and that his decades of service alongside them in the Senate helps provide an adequate picture of his record.
“Sen Sessions,” Grassley wrote to Feinstein, “is well known to all of us.”