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" Silenced on the Senate floor, Democrat Elizabeth Warren took her criticism of U.S. President Donald Trump's attorney general nominee out to the hallway - and found much larger platform.
Republican senators voted on Tuesday evening to end Warren's reading of a letter written 30 years ago by Martin Luther King Jr's widow that criticized Senator Jeff Sessions, the nominee to lead the Justice Department, for his civil rights record.
The action prompted a tide of support on Facebook for Warren, a darling of the political left, under a hashtag #LetLizSpeak" after she went outside the chamber and read the letter in a video posted on the site that drew more than 5 million views by Wednesday morning.
"The Republicans took away my right to read this letter on the floor - so I'm right outside, reading it now," she said.
The unusual rebuke of Warren came after the Republican-controlled Senate on Tuesday cleared the way for confirming Sessions as attorney general. A final vote was expected on Wednesday.
Warren took to the Senate floor to argue against the nomination, reading the letter Coretta Scott King wrote in 1986 about Sessions to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which ultimately rejected his nomination to be a federal judge.
Sessions had "used the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens" when he prosecuted voting fraud cases when he was the U.S. attorney in Alabama," according to the letter read by Warren.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell cut her off, saying that she broke a Senate rule that "impugned the motives and conduct of our colleague from Alabama." Senators voted 49-43 to silence Warren.
Warren has been a fiery critic of Trump since he launched his presidential campaign. Democrats have expressed concern about Sessions' record of controversial positions on race, immigration and criminal justice reform. "
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-sessions-idUSKBN15N1NE
Republican senators voted on Tuesday evening to end Warren's reading of a letter written 30 years ago by Martin Luther King Jr's widow that criticized Senator Jeff Sessions, the nominee to lead the Justice Department, for his civil rights record.
The action prompted a tide of support on Facebook for Warren, a darling of the political left, under a hashtag #LetLizSpeak" after she went outside the chamber and read the letter in a video posted on the site that drew more than 5 million views by Wednesday morning.
"The Republicans took away my right to read this letter on the floor - so I'm right outside, reading it now," she said.
The unusual rebuke of Warren came after the Republican-controlled Senate on Tuesday cleared the way for confirming Sessions as attorney general. A final vote was expected on Wednesday.
Warren took to the Senate floor to argue against the nomination, reading the letter Coretta Scott King wrote in 1986 about Sessions to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which ultimately rejected his nomination to be a federal judge.
Sessions had "used the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens" when he prosecuted voting fraud cases when he was the U.S. attorney in Alabama," according to the letter read by Warren.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell cut her off, saying that she broke a Senate rule that "impugned the motives and conduct of our colleague from Alabama." Senators voted 49-43 to silence Warren.
Warren has been a fiery critic of Trump since he launched his presidential campaign. Democrats have expressed concern about Sessions' record of controversial positions on race, immigration and criminal justice reform. "
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-sessions-idUSKBN15N1NE
