“My point is there was not a black county commissioner at that time,” Sessions said, in response to questions from Joe Biden, then a senator for Delaware. Sessions, a former US attorney and state attorney general, has been a US senator for Alabama since 1997. His nomination last week by Trump for US attorney general has reopened a decades-long dispute about his racial views. If confirmed, Sessions would succeed the first and second African Americans to serve as US attorney general, Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch. John Ashcroft, the former US attorney general, described the suggestion that Sessions was racist as a “30-year-old fabrication” and said the senator was fair to everyone.

Source: The Guardian November 21, 2016 13:00 UTC