President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to be the new Attorney General has denied sympathising with the Ku Klux Klan, in a tough Senate confirmation hearing.
Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, 69, also pledged to recuse himself from any investigation into former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
A Democratic senator expressed “deep concern” about the Alabama Republican’s nomination. But Democrats do not have the power in the chamber to block his confirmation. The A-G, America’s top prosecutor, leads the US justice department and acts as the main adviser to the president on legal issues.
Sessions said during testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee that allegations he had once supported the KKK were “damnably false”. “I abhor the Klan and what it represents and its hateful ideology,” he added.