Elizabeth Warren silenced for quoting Coretta Scott King in U.S. Senate debate on Trump nominee

U.S. Senate Republicans silenced Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren for criticizing colleague and attorney general nominee Jeff Sessions with the words of Coretta Scott King from three decades ago.

The Massachusetts lawmaker, whose name has been prominent in speculation about the 2020 presidential race, was given a rare Senate rebuke for impugning a fellow senator late Tuesday and barred from saying anything more on the Senate floor about the nominee.

The chamber is debating the Alabama Republican's nomination for attorney general, with Democrats dropping senatorial niceties to oppose Sessions and Republicans sticking up for him.

Warren produced a three-decade-old letter in which the civil rights leader wrote that Sessions as an acting federal prosecutor in Alabama used his power to "chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens."

Rule against 'impugning motives'

Quoting King technically put Warren in violation of an arcane Senate rule for "impugning the motives" of Sessions, though senators have said far worse. And Warren was reading from a letter that was written 10 years before Sessions was even elected to the Senate.

Still, top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell invoked the rule. After a few parliamentary moves, the GOP-controlled Senate voted to back him up.

Now, Warren is forbidden from speaking again on Sessions' nomination. A vote on Sessions is expected Wednesday evening.

Democrats seized on the flap to charge that Republicans were muzzling Warren, sparking liberals to take to Twitter to post the King letter in its entirety.

Warren argued: "I'm reading a letter from Coretta Scott King to the Judiciary Committee from 1986 that was admitted into the record. I'm simply reading what she wrote about what the nomination of Jeff Sessions to be a federal court judge meant and what it would mean in history for her."

Warren was originally warned after reading from a statement by former Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., that labeled Sessions a disgrace.

• Trump faces backlash for tapping Sessions as attorney general

Democrats pointed out that McConnell didn't object when Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, called him a liar in a 2015 dustup.

The episode was followed by lamentations by Senate veterans, including its most senior Republican, Orrin Hatch of Utah, about how the Senate is too partisan.