"When Senator Warren read her statement, she was told that she could no longer participate in this debate over Senator Sessions's nomination, which I regard as an outrage," Sanders said from the Senate floor Wednesday.

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"We need to hear all points of view," he added. "The idea that ... a letter that she wrote could not be presented and spoken about here on the Senate floor is to me incomprehensible."

Coretta Scott King wrote in 1986, during Sessions's failed confirmation hearing for a federal judgeship, that he “had used the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens" as a U.S. attorney in Alabama.

McConnell specifically pointed to Warren quoting the letter as evidence that she had broken the rules barring senators from questioning "the conduct or motive" of other senators.

Sanders linked the Senate GOP move to the Trump administration, accusing them of pushing back against individuals publicly who disagree with them.

"It comes at a time when we have a president who refers to a judge who issues a ruling in opposition to the president as a 'so-called judge,' which tells every judge in America that they will be insulted and marginalized by this president if they dare to disagree with him," he said.