Story highlights William Smith, longtime aide to Jeff Sessions, says he never saw evidence of racism

Angela Rye: "Because you are the one black guy that he hired on the committee doesn't make him a civil rights leader"

(CNN) CNN contributor Angela Rye clashed Wednesday with a longtime staffer for Donald Trump's nominee for attorney general, Sen. Jeff Sessions, when Rye suggested the senator was a racist and a bigot.

William Smith, former chief counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is led by Sessions, said that in 20 years working with the Republican senator from Alabama, he had seen no evidence of racism.

"Because you are the one black guy that he hired on the committee doesn't make him a civil rights leader, William," Rye told Smith, speaking on CNN's "AC360."

"It actually really doesn't. It makes, it makes, I am not going to. I am going to leave it at that," said Rye, seeming to cut herself off.

But Smith, who repeatedly said Rye was ignorant of Sessions' policies, was not satisfied with Rye's comment.

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