(CNN) Attorney General Jeff Sessions is an "embarrassment " and a "disgrace" for repeating and laughing at a chant of "lock her up," Rep. Hakeem Jeffries said Tuesday.

The crowd at a conservative group's high school leadership summit began chanting the phrase "lock her up" during Sessions' speech Tuesday. Sessions repeated the words before chuckling during his talk about free speech and conservative principles.

The chant, a rallying cry from President Donald Trump's campaign events, calls for jailing Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee in the 2016 race and Trump's opponent. It was a staple heard at Trump 2016 campaign rallies in reference to Clinton's use of a private email server when she was secretary of state and Trump's insistence that she be jailed for doing so.

"It's incredibly disturbing, and Jeff Sessions is an embarrassment, he's a disgrace," Jeffries, a New York Democrat, said in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer on "The Situation Room. "He should be ashamed of himself, and he's not fit to continue to be the attorney general of the United States of America."

Jeffries went on to criticize Sessions and his audience for focusing on Clinton and the 2016 election rather than on Trump associates who have been under investigation in criminal probes.

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