Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) is currently undergoing a weird process of schmoozefest and hard-hitting interrogation as President-elect Donald Trump's pick for attorney general.
This isn't the first time Sessions has faced a committee while seeking approval to fill a high-ranking position. In 1986 Sessions was up for federal judge, and Coretta Scott King wrote a letter blasting his nomination.
But that original letter is reportedly missing.
According to BuzzFeed, an impassioned letter written by the activist and widow of Martin Luther King Jr. became one of the key elements that ended Sessions’ bid to become a judge for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama.
The site notes that then-Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Strom Thurmond didn't put the letter into the congressional record, and while the letter clearly opposed Sessions’ appointment, the contents of the letter have never been made public, according to BuzzFeed, except for one quote: "For a century, the racial practices that characterized our region were established and enforced by men who, like Mr. Sessions, protested that they, too, were not personally hostile to blacks," published in June 1986 by Knight Ridder reporter Aaron Epstein, BuzzFeed reports.
While several senators on the Judiciary Committee have reportedly read the letter, it has not been released, and only committee Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley can release it, according to BuzzFeed. BuzzFeed is calling for anyone who has a copy of the letter to contact reporter John Stanton at john.stanton@buzzfeed.com.
Read more at BuzzFeed.