A journalist and a graduate student at MIT filed a lawsuit [complaint, PDF] on Tuesday against eight federal agencies for records on attorney general nominee Jeff Sessions [official profile]. Jason Leopold and Ryan Shapiro allege the agencies improperly refused to process their Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) [backgrounder] requests and denied them rights to appeal. The plaintiffs petition the court to grant expedited processing of their FOIA requests, which they hope will provide information on Sessions’ political history. In the past, Sessions has been accused of racism and support of mass deportation of illegal immigrants, which he addressed [JURIST reports] during his confirmation hearings. On Tuesday the Senate Judiciary Committee [official website] agreed to delay [Alabama Today report] the vote on Sessions’ confirmation until the end of January.

Sessions was nominated [JURIST report] for the attorney general position in November. The Republican senator and former US attorney had been the first senate member to support Trump [CBS/AP report] during his presidential campaign, and he later worked with Trump to construct immigration, trade and counterterrorism policies.