Watch sexual assault survivor Amita Swadhin testify against Jeff Sessions

Impact

Back in October, when the election was rocked by the release of Access Hollywood recordings on which now President-elect Donald Trump bragged about forcibly grabbing women by the genitals, Sen. Jeff Sessions refused to call Trump's admission sexual assault.

"This was very improper language," Sessions said in an interview with the Weekly Standard, a conservative publication. "I don't characterize this as sexual assault. I think that's a stretch."

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Now that Sessions has been nominated to be the attorney general, his words are coming back to haunt him. 

Amita Swadhin, a survivor of childhood sexual assault who's also an advocate and writer, testified against Sessions' nomination on Wednesday. "Millions of sexual assault survivors were triggered in the wake of these events," Swadhin said of the tapes and Sessions' tacit defense of them. "I was one of those survivors."

Swadhin goes on to describe the horrific sexual abuse she survived as a child. Opposition to Sessions' nomination isn't just coming from elected officials such as Rep. John Lewis and Sen. Cory Booker, but everyday Americans who would feel the direct impact of him being the most powerful law enforcement agent in the country. 

"I agreed to testify because it's really important for there to be public record that there was resistance to his nomination both from the grassroots along with our allies who are elected officials," Swadhin said in an interview with Colorlines.

Watch Swadhin's entire testimony below.