A journalist and a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Tuesday filed a lawsuit seeking information from nine federal agencies or departments on information they have about Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., and a group that supports conservative judicial nominees.

Sessions has been nominated by President Donald Trump to become the next U.S. Attorney General. The nomination is in the Senate confirmation process.

The lawsuit was filed by Jason Leopold and Ryan Noah Shapiro.

Leopold is an investigative reporter who has covered topics including Guantanamo, national security, counter terrorism, civil liberties, and human rights. His work has been published in Buzzfeed, The Guardian, VICE News, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times and Al Jazeera America. He has filed a number of Freedom of Information lawsuits over the years.

Shapiro is a graduate student at MIT and is described in the lawsuit as a historian of national security, the policing of dissent, and governmental transparency.

The lawsuit states that on Jan. 9 Leopold and Shapiro submitted Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests seeking records relating to Sessions and the Judicial Crisis Network. The requests were made to the following agencies or departments: the Army; the military’s central command (CENTCOM); the Department of State; the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; U.S. attorneys; the EPA; the National Security Agency; the Security and Exchange Commission; and U.S. Secret Service.

Judicial Crisis Network, a conservative group and political action committee, has created the website www.confirmsessions.com to support Sessions’ nomination for U.S. Attorney General, the lawsuit states.

The request includes records from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Alabama, which is a part of the DOJ and the office where Sessions once served as U.S. Attorney.

According to a press release issued on behalf of Shapiro and Leopold, they are specifically seeking: correspondence and other communications from, to, mentioning, or referring to Jeff Sessions; records authored or signed by Jeff Sessions regarding Civil Rights cases; records constituting, mentioning, or referring to Civil Rights complaints involving Jeff Sessions.

“The American public absolutely deserves to know the truth about the man Trump has nominated to hold one of the most powerful offices in the country, especially in light of the allegations of deep-rooted prejudice and contempt for civil liberties that have hounded Sessions for decades,” Shapiro states in the press release.

Each request sought expedited processing but as of Tuesday the two men had not received a response from all but two of the agencies, according to the lawsuit.

The Army responded on Jan. 17 acknowledging receipt of the FOIA request but also stated that the request was “very broad” and a search could not be completed with reasonable effort based on the information provided. On Jan. 12 the Department of State acknowledged receipt of the request but said that the request did not reasonably describe the records sought “and that the request was therefore invalid and the case was being closed.”

The lawsuit gives a brief history of Sessions’ career, starting from 1975 through 1981 when he was an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama. From 1981 through 1994, Sessions was the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama. In 1986, President Ronald Reagan nominated Sessions to be a judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama.

“However, due to Sessions’ history of racist and anti-civil libertarian comments and actions, his nomination was fiercely opposed by the NAACP and other civil rights and civil liberties organizations,” the lawsuit states. “Sessions’ nomination was ultimately rejected by the Senate Judiciary Committee.”

In 1994, Sessions was elected Attorney General of Alabama. In 1996, Sessions was first elected as a United States Senator from Alabama.

Sessions is the ranking Republican member on the Senate Budget Committee, a former ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and a senior member of the Armed Services Committee, the lawsuit states. Sessions also serves on the Environment and Public Works Committee, the lawsuit states.

“Sessions was an early supporter of the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump, and was a major policy adviser to the Trump campaign, especially in regard to immigration and national security,” the lawsuit states.

“As with his earlier nomination by President Reagan for federal judgeship, Sessions’ nomination by Trump for U.S. Attorney General has produced heated opposition,” the lawsuit states. “This includes opposition from civil rights and civil libertarian organizations, Democratic lawmakers, and over 1,100 law school professors.”

Criticism of Sessions has centered on his record regarding civil rights and allegations of racism.

The allegations date back to his 1986 confirmation hearing after he was nominated to a U.S. District Court judgeship by Reagan. During those hearings,  former colleagues of Sessions testified  he referred to the NAACP as “un-American,” and once quipped he thought the Ku Klux Klan was “OK, until he learned that they smoked marijuana.” Other testimony said Sessions had referred to a black assistant U.S. attorney as “boy.”

Sessions has denied the allegations. Colleagues and others have defended Sessions, saying the allegations are false and the criticism is a smear campaign.

The lawsuit asks that a judge declare the federal agencies’ failure to comply with their FOIA requests to be unlawful and asks that their requests for records be expedited.