Ex-prosecutor Jeff Sessions won't say forcibly grabbing a woman by the genitals is sexual assault

Sen. Jeff Sessions, a Donald Trump supporter and longtime prosecuting attorney, said Sunday that he was unsure whether forcibly grabbing a woman's genitals without gaining her consent was sexual assault.

Trump was caught on audio boasting in 2005 that he could kiss women or "grab them by the p*ssy," and there was nothing they could do about it because he was a "star."

Sessions said after Sunday night's debate that Trump used "improper language," but he refused to characterize the Republican presidential nominee's actions as sexual assault, reported The Weekly Standard.

"I don't characterize that as sexual assault, I think that's a stretch," Sessions said. "I don't know what he meant."

The magazine again asked Sessions, who served as a U.S. from 1981 to 1993 and as Alabama's attorney general from 1994 to 1996, whether grabbing a woman by the genitals was sexual assault.

"I don't know," Sessions said. "It's not clear that he -- how that would occur."