US DEMOCRATS have picked rightwinger Chuck Schumer as their leader in the Senate, where they have a minority, showing the party is still in denial about the reasons for their election defeat.

Leftwinger Bernie Sanders, whose presidential nomination bid was sabotaged by party apparatchiks, was on Wednesday denied the prestigious post, which became vacant after veteran Harry Reid stepped down after 29 years as a senator.

Mr Sanders has instead been made the Democrats’ outreach chief and will hold focus group meetings of leaders around the country on why billionaire Donald Trump defeated Wall Street favourite Hillary Clinton.

On Monday 17 protesters from groups including Black Lives Matter and Occupy Wall Street were arrested after entering Mr Schumer’s Capitol Hill office to demand he step aside in favour of Mr Sanders.

Mr Sanders remains the senior Democrat on the Senate budget committee.

“I’m going to do everything that I can to make sure that the budget that leaves the United States Congress is a budget that represents the needs of working families and a shrinking middle class, and not billionaires,” he said.

Mr Sanders also urged Mr Trump to reverse his “totally unacceptable” appointment of far-right Breibart News chairman Stephen Bannon as White House chief of staff.

Mr Sanders told a packed crowd of students at the capital’s George Washington University on Wednesday night that, while he was disappointed at the result, it was up to progressives to hold Mr Trump to his promises to the working class.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the Anti-Defamation League have both accused Mr Bannon of anti-semitism over articles posted on the staunchly pro-Israel Breitbart.

Meanwhile veteran civil rights campaigner and former Democratic senator Jesse Jackson, speaking to an audience at the University of Michigan, urged President Barack Obama to issue a blanket pardon for Ms Clinton before he leaves office on January 20.

Former secretary of state Ms Clinton is under investigation for her use of a personal email system to conduct governmental business but has not yet been charged with anything.

Mr Jackson drew a parallel with Michigan alumnus Gerald Ford, who pardoned disgraced president Richard Nixon over the Watergate scandal following his resignation, heading off a trial.

“It would be a monumental moral mistake to pursue the indictment of Hillary Clinton,” he said.

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