Jeff Sessions discussed Trump campaign with Russian envoy
Kislyak’s report to Moscow contradicts US attorney general’s testimony
WASHINGTON: US attorney general Jeff Sessions is reported to have discussed the 2016 presidential campaign with the Russian ambassador to the US, contrary to earlier assertions that he hadn’t.
Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak and Sessions had “substantive” discussions about the campaign and then Republican candidate Donald Trump’s views on key foreign policy matters, The Washington Post reported on Friday, citing American intelligence officials who had seen intercepts of the envoy’s communications to Moscow.
After first omitting to acknowledge meeting any Russian official at all, Sessions, who was the top foreign policy adviser to Trump, had gone on to say that though he did meet Kislyak three times in 2016, he never discussed the campaign or Russian efforts to influence the election outcome.
On Saturday, Trump slammed the new revelations for drawing upon “a new intelligence leak”, but he did not question the veracity of the information or defend his attorney general.
The justice department has pushed back against the new allegations, with a spokesperson saying in a statement to the Post, “I cannot comment on the reliability of what anonymous sources describe in a wholly uncorroborated intelligence intercept”.
in Sessions’ defence, the Russian envoy might have overstated his conversations or embellished them to either make himself look good with Moscow or confuse and mislead American intelligence, who he knew were monitoring his communications.