Panel to grill Sessions

Tillerson defends proposed budget cuts

WASHINGTON, June 13, (Agencies): Attorney General Jeff Sessions was expecting sharp questions from his former Senate colleagues about his role in the firing of James Comey, his Russian contacts during the campaign and his decision to step aside from an investigation into possible ties between Moscow and associates of President Donald Trump.

The public testimony Tuesday before the Senate Intelligence committee should yield Sessions’ most extensive comments to date on questions that have dogged his tenure as attorney general and that led him three months ago to recuse himself from the Russia probe.

Lawmakers for weeks have demanded answers from Sessions, particularly about meetings he had last summer and fall with the Russian ambassador to the United States.

Those calls have escalated since fired FBI Director Comey cryptically told lawmakers last week that the bureau had expected Sessions to recuse himself weeks before he did from the investigation into contacts between Trump campaign associates and Russia during the 2016 presidential election.

Campaign

Sessions, a close campaign adviser to Trump and the first senator to endorse him, stepped aside from the investigation in early March after acknowledging he had spoken twice in the months before the election with the Russian ambassador. He said at his January confirmation hearing that he had not met with Russians during the campaign.

Since then, lawmakers have raised questions about a possible third meeting at a Washington hotel, though the Justice Department has said that did not happen.

Sessions on Saturday said he would appear before the intelligence committee, which has been doing its own investigation into Russian contacts with the Trump campaign.

There had been some question as to whether the hearing would be open to the public, but the Justice Department said Monday he requested it be so because he “believes it is important for the American people to hear the truth directly from him.”

Sessions is likely to be asked about his conversations with Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and whether there were more encounters that should have been made public. And he can expect questions about his involvement in Comey’s May 9 firing, the circumstances surrounding his decision to recuse himself from the FBI’s investigation, and whether any of his actions — such as interviewing candidates for the FBI director position or meeting with Trump about Comey — violated his recusal pledge.

Answer

As attorney general, Sessions is unlikely to answer in detail questions about conversations he’s had with Trump. National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers and Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, both declined to discuss their own Trump communications during a hearing last week.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Tuesday he stood by the Trump administration’s plan for steep cuts in the country’s diplomatic and foreign aid budget, as critics charged that such reductions would ultimately be harmful to America.

“I’m convinced we can maximize the effectiveness of these programs and continue to offer America’s helping hand to the world,” Tillerson told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at a hearing.

Committee members spoke sharply against the Republican president’s plan to cut such operations by about one-third.